''Milgroim. Journal for Art and Literature'' ( yi, מילגרױם: צײַטשריפֿט פאַר קונצט און ליטעראטור) was a Yiddish cultural magazine that was published between 1922 and 1924 in Berlin by Rimon. At the same time, the

Hebrew language Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

magazine ''Rimon'' was published in a similar format. ''Milgroym'' and ''rimon'' means "pomegranate" in Yiddish and Hebrew, respectively.

History

Milgroim was founded by

Mark Wischnitzer Mark Wischnitzer (May 10, 1882 – October 15, 1955) was a scholar of Jewish history. Biography Mark Wischnitzer was born on May 10, 1882, in Rovno, Russia. He studied at the University of Vienna and University of Berlin, and he received his ...

and

Rachel Wischnitzer Rachel Bernstein Wischnitzer (German: ''Rahel Wischnitzer-Bernstein''), (April 14, 1885 – November 20, 1989) was a Russian-born architect and art historian. Biography Wischnitzer was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Minsk, in Russi ...

.Delphine Bechtel: ''Milgroym, a Yiddish magazine'', 1997, S. 420–426 Co-editors of the first issue were

David Bergelson David (or Dovid) Bergelson (, russian: Давид Бергельсон, 12 August 1884 – 12 August 1952) was a Yiddish language writer born in the Russian Empire. He lived for a time in Berlin, Germany before moving to the Soviet Union following ...

and

Der Nister Der Nister ( yi, דער נסתּר ֹor דער ניסטער, "the Hidden One"; 1 November 1884 – 4 June 1950 in a Soviet Gulag) was the pseudonym of Pinchus Kahanovich ( yi, פּנחס קאַהאַנאָוויטש), a Yiddish author, philo ...

Franzisca Baruch Franzisca Baruch ( he, פרנציסקה ברוך; 21 November 1901 – 3 September 1989) was a German–Israeli graphic designer. She is known for designing Hebrew fonts, the cover of the first Israeli passport, the emblem of Jerusalem, and th ...

and Ernst Böhm designed magazine covers for both editions. Six issues were published, after which the publication was discontinued. The table of contents of the magazine was in Yiddish and in English, each article had a short summary in English. The advertisements for books were written in Russian or Hebrew. The topics presented were taken from European art history and contemporary art, so there were essays on

Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially re ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

and

Max Liebermann Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...

as well as on

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide r ...

. Philosophical contributions dealt with

Laozi Laozi (), also known by numerous other names, was a semilegendary ancient Chinese Taoist philosopher. Laozi ( zh, ) is a Chinese honorific, generally translated as "the Old Master". Traditional accounts say he was born as in the state of ...

the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

Hippolyte Taine Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (, 21 April 1828 – 5 March 1893) was a French historian, critic and philosopher. He was the chief theoretical influence on French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism and one of the first practitio ...

Hasidic Judaism Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

, and

Oswald Spengler Oswald Arnold Gottfried Spengler (; 29 May 1880 – 8 May 1936) was a German historian and philosopher of history whose interests included mathematics, science, and art, as well as their relation to his organic theory of history. He is best k ...

. Translated to Yiddish was ''Der tote Gabriel'' by

Arthur Schnitzler Arthur Schnitzler (15 May 1862 – 21 October 1931) was an Austrian author and dramatist. Biography Arthur Schnitzler was born at Praterstrasse 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, capital of the Austrian Empire (as of 1867, part of the dual monarch ...

, excerpts from

Arno Holz Arno Holz (26 April 1863 – October 1929) was a German naturalist poet and dramatist. He is best known for his poetry collection ''Phantasus'' (1898). He was nominated for a Nobel prize in literature nine times. Life and Works Holz was born i ...

's ''Phantasus'' and

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-cla ...

's ''Ballad of Outer Lifeprinted''. The magazine provided space for the Yiddish contemporary poets David Bergelson, Dovid Hofshteyn,

Moyshe Kulbak Moyshe Kulbak ( yi, משה קולבאַק; be, Майсей (Мойша) Кульбак; 1896 1937) was a Belarusian Jewish writer who wrote in Yiddish. Biography Born in Smarhon (present-day Belarus, then in the Russian Empire) to a Jewish f ...

