David Vogel’s Lost Hebrew Novel, Viennese Romance

This article provides background about the manuscript of a Hebrew novel by David Vogel that was found in the Gnazim archive in Tel-Aviv in 2010. This manuscript was later edited by Youval Shimoni and me, and published under the title Roman Vinay (Viennese Romance) in 2012. The first part of this essay describes the composition of the manuscript as it was found and deciphered, before the work was edited. Its second and principal part refers to two specific passages in the manuscript that shed new light on Vogel’s perspectives toward the national component of Hebrew literature of his time. The study of this manuscript offers new data for evaluating Vogel’s work, and enables us to reexamine some of the assumptions about his place in the traditions of modernist Hebrew writings.