A Few Observations on V. E. Jabotinsky's "Feuilletons"

In memory of Felix Dektor, who contributed greatly to the republication of the books of V. E. Jabotinsky

The year 2020 marks an anniversary for Jabotinsky, an exceptionally prominent figure who manifested his influence at a historical crossroads in the destiny of the Jewish people.

Vladimir (Ze'ev) Evgenievich Jabotinsky (1880–1940) – poet, writer, publicist, translator, and founder of Revisionist Zionism and the theory of so-called integral nationalism – was, indisputably, one of the most prominent Jewish politicians active prior to the establishment of the State of Israel. However, even today, Jabotinsky's ideas continue to influence the processes unfolding within the political life and party structure of Israeli society.

The book, shortly to be published by the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, offers readers a republication of Jabotinsky’s collection of publicist essays, "Feuilletons", which first appeared in St. Petersburg in 1913, and subsequently, with certain revisions, in Berlin in 1922, when it was addressed primarily to Russian Jews living outside of Soviet Russia.

The title of the collection, "Feuilletons", appears entirely natural within the cultural context of that era, when the term referred to brief, topical publicist newspaper essays. This genre was also familiar to Jabotinsky through foreign examples; indeed, it was no coincidence that he penned the preface to the Russian translation of the collection of "Feuilletons" by Theodor Herzl, the founder of the political Zionist movement and organizer of the first Zionist congresses. In this preface, Jabotinsky elaborated on the specific features of this newspaper genre, which was so close to his own heart.

The first edition of Jabotinsky’s "Feuilletons" was published while passions were still run high over the "Beilis case" – the trial of Menahem Mendel Beilis, a Kyiv clerk accused in 1911 of the ritual murder of a Christian boy. Initially, the incident did not provoke a significant public reaction. However, when the case went to court in Kyiv in 1913, a massive antisemitic campaign unfolded in Russia, met by a wave of public protest that reached global proportions. As a result, the Beilis case, which ended in his acquittal after heated deliberations, became the most notorious trial in Tsarist Russia. Consequently, Jabotinsky's collection naturally included such essays as "Instead of an Apology" and "Cases Without Beilis," in which the author speaks against the tendency of Jews, then as now, to justify themselves against the accusations leveled at them. Jabotinsky wrote:

«We have not, nor have we ever had, ritual murder… so why should we willingly enter the dock, when we have heard all these slanders long before today's civilized nations even existed… We owe no accounts to anyone, we sit for no exams, and no one is qualified to hold us to answer».

He persistently urged his readers that it was not the Jews who had to prove their innocence, but rather those who believed that Jews consumed Christian blood who had to prove the validity of their delusion, which could only be described as folly. He considered it beneath the dignity of Jews to have spent centuries justifying themselves for not using the blood of Christians to prepare matzah for Passover, and to have adopted the fashion of apologizing for the Russian revolution at the beginning of the 20th century.

It is widely known that Jabotinsky was highly skeptical of liberalism and did not believe in its efficacy:

«Wise was the philosopher who said: homo homini lupus. Man is worse than a wolf to man, and it will be a long time before we can alter this by any means – neither by state reform, nor by culture, nor by the bitter lessons of life. Foolish is he who trusts his neighbor, even the kindest, the most gentle. Foolish is he who relies on justice: it exists only for those who are capable of securing it by fist and perseverance. When confronted with reproaches for preaching isolation, distrust, and other harsh measures, one sometimes wishes to reply: Yes, guilty. I preach this and will continue to preach it, because in isolation, in distrust, in a perpetual "alert," and in keeping a club perpetually hidden under one's coat, lies the only hope of remaining standing in this wolfish scramble».

Jabotinsky is frequently criticized for overusing the concept of "race" and for seeking to view nationalism as the supreme value. In this regard, it is necessary to clarify that, in his view, "race" and "nationality" were similar, if not identical, concepts:

«Whether "pure" races exist or not is irrelevant in this instance; what matters is that ethnic groups differ from one another in their racial spectrum, and in this sense, the word "race" acquires a very definite and fully scientific meaning. Thus – if we do not insist on meticulous precision of language – we can say that, in general, approximately every nationality possesses a specific, distinct, and common "racial recipe" for all its individuals; in this sense (though certainly not in a political-legal one), nationality and race nearly coincide. What follows from this? There is a certain connection, a psychophysical parallelism, between physical nature and spiritual functions… One cannot "describe" a racial psyche, yet it is nonetheless certain that each "racial" group (in the aforementioned sense) possesses a specific, distinct "racial" psyche, which manifests itself to a greater or lesser degree – despite the sheer variety of individual human personalities – in every individual of that group (excepting, of course, intermediate types)».

