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CHAPTER 3 Satire and Parody in Abramovitsh's Later Fiction Abramovitsh's writings exemplify the interdependence of political conditions and literary history. His early Yiddish novels express an optimism resulting from the wide-ranging reforms that freed the serfs in 1861 and liberated the Jews from other constraints. In the later years of this reformist period, from 1869 to 1878, Abramovitsh lambasted dishonest community leaders (in The Tax), counterprogressive elements on the Russian political stage (in The Nag), and provincial Jews who were oblivious to the modern world (in The Travels of Benjamin the Third). Parody gains prominence in Abramovitsh's two novels of the 1870s. In The Nag, as in the preface to Abramovitsh's play The Tax, Mendele repeats liturgical formulae at the same time that he twists them out of their original contexts and turns them into subversive attacks on unexamined beliefs. Abramovitsh also satirizes Alexander II, when his allegory in The Nag likens the Czar to Ashmodai, the king of the demons in hell. Equally striking is Abramovitsh's appropriation of the Don Quixote story and of Hebrew precedents for his comic novel of adventure, The Travels of Benjamin the Third. These works combine parody of literary forebears with satire of social forms. Abramovitsh's period of vigorous reformist writing was shortlived . The assassination of Alexander II in 1881 was followed by waves of anti-semitic violence and a harsher political climate. This turn of events led Abramovitsh to question the appropriateness of his former attacks on Jewish customs, and he essentially abandoned literature until 1886. When he returned to fiction, writing Hebrew stories and Hebrew versions of his Yiddish works in the late 1880s and 1890s, he toned down his satire. Mendele the Bookseller reappeared in a guise that was closer to that of Abramovitsh 's earliest novels from the 1860s. From a pragmatic standpoint , given the more repressive political environment, satiric critiques of the Czarist regime were scarcely feasible in the 1880s. 67 68 ABRAMOVITSH During Abramovitsh's subsequent Hebrew phase from 1886-96, his message had less to do with striving for social advances than with means of survival in the face of persecution. In the 1860s, Abramovitsh initially employs the figure of Mendele as a bridge between the Yiddish reader and himself. Rather than write from the standpoint of an educated maskii, as Abramovitsh had done in his early Hebrew works, his representative speaks in a manner that appears traditionally pious, untrained, improvised , and digressive. The Mendele persona undergoes a gradual transformation until it stabilizes in the 1890s as a controlled, selfconfident , and ironic presence. Mendele becomes increasingly ironic over the years as he becomes associated with the author and the author's goals. But after passing through his radical satiric phase in the 1870s, Mendele retreats to a more moderate position -indicating Abramovitsh's awareness that Enlightenment ideals could not be realiud as originally hoped. THE TAX During Abramovitsh's second period of creativity in Yiddish (186978 ), the earlier traces of irony give way to full-fledged social criticism . For example, Abramovitsh uses satire to attack the corruption associated with ritual slaughter and kosher meat distribution. The character Mendele becomes an ally in this battle, overtly sympathizing with the poor and righteous against the wealthy and corrupt. No longer a naive mouthpiece for Abramovitsh's ironic barbs, Mendele is a self-conscious reformer. The new Mendele imparts Abramovitsh's increasingly radical social message through honed literary devices. Abramovitsh's first drama is The Tax (Di takse, 1869). This play is in fact contemporary with Fishke the Lame, yet its preface attributed to Mendele the Bookseller marks the beginning of a second phase in Abramovitsh's development. Since Abramovitsh's main accomplishme:nts are in the area of prose fiction rather than drama, the present discussion concentrates on the distinctive preface . The play is a £:ree-wheeling satire, and the preface employs a corresponding style. This text gives the impression of renouncing all prior inhibitions; where the original Mendele employed light humor, he now resorts to intensely sarcastic effects. The Tax depicts the ills of the Jewish "town of fools" named Satire and Parody in Abramovitsh's Later Fiction 69 Glupsk. It transparently attacks the leaders of the Berditchev Jewish community, showing how these supposed "benefactors" (haley toyves) actually extort money from the poorest members of the community . In their chassidic town, they do this by exploiting religious practices and exacting a high tax for kosher meat.1 When the two heroes...

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