Goles varshe (Exile in Warsaw): The Kultur-Lige in Poland, 1921‒1924

In a communiqué published in its journal Kultur in November 1922, the Warsaw-based leadership of the umparteyish Kultur-Lige (non-partisan League for Culture) pledged that

[Our] mass-based Yiddish cultural organization must always work closely with labour unions and co-operatives, but it must remain autonomous, never becoming ancillary to the unions or political parties. From its inception, therefore, the Kultur-Lige must be organized on the basis of the 'personal principle', so that all those who staunchly affirm modern Yiddish mass culture are accepted into its ranks, regardless of their party affiliation, even if they have no party affiliation at all.¹

Coming at a moment when Jewish political parties in Poland were engaged in an intense struggle for hegemony on the Jewish street, the communiqué addressed the many opponents of the Kultur-Lige's assertion that cultural work could be most effectively conducted outside the confines of party politics, outlining fundamental ideological differences that had isolated the umparteyish leadership and thwarted its efforts to re-establish the organization in Warsaw after the Bolshevik takeover of the Ukrainian Kultur-Lige in 1920. The story of the Kultur-Lige after its original group of leaders left Kiev in winter 1920–1 was one of stymied effort and ultimate disappointment. While ostensibly less successful than Bundism or Labour Zionism, kultur-ligizm (culture league-ism) was an important iteration of diaspora nationalism, spearheaded by a group of socialist Yiddishist intellectuals, some of whom had been early architects of diaspora nationalism. They believed that modern Jewish culture could be best nurtured by organizations that were supported by democratic states and allowed to operate autonomously. The present study examines their visionary creed in order to explicate the fateful decision they made to decamp from Kiev in 1921 with the intention of transplanting their thriving cultural organization outside revolutionary Russia. It investigates their attempt to establish a centre in Warsaw during the early 1920s and to guide the development of branches in several locations in Poland and western Europe, and considers the failure of the Kultur-Lige in the context of the declining fortunes of diaspora nationalism in the period between the two world wars.

Fundamental flaws

Many members and observers of the Kultur-Lige attributed the organization's short-lived existence outside Ukraine to overwhelming competition on the part of party-affiliated cultural groups, but the group's unsuccessful effort to organize umparteyish cultural work cannot be adequately explained by this factor alone. Other crucial elements most definitely came into play. First, the organization's leaders were political refugees living in communities that were undergoing rapid social shifts and experiencing extreme economic hardships. Secondly, kultur-ligistn (Kultur-Lige activists) were seen by some as an intellectual elite, out of touch with the 'masses' they intended to lead and serve. Perhaps most importantly, the organization's aspirations were predicated on the principle of national-cultural autonomy, which called for state funding for the cultural and educational institutions of ethnic minorities and the right of minorities to govern their own cultural affairs. This principle, which formed the basis of the revolutionary cultural experiment in Ukraine, never took root in the political landscape of post-war Europe. Thus, it was not only the failure of the idea of umparteyish cultural work, but also the unfulfilled expectation that the new European states established after the First World War would embrace the principle of national-cultural autonomy and provide financial backing to ethnic minorities for cultural work that stymied the Kultur-Lige's leadership. These factors combined to limit severely the successes of the organization, so that by the middle years of the 1920s, its branches either disbanded or were co-opted by political organizations.

Halcyon days in kiev: 1918‒1920

In a parodic reformulation of the second aphorism contained in Pirkei avot (Ethics of the Fathers), the Kultur-Lige articulated its articles of faith as follows: 'The Kultur-Lige stands upon three pillars: upon the education of the Jewish people, upon Yiddish literature, and upon Jewish art. To make our masses intellectual and our intellectuals Jewish—this...