, Leib Kvitko,

, and Joseph Opatoshu. Lissitzky Cold synagogue Mogilev dragon 01

The magazine had no direction, it was a broad forum for different currents, so it had no programmatic appeal in the first issue. In the first edition of ''Milgroim'', Dovid Hofshteyn, who had also emigrated from the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

, described his feeling of disorientation with the "Lied meiner Indifferenz", which was printed in the same edition with the expressionist text "The Complete Awakening" (german: Der vollzogene Aufbruch). In the dispute about the direction of the magazine, der Nister and Bergelson withdrew after the first issue, while Rachel Wischnitzer propagated an art based on religion in the fourth issue. Covers of the first and third issues featured

El Lissitzky Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, ; – 30 December 1941), better known as El Lissitzky (russian: link=no, Эль Лиси́цкий; yi, על ליסיצקי), was a Russian artist ...

's paintings that he had copied from the murals of Cold Synagogue in Mogilev. Third issue also contained his article about that synagogue and a painting by

Issachar Ber Ryback Issachar Ber Ryback, also ''Riback'' (Іссахар-Бер Рибак; 2 February 1897, in Yelisavetgrad, Russian Empire (today Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) – 22 December 1935, in Paris) was a Jewish-Ukrainian-French painter. Life Ryback at ...

, with whom he together travelled to the shtetls in 1914. The article also contained a number of painting from the synagogue. Lissitzky wrote enthusiastically and emotionally describing elements of wall painting; here is his first impression of what he saw: David Einhorn, Shemaryahu Gorelik and

Max Weinreich Max Weinreich ( yi, מאַקס ווײַנרײַך ''Maks Vaynraych''; russian: Мейер Лазаревич Вайнрайх, ''Meyer Lazarevich Vaynraykh''; 22 April 1894, Goldingen, Russian Empire – 29 January 1969, New York City) was a Russ ...

, was founded in Berlin. Kalman SingmanZingman, Kalmen
by

YIVO YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...

brought out a Yiddish ''Kunstring-Almanach'' to Berlin. The Yiddish Warsaw journal ''Albatros'' published a number in Berlin in 1923.Susanne Marten-Finnis, Heather Valencia: ''Sprachinseln : jiddische Publizistik in London, Wilna und Berlin 1880 - 1930''. Köln : Böhlau, 1999, S. 129–137 In addition, the Yiddish-speaking organizations offered space to

Poale Zion Poale Zion (also spelled Poalei Tziyon or Poaley Syjon, meaning "Workers of Zion") was a movement of Marxist–Zionist Jewish workers founded in various cities of Poland, Europe and the Russian Empire in about the turn of the 20th century afte ...

in ''Unzer Bavegung'', the General Jewish Labour Bund in ''Dos Fraye Vort'' and the Association of Eastern Jews in ''Der Mizrekh Yid'' for feature sections and art contributions. From the centers of Yiddish culture in Eastern Europe, the supposed plan to establish a new center of Yiddish culture in Berlin was sharply criticized. In fact, the publishers and most of the Yiddish authors returned to the countries of their readers in Vilnius, Warsaw, Moscow, Kiev and Odessa in the 1920s, and the Berlin cultural magazines were discontinued.

References

The article is partly translated from a German Wikipedia article, for original see :de:Milgroim.

External links

''Milgroim''
digitized by the

Leo Baeck Institute The Leo Baeck Institute, established in 1955, is an international research institute with centres in New York City, London, and Jerusalem that are devoted to the study of the history and culture of German-speaking Jewry. Baeck was its first intern ...

"Translation, Cosmopolitanism and the Resilience of Yiddish: Wischnitzer’s ''Milgroym'' as a Pathway Towards the Global Museum"
by Susanne Marten-Finnis {{DEFAULTSORT:Rimon-Milgroim Magazines established in 1922 Yiddish-language literature Yiddish culture

History

Further reading

References

External links