William Pittenger - "Daring and Suffering:"

Norman Douglas - "Fountains In The Sand"

Conrad Ferdinand Meyer - "Die Hochzeit des Moenchs"

Henry Mann - "The Land We Live In"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Rabbi and Priest

M >> Milton Goldsmith >> Rabbi and Priest




"Listen to me, Loris!" said the General, purple with rage. "I saved your
life once, at the risk of losing my own. As true as St. Nicholas hears
us, if ever you repeat your plottings, I shall be as inexorable as
though you were the meanest of the Czar's subjects."

Loris saw that his father was in earnest and recoiled before the wrath
of the stern old soldier. He again asserted his ignorance of any
conspiracy.

Not knowing how many more officers of the regiment were implicated,
Drentell decided to transfer the entire division to another district, in
the hope of severing any connection which might exist between the men
and the Revolutionary Committee.

Loris had to obey the order and accompany his regiment to the steppes of
Central Russia, where he remained until the active disorders in Kief a
year later recalled him.

Nihilism was not to be rooted out by the removal of any particular set
of men. It had spread its branches among all classes and conditions of
society, and the number of its adherents was increasing with alarming
rapidity.

The martyr who unflinchingly faces death for the sake of his faith, the
Nihilist who exposes himself to imprisonment or death in the hope of
attaining constitutional liberty, are examples of the heroic endurance
of minds exalted by principle. The Jew's devotion to his religion has
always been most intense when intolerance and persecution were at their
height. In like manner the love of liberty is developed to its greatest
extent when despotism seeks to stifle it.


"Brightest in dungeons, liberty thou art,
For there the habitation is the heart."


Twenty-one persons were arrested in Kief, and almost as many in Kharkov,
and still Nihilism was not stamped out. Phoenix-like it arose from the
ashes of its martyrs.

On February the 17th, 1880, just as the imperial family were about to
dine, a mine was exploded beneath the winter palace, the guard-room was
demolished, ten soldiers were killed and forty-five wounded; but, the
divinity which sometimes hedges a king preserved the royal family from
harm.

Excitement was intense. A commission of public safety, with authority to
preserve order at any cost, was at once appointed, with General Melikoff
at the head.

On the second day of March, during the festival, General Melikoff was
shot at as he alighted from his carriage. The would-be assassin was so
close that the General struck him in the face, and the man was arrested.

At the trial it was discovered that the malefactor was a baptized Jew,
by the name of Wadetsky Minsk. The trial excited universal interest. The
culprit was asked by the judge why he had deserted his faith.

"Because I found it impossible to live as a Jew," he replied, bitterly.
"You took from me my children to send them to the army; you deprived me
of the lands I had cultivated and left me penniless; you despised and
degraded me, and when I had suffered until the fibres of my heart were
torn, you showed me a glowing picture of the happiness that awaited me
here and in heaven if I became a Christian. I allowed myself to be
baptized."

Minsk paused, and the expression of his face showed the mental anguish
he was at that moment enduring. Suddenly, he continued, with great
vehemence:

"Yes, I became a Christian, or rather a godless hypocrite, who had
bartered away the sympathy of his co-religionists as well as his
self-respect. How did you treat me after I had embraced your faith?
Humiliations, worse than any I had experienced as a Jew, were showered
upon me. I was regarded as something impure, shunned and execrated. It
was too late to turn back, and in spite of your treatment, I remained a
Christian, I adhered to the glorious faith which teaches 'Peace on earth
and good-will to men.' In sheer desperation, I joined the band of
unfortunates as reckless as myself, whose self-imposed mission it is to
pave the way to liberty."

Minsk preserved a defiant demeanor throughout the trial. He made no
defence, nor did he endeavor to have his punishment mitigated. His
condemnation followed, as a matter of course.

The scaffold found him unsubdued.

"My attempt has failed," he cried, "but think not that General Melikoff
is safe! After me will come a second, and after him a third. Melikoff
must fall, and the Czar will not long survive him."

The fifth of March witnessed his death struggles upon the scaffold.

