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Agnon in Germany,1912–1924: A Chapter of A Biography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

Dan Laor
Dan Laor
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel
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Extract

In October 1912, the twenty-four-year-old Hebrew writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon embarked on a ship in the port of Jaffa, then Palestine, the destination of his trip being Germany, or, to be more exact, the city of Berlin. Agnon left for Germany in the company of Dr. Arthur Ruppin, known as the “father of Zionist settlement in Eres Yisra'el.” The friendship between Agnon and Ruppin had developed in Jaffa, where Agnon had tutored both Ruppin and his wife in Hebrew. And it was probably with the support of Dr. Ruppin, himself a native of Germany and a graduate of a German university, that Agnon decided to leave Palestine, where he had resided for more than three years, to see the world, which in those days meant Berlin.

Type
Articles
Information
AJS Review , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 75 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 1993

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References

This essay is based on a lecture delivered on February 27, 1990, at the Tauber Institute for Contemporary Jewry, Brandeis University.

1. This biographical datum was finally established by Weiser, R., ‘“Igrot Sh. Y. Agnon leY. H. Brenner,” in Shai Agnon: mehkarim ve-te'udot(Jerusalem 1978), p. 40.Google Scholar

2. The letter was probably sent at the beginning of 1913. Agnon's letters to Lachower are kept in the Genazim Institute, Tel-Aviv. Later on, in a postcard sent on April 19, 1913, Agnon tells Lachower that he has decided to give up his idea of going to the United States.

3. The Agnon-Schocken correspondence, which lasted for fifty-five years, has recently been published by Agnon's daughter, Emunah Yaron. See Agnon-S, Sh. Y. S. Shocken: ḥilufei igrot (Jerusalem, 1991). p. 116.Google Scholar

4. Agnon's name is included in the list of participants at the conference, published in Histadrul le-safa vela-tarbul ha-'iwit be-Berlin(Warsaw, 1914), p. 149. I am grateful to Mr. R. Weiser of the Jewish National and University Library for bringing this document to my attention. As the conference took place between the August 25 and 28, Agnon would also have had a chance to stay in Vienna for the Eleventh Zionist Congress, which started on September 2.

5. Some of the biographical details mentioned in this paper are included in Band's, Arnold J. comprehensive study of Agnon, Nostalgia and Nightmare: A Study in the Fiction ofSh. Y. Agnon(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), pp. 20