It is important that the term "race" in Jabotinsky's essays is not misunderstood by the modern reader in the negative sense that this originally neutral scientific word later acquired in the "racial theory of Nazism."

Turning to Jabotinsky's political views, we would like to note that he rejected Marxism and its supranational class theory. From Jabotinsky's perspective, it is indeed "race" that determines the social order:

«…if even economic models, specific social structures, and the like must bear the imprint of a "racial" psyche, then this is all the more true for religion, philosophy, literature, and even, in part, legislation – in short, the entirety of spiritual culture, whose direct connection to the national psyche is far more distinct and clear».

Jabotinsky attempted to construct a theoretical model of the "absolute nation," formulating a concept of an ideal nation that does not exist in reality. In his model, race is the central core around which a nation is formed. Such a model appeared to him important for analyzing existing nations and served as an ideological tool for developing the theory and practice of the national movement:

«The ideal type of an "absolute nation" would be as follows: it must possess a highly distinct racial spectrum, sharply differing from the racial nature of its neighbors. It must have occupied a continuous and clearly demarcated territory since time immemorial; ideally, this territory should contain no foreign minorities to dilute national unity. It must possess a unique language, indigenous and unborrowed – at least in the sense that the act of borrowing, even in deep antiquity, cannot be traced (as, for example, is the case with the Germans)… It is therefore necessary to recognize that territory, language, religion, and historical commonality are not the substance of a nation, but merely its attributes; albeit attributes of immense value, highly important for the stability of national existence. But the substance of a nationality, the first and last stronghold of its distinctiveness, is the uniqueness of its physical breed, the recipe of its racial composition… For an inquirer interested not merely in the facts and needs of contemporary political life or psychic phenomena, but in objective primary causes, the "nation" will ultimately – once all layers imposed by history, climate, environment, and foreign influences are stripped away – be reduced to its racial foundation».

To comprehend Jabotinsky's "racial theory," one must examine his understanding of "superior" and "inferior" races, which occasionally, upon a superficial reading, is perceived as reflection on racial supremacy. This issue is most vividly outlined in the feuilleton "An Exchange of Compliments," written in the form of a dialogue between a Jew and a Russian, apparently overheard by the author. This piece was a response to an article by A. Stolypin (brother of the Prime Minister) entitled "The Inferior Race," which was of a distinctly antisemitic character, and Jabotinsky deliberately adopted the terminology proposed by Stolypin. Jabotinsky's own stance in the feuilleton is represented by the Jewish interlocutor:

«I propose another criterion for a superior race: self-awareness. In a being of a superior breed, whether it be a scholar among savages or an aristocrat among plebeians, there always dwells an ineradicable consciousness of their own worth, beyond the control of their own will. Externally, it is expressed in what we call by various names – most frequently, pride. This is the quality by which King Lear remains a king even in rags: he knows himself to be a king; he cannot rid himself of this consciousness. This sense of one's own nobility is the primary and principal sign of nobility. Of course, a parvenu sometimes poses as an aristocrat; on the other hand, even the Bushmen believe that other people are inferior to them. But it takes only a face-to-face encounter between the upstart and a true gentleman for the fracture in his consciousness to be exposed immediately: he will falter, lose his tone, and feel his inferiority. The same occurs when the Bushman encounters the white man: in the end, the white man always commands his respect. Both possess a consciousness of their superiority, but in the white man, it will survive, while in the Bushman, it will erode and atrophy, and the white man will gain over him not only physical but also moral authority…

A superior race must possess, above all, self-awareness; it is characterized by an invincible pride, expressed not in arrogance, but in steadfast endurance, in respect for the values of its own spirit. The very thought of subjecting oneself and one's soul to a foreign principle must be organically unacceptable to such a race».

According to Jabotinsky, the sense of belonging to a "superior race" is not only subjective but also objective, since it will be acknowledged by all, and the criterion for its definition is the originality of its culture, its resilience under external pressure, and its capacity to preserve its national uniqueness over long periods of time:

«But if we are to measure ourselves against one another, everything depends on the standard of measurement, and I shall then insist, among other things, on my own standard: superior is he who is more unyielding; he who can be destroyed but cannot be "taught a lesson"; he who never, even in oppression, surrenders his inner independence… We are an untamable race for all eternity».

