Jewish Stereotyping: Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace

Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace . Jewish Stereotyping: Vasily Rozanov and Jewish Menace Brian Horowitz Brian Horowitz is Assistant Professor ofRussian and Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has recently published a book on Russian modernism, The Myth of A. S. Pushkin in Russia's Silver Age (Northwestern University Press) and is presently preparing a monograph on the Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia. 85 Vasily Vasily Rozanov (1856-1919) is unanimously considered one ofRussia's fmest prose writers of the modernist period. Author of twelve books, numerous essays, and countless newspaper articles, Rozanov was a religious thinker and social critic in addition to a creative writer. In addition to the many articles and books'in which the Jews appear in passing, Rozanov devoted five monographs and three articles exclusively to the subject of the Jews: "The Place of ChrIstianity in History" (1899), "The Ancient Jews' Feeling for the Sun and the Tree" (1903), "Judaism" (1903), Biblical Poetry (1912), Europe and the Jews (1912), Jehovah's Jewish Angel (The Sources o/Israel) (1914), The Jews' Sensual and Tactile Attitude toward Blood (1914), and Close to Sodom (1914).1 The large number of books and articles concerning the Jews reveals an excessive interest which challenges any critic attempting a comprehensive analysis ofhis work to treat the theme ofthe Jews with the same seriousness as did. Rozanov himself. As a critic of the "Jewish character," Rozanov occupies a place in intellectual history beside Fyodor Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Otto Weininger. Just as did these others, Rozanov linked the Jews with the negative aspects of civilization: economic competition, concupiscence, and cosmopolitanism. If not for the Jews, these thinkers hold, there could arise an ideal community characterized by intellectual strength, physical health, and national purity. Imbibing the poisons of this antisemitic tradition, nevertheless Rozanov treated the Jews idiosyncratically in the context of his own literary interests. Encountering philosophical contradictions developing from his analysis of Christianity, artistic creativity, and the Russian character, Rozanov lAB translations are my own unless otherwise indicated. Russian titles: "Mesto khristianstva v istorii" (1899), "Chuvstvo solntsa i dereva u drevnikh evreev" (1903), "Iudaism" (1903), Bibleiskaia poeziia (1912), Evropa i Evrei (1912), Angel Iegovy u Evreev (istochniki Izrailia) (1914), Oboniatel'noe i osiazatel'noe otnoshenie evreev k krovi (1914), and Vsosedstve Sodoma (1914). 86 SHOFAR Fall 1997 Vol. 16, No.1 employed the Jews in the solution to these problems. Although he also ends up belligerently condemning the Jews, he is different from the others in that in his reflections on Russia and Russians he vigorously articulates (in accordance with his own thinking) the Jews' positive attributes. He presents a towering image of Jewish physical and spiritual strength which stimulates Rozanov's perspective on Russians. This study ofRozanov's antisemitism represents an attempt to resolve the enigma of what the Jews symbolize for him, since the answers offered so far have been unsatisfying.2 Although Rozanov was "remarkably contradictory," I maintain that beneath the overt confusion there is a single, constant paradigm. Rozanov uses the Jews as a foil for creating his philosophical ideas. In every case Rozanov defmes Christianity and the Russian Church, people, and state by making a contrast with the Jews. To put it in another way, Rozanov's philosophical thinking cannot be viewed in absolute terms, but always comparatively; it emerges in opposition to a Jewish "Other." Furthermore, I intend to demonstrate how the image of the Jews arises as a result of Rozanov's ideological needs and does not reflect actual Jews or the Jewish religion. In Rozanov's biography his modest origins underscore his enormous success. Born in 1856 in the small town of Vetluga in southeastern Russia, he came from a large impoverished family. His father abandoned the family when he was young, and Rozanov, as the only boy, was smothered by womanly affection. Despite his selfacknowledged lack of interest in school, Rozanov did make it to Moscow University, where he studied philosophy and history. Upon graduation, he served as an unhappy teacher in provincial high schools. In 1890 the influential critic Nikolai Strakhov, impressed by Rozanov's second book, The Legend o/the Grand Inquisitor, asked the...