Darker and darker it grew in Israel. The sun of its brief prosperity was
gradually becoming obscured by heavy clouds of intolerance and
fanaticism, clouds which did not display the proverbial silver lining of
hope and comfort. This was a period of great activity for Mikail; never
before had he found such congenial employment. After making a series of
one-sided investigations, in which he interrogated principally those who
had real or imaginary cause for complaint against the Hebrews, the
priest embodied his conclusions in a book, entitled "The Annihilation of
the Jews." Unquenchable hatred breathed in every page. With a cunning
hand, he subverted facts to suit his fancy. He drew a vivid picture of
the great dissatisfaction existing because the Hebrews were achieving
success in various branches of enterprise to the exclusion of the
gentiles. With peculiar logic he argued that sooner or later quarrels
must ensue between the races, that if there were no Jews there could be
no trouble, and that they should therefore be driven out of the country.
His work accused the Jews of thriving almost entirely upon usury and
gross dishonesty, in spite of the fact that many of the chief industries
of Russia were in the hands of thrifty and honorable Israelites. It
purposed to forbid the Jews from keeping inns, on the ground that they
fostered intemperance, in the face of statistics which showed
drunkenness to be most prevalent in provinces where no Jews are allowed
to reside. It finally advised the confiscation of all property belonging
to the Jews and the summary expulsion of the despised race from the
Empire.

Such a book, at a time when rulers and people were alike eager for
sensation, acted like a firebrand. The newspapers, knowing that the
author was a member of the commission appointed by the Czar to
investigate the conduct of the Jews and that his work would receive the
imperial sanction, published extracts from its pages and commented
editorially upon its arguments. Mikail's conclusions were accepted, and
the cry rang throughout Russia, "Down with the Jews!" In all the land
there was not a man who dared raise his voice in defence of the
unfortunate people.

That Minsk, the would-be slayer of Melikoff, had once been a Jew, served
to increase the outcry against the race. Of the scores of Nihilists who
had already been executed not one was alluded to as a Catholic, although
that church claimed them as her own; but the newspapers added the word
"Jew" every time they had occasion to mention his name.

There were as yet no open hostilities in Russia. The great majority of
laborers and _moujiks_ knew nothing of this agitation. They lived in
peace with their Jewish neighbors, on whom many were dependent for work
and wages. For the best of reasons, they did not read the newspapers and
they cared little for the vague rumors of discontent that now and then
assailed their ears. Occasionally there were quarrels, but these were
unimportant and of rare occurrence.

A dispute arose one day in the shop of a man named Itikoff. A thief
entered his place and having requested the proprietor to get him a
certain article he rifled the money-box the moment the Jew's back was
turned. Itikoff saw the act in a mirror, and turning suddenly he seized
the man by the neck and beat him severely. The man's cries brought a
crowd to the door who, seeing a fellow-gentile maltreated by a Jew, at
once set upon the unfortunate shopkeeper and brutally assaulted him.
They then sacked his shop and threw his merchandise into the street,
whence it was quickly removed by the assembled mob. A number of
policemen arrived and arrested Itikoff for instigating a riot. Despite
his pleading he was carried to jail, and only released upon the payment
of a fine of two hundred roubles.[19]

Such occasional incidents, while they were characteristic of Russian
justice, were not of a nature to foster good feeling between the Jews
and the gentiles.

Then came the event of March 3, 1881. Through the mighty Empire flashed
the awful news, "The Czar has been assassinated!" For a time all other
affairs were left in the background. Before that dire catastrophe the
petty quarrels of the races faded into insignificance. Jew and gentile
alike met to mourn over their ruler and looked forward with pleasant
anticipation to the accession of the new Czar, Alexander III., to the
throne. The Nihilists, satisfied with their work, rested upon their arms
and waited to see if the new Emperor would yield to their demands. The
agitators who had conceived the crusade against the Jews as a means of
diverting public attention from St. Petersburg had been unsuccessful and
for the time being found their occupation gone. The Jew-haters,
Drentell, Mikail and others, were busy at the capital, currying favor
with the new government, and the poor Jews breathed more freely and
enjoyed a brief respite from danger.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 19: See report of "Russian Outrages," in _London Times_.]




CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE RIOTS AT ELIZABETHGRAD.


Terrible is the havoc wrought by the elements, the devastating flash,
the furious wind; appalling is the destruction of the roaring flames,
the all-devouring flood; but what elements can measure their forces with
the fury of man, once he has torn asunder the bonds of reason and rushes
madly and irresistibly onwards toward the accomplishment of his
passionate desires.


"Gefaehrlich ist's den Leu zu wecken,
Verderblich ist des Tigers Zahn;
Jedoch das schrecklichste der Schrecken,
Das ist der Mensch in seinem Wahn."


The animosity of the Russians towards the Jews had not ceased, it had
only been held in check for a final onslaught. The unfortunate year 1881
dawned upon the Hebrews. Its beginning found them hopeful, and confident
that for the future trouble would be averted; its close left them the
victims of a cruel and relentless persecution. We would gladly spare the
reader the harrowing details of this most atrocious of outbreaks, but we
must follow the fortunes of our friends to the end.

The meagre statements which found their way into our newspapers merely
announced that riots against the Jews had occurred here and there, but
were of so general a nature that they failed to impress the imagination.
They never evoked pictures of the terrible scenes which actually
occurred: men murdered, women outraged, infants butchered--arson,
pillage, slaughter and lust combined.

The ceaseless workings and writings of Mikail and other members of his
commission, had gradually aroused the fury of the masses. Their
utterances were not only repeated in every _kretschma_, but were grossly
exaggerated. Professional agitators, who had nothing to lose and
everything to gain by promoting a race quarrel, were actively at work
among the people, keeping alive the flame of hatred which they had taken
such pains to kindle.

Elizabethgrad, a large city to the south of Kief, containing ten
thousand Jews, was their first point of attack. Weeks before the event,
proclamations were posted throughout the district, calling upon the
inhabitants to throw off the yoke of the Jews and fixing Wednesday,
April 27th, as the day for the general uprising. Copies of a fictitious
_ukase_, commanding that the property of the Jews be confiscated and
handed over to the Christians, were freely circulated and universally
accepted as emanating from the Czar. Every lying accusation which had
ever been employed against the Jews since the rise of Christianity was
unearthed and used with telling effect. The atrocious calumny that the
Jews required the blood of Christian children for their Passover rites
was poured into eager ears. For a similar accusation the early
Christians were tortured by the Romans, and in their days of prosperity
they in their turn employed it against the Jews.

The Israelites were paralyzed with terror at the fate which hung over
them. The most influential of their number waited upon the Governor, who
after much deliberation received them. He listened with well-feigned
attention, while the Jews proved that they were law-abiding and that the
accusations against them were unjust. He smiled pityingly when they had
finished, and, reminding them that they were in God's hands, dismissed
them. No further notice was taken of their appeal.

On the twenty-seventh day of April came the crisis.

In a _cabaret_, kept by a Jew named Kirsanoff, a religious dispute
arose. The matter was of small importance, but it led to a scuffle by
which a large crowd of idlers was attracted. The mob grew in numbers and
in lawlessness, and having ejected the proprietor of the shop, they
proceeded to despoil the place of its liquors. Inflamed by their copious
libations, the rioters were ripe for any excess. At this moment there
arose a ringleader, a man whom no one knew, but who had been active for
some weeks past in stirring up the neighborhood. He mounted a cask and
addressed the maddened crowd:

"My friends," he cried, "your time has come! On to the Jewish quarter!
Kill, destroy, take what you can! The Czar gives you their property."

With a rallying shout he left the inn, the crowd following close upon
his heels.

"Down with the Jews!" arose the cry, and, as the mob increased, it was
repeated by a thousand intoxicated wretches.

Then began a wild destruction of property. Shops and warehouses were
attacked and their contents carried out into the street, to be destroyed
or carried away. Costly linens and works of art, fine furniture and
articles of apparel were served alike. What was too bulky to be stolen
was carried into the street and burned. A dozen bonfires roared and
blazed in the Jewish quarter.

The Jews could no longer look passively upon this wanton destruction.
Hastily conferring, they placed themselves under the leadership of one
of their merchants, one Zoletwenski, a powerful and courageous man.
Armed with clubs and such rude weapons as were within their reach, they
hurried to the scene and attempted to defend their own. Alas! the little
group was soon routed by the infuriated mob. Their resistance served
only to increase the anger of their assailants, who now left the shops
and turned their attention to the dwellings of the Hebrews.

Zolotwenski's house was the first to be attacked. Down crashed the door
and a hundred excited brutes forced their way through the house. They
seized his wife, whom they found in bed sick and helpless, and choked
her into insensibility. They followed his two daughters to a room in the
upper story in which they had locked themselves, and with threats of
vengeance worse than death they broke open the door. The poor girls
threw themselves from the window to the ground below.

In the meantime, the Rabbi, accompanied by a number of his congregation,
again hastened to the Governor's palace and besought him to protect the
innocent women and children. This time the appeal bore fruit. The
Governor promised to call out the military, and an hour afterwards a
detachment of soldiers appeared upon the scene. At first they stood by,
amused spectators, cheering the mob whenever it broke into a dwelling,
taunting the poor women who ran hither and thither in frantic endeavors
to escape the wretches who pursued them; but later in the day the
temptation to join the plunderers proved irresistible, and the soldiers
became active participants in the outrages which continually increased
in brutality. Indeed, the leaders of the soldiers soon assumed command
of the mob, and, with a refinement of cruelty, incited the people to
lust rather than to pillage.

A number of rioters and soldiers broke into the dwelling of an old man
named Pelikoff. The poor fellow had carried his sixteen-year-old
daughter to the attic and barricaded the door. In vain his resistance.
The rusty lock yielded to the onslaught from without; twenty men
precipitated themselves into the apartment, and twenty men threw
themselves upon the trembling child.

"Kill me," cried Pelikoff, "but spare my innocent daughter!"

"To the devil with them both!" laughed the leader.

Pelikoff fought with desperation. With his bare fists he felled two of
the stalwart soldiers to the ground, but he was no match against the
overpowering numbers. They seized him in their arms, carried him to the
roof, and hurled him over into the street below, while a dozen of the
ruffians attacked the unfortunate girl. When sympathizing friends
visited the house next day, they found the child dead, and Pelikoff a
hopeless maniac.

Night brought a cessation of hostilities, but not a glimmer of hope.

With early dawn, the outrages recommenced. The synagogue now became the
point of attack. Thither many of the women and children had fled for
refuge, and the mob, actuated rather by lust than by love of plunder,
proceeded to demolish the building, which they set on fire. The poor
women, as they fled from the burning pile, were set upon and cruelly
assaulted by the rioters. All that day and the next, the Hebrew quarter
was at the mercy of the savages. What the ax did not crush, fire
destroyed. Five hundred houses and over one hundred stores and shops
were ransacked; whole streets were demolished; property to the value of
two million roubles was destroyed, and upwards of twenty people lost
their lives while defending their possessions or their honor.

Thus ended the first anti-semitic riot. The plans for General Drentell's
vengeance, through Mikail the priest, were in a fair way of being
realized.[20]




CHAPTER XXXIV.

RABBI AND PRIEST MEET.


The enemies of the Jews persisted in their attacks. Ignorant greed,
commercial rivalry, religious intolerance, all played their part in
shaping coming events. The mobs soon had ringleaders; unscrupulous
agitators who counted on the gain they could derive from a general
pillage of the property of the wealthy Israelites.

The greatest terror reigned in Kief. But for the example of a few
energetic men, prominent among whom was Rabbi Winenki, the Hebrew
population would have been in despair.

Thousands of Jews, driven out of Elizabethgrad by the atrocities
committed at that place, fled to Kief and implored shelter of their
hospitable co-religionists. They were for the greater part destitute of
the commonest necessities of life. Their appeal was not in vain. The
charitable Jews opened their houses, and there was scarcely a home that
did not entertain one or more refugees.

Rabbi Winenki hastily called a conference of his friends to devise means
of assisting these unfortunates to emigrate. The project met with
immediate approval, and an association was formed to aid all those who
desired to find a home in distant America.

General Drentell heard of this benevolent undertaking, and while he was
not unwilling to drive the Jews out of the Empire, he deemed it the duty
of the Israelites to consult with him before engaging in any project
which would deprive the Czar of his subjects. He therefore sent a
communication to the Rabbi, stating that he had no objection to such a
committee as had been formed, provided it was created under the auspices
of the Government. It was customary, he said, for the ruling family to
be identified with all movements of this sort, and as an evidence of
good-will towards the Jews, his wife, Countess Louise, desired to be
elected Honorary President of the newly-organized society.

The Israelites received this communication with undisguised contempt.
The Rabbi denounced the inconsistency of the Governor, who had hitherto
never denied his animosity towards the Jews, but who now desired to pose
as their benefactor. A resolution was adopted declining to honor the
Countess Drentell with the office she coveted.

The Governor seized upon this as a pretext for the wickedest measures
against the unfortunate people. The following day, placards were issued
from a secret printing-press in Kief, and distributed throughout the
town and surrounding country, declaring that the Czar had confiscated
the property of the Jews and had presented it to his loyal subjects.
Wherever the commiserating face of a Madonna gazed down from her icon,
there hung one of these placards, which was destined to let loose the
worst passions of which man is capable. As if this were not potent
enough, Mikail the priest travelled in person through the province,
denouncing the Jews, and exhorting the orthodox Russians to wreak
vengeance upon them for real or fictitious crimes.

On came the flood which, once started, threatened to engulf the entire
Jewish population of Russia.

On May 6th, the mob attacked the Hebrew quarter at Smielo, and thirteen
men were killed, twenty wounded and sixteen hundred left without homes.

It was authoritatively announced that a riot would begin in Kief on
Sunday, the eighth of May. On weekdays the _moujiks_ were for the
greater part in the fields hard at work, while on Sunday they were free
to take part in the plunder and destruction.

The seventh was a sad day for our friends. It was the Sabbath, the last
that many of them would live to celebrate. The synagogues were filled to
overflowing with weeping women and terror-stricken men. There was no
hope, no consolation anywhere. Sadly and sorrowfully the services
proceeded, each worshipper praying as though his end were close at hand.
Not even the inspiring words of Rabbi Winenki could cheer them. In vain
he recalled the many miraculous deliverances of their forefathers, and
exhorted his hearers to place their faith in Jehovah. His sermon but
increased the gloom which hung over the congregation.

During the afternoon a delegation, headed by Mendel, proceeded to the
Governor's palace and begged for an interview. They were admitted into
the cabinet, where Governor Drentell, his wife and the Catholic priest
Mikail awaited them. Mikail was sitting at a table, writing.

"You wish to see me," said the Governor, curtly. "What is it you want?"

"Your excellency," began Mendel, with some hesitation, "we need scarcely
remind you of the fact that we have always been loyal subjects; that we
have never knowingly committed a wrong against the State, and that we
have through our thrift and industry sought to add to the wealth of the
country. We are now threatened with a serious calamity, one which will
rob us of our hard-earned possessions and may possibly deprive us of our
lives. Your excellency will surely not permit this outrage to be visited
upon us. It lies in your power to prevent it and we beseech you, in the
name of twenty thousand of the Czar's faithful subjects, who are now
crowded in Kief, to vouchsafe us your gracious protection."

The Governor listened impatiently. When Mendel had finished speaking, he
said:

"I do not see how I can help you. The Czar himself has declared your
property forfeited, and I am afraid the people will insist upon their
rights."

"But the pretended _ukase_ confiscating our property is false!" cried
Mendel, with great indignation. "Your excellency knows it is but an
invention of a body of men who wish to enrich themselves at the cost of
our people. Your excellency surely cannot allow such outrages to be
perpetrated!"

"Moderate your language, man," cried the Governor, angrily, rising from
his chair, "or you will find yourself outside the palace doors."

"I beg your excellency's pardon," answered Mendel, meekly, "if grief has
made me disrespectful. In the name of my co-religionists, I desire to
offer a proposition. If our property falls to the Czar's subjects, it is
certainly better to preserve it intact than to expose it to the savage
attacks of the rioters. If your excellency permits, we will bring you
the keys of our houses and submit to any measures you may see fit to
take. If the _ukase_ is true, the property will revert to the State
uninjured; if it is not true, your excellency will have the humanity to
restore us to our rights."

The Governor, surprised at this unexpected and unique proposition, found
himself without a reply. He glanced significantly at the priest.

"What do you say, Mikail?" he asked.

Mikail, who had been apparently absorbed in writing, but who had not
lost a word of the discussion, now arose, and in his deep, sonorous
voice, answered:

"The _ukase_ is true, your excellency, and we have no right to render it
nugatory. For twenty years the Jews have enjoyed equal rights with the
Christians, and every endeavor has been made to assimilate them with the
other inhabitants. In vain. The Jews constantly abused their new
liberties, and by their acts brought upon themselves the ill-will of the
entire nation. They form a state within the State, governing themselves
by their own code of laws, which are often antagonistic to those of the
land. I need not recapitulate the acts of cruelty they have perpetrated
upon defenceless Christians, the wiles they have employed to defraud
their creditors, or the usury for which they are notorious. I need not
allude to the fact that they have driven the Catholic Russians from
profitable fields of labor, and have appropriated to themselves every
branch of trade. These acts and many others have now called forth the
protests of the people, and the result is violence and robbery. It would
be useless to control the mob, your excellency, for the wrongs under
which they smart have driven them to desperation."

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