To understand Jabotinsky's ideology, it is essential to emphasize that he believed in the value of European culture, in which he had been raised, and for him, as a Jewish nationalist, it was these universal values that were of primary importance. Zionism, in his view, was a European phenomenon, typical of the national liberation movements that swept through Europe and Asia Minor at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Relocating to the Land of Israel did not, in Jabotinsky's view, mean relocating to the world of the East. He was convinced that upon the soil of their ancient homeland, Zionists must preserve a European atmosphere, bearing in mind that the Jewish people are predominantly a European nation, and that European culture owes much to the culture and ethics borrowed from the Jews.

In the feuilleton "Horoscope" (1912), the author analyzes the political state of affairs in Europe and prophetically foretells the First World War, just as, in the latter half of the 1930s, he urged European Jews to emigrate to Palestine immediately, convinced that otherwise, destruction awaited them.

In the feuilleton "The Lesson of Shevchenko's Jubilee" (1911), Jabotinsky exhibits profound sympathy for the poet and is prepared to overlook manifestations of Ukrainian antisemitism in his work. In Shevchenko's antisemitic statements and episodes, Jabotinsky sees merely a confirmation of the authenticity and originality of Ukrainian culture, and its struggle to preserve itself. It was perhaps this line of reasoning, alongside solidarity with Ukraine’s struggle for national independence, that explains why in the summer of 1921, Jabotinsky signed an agreement with the representative of the Ukrainian government-in-exile, M. Slavinsky, to establish a Jewish militia to protect the Jewish population from pogroms during the planned campaign of Petliura's army into Ukraine, a development he reported on at the 12th Zionist Congress in September of that year.

Four articles on the "Chirikov Incident" are dedicated to a public debate, little remembered today but highly intense in 1908, concerning the influence of Jews on Russian literature and Russian culture as a whole. The catalyst for this discussion, which stirred broad segments of the Russian intelligentsia, was the reading in a capital literary salon of an unremarkable comedy play entitled "Yikhus" (which can be translated from Yiddish as "Pedigree," "Blue Blood," or "Nobility"), written by the playwright and author Sholem Asch.

The author read the play in Russian to a group of Jewish and Russian writers. Following the reading, the Russian writer Evgeny Chirikov made several critical remarks to the author, which provoked a sharp response from Asch, who asserted that Russian writers were incapable of understanding his play due to its national character. On the Russian side, questions naturally arose as to how far a Jewish writer was capable of understanding the soul and conduct of a Russian person.

The literary dispute regarding the limits of depicting everyday life spilled into the press, becoming the subject of numerous publications and public polemics on Russian nationalism in literature, theater, and public life. It is clear that Jabotinsky, being himself the author of novels, short stories, and Russian translations of masterpieces of world poetry – such as Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" – could not remain aloof from the discussion of this compelling topic.

Even this brief overview of the collection "Feuilletons" allows one to see the exceptionally brilliant, original, and multifaceted nature of V. Jabotinsky as a publicist. In republishing his "Feuilletons," we hope that readers will find themselves drawn to Jabotinsky’s work, discover this extraordinary polemicist and thinker, and reflect on the issues he raised, many of which, despite the passage of a century, remain highly relevant.

Herzl, T. Feuilletons. Translated from German by S. A. Rozova, with a preface by V. Jabotinsky. St. Petersburg: Ezro, 1912. It should be noted that Jabotinsky heard Herzl speak at the 6th Zionist Congress (Basel, 1903) and, like Herzl, also emphasized the universal aspects of Zionism.

V. Jabotinsky. Instead of an Apology (1911).

This false accusation was leveled against Jews in various centuries and countries, and became known as the "blood libel."

V. Jabotinsky. HOMO HOMINI LUPUS (1910).

V. Jabotinsky. Race (1913).

Ibid.

Ibid.

Novoye Vremya, October 5 (18), 1911, No. 12775.

An upstart (in a social context; French).

Inferiority.

V. Jabotinsky. An Exchange of Compliments (1911).

Ibid.

V. Jabotinsky. I. Deserters and Masters. II. Asemitism. III. The Bear from the Den. IV. Russian Kindness. For more details, see: Kelner V.E. Two Incidents: From Russian-Jewish Relations at the Beginning of the 20th Century // Bulletin of the Jewish University in Moscow. No. 3, 1995. Pp. 190–198; Mikhailova M. The Jewish Theme in the Works of E. N. Chirikov and the "Chirikov Incident". In the collection: Parallels. Moscow, 2003. Vol. 2–3. Pp. 163–188.

Thus, the critic noted that the play, "apparently inspired by Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard', is written according to a completely abstract scheme" (Niger S. Jewish Almanacs // The Jewish World. 1910. Book 1. P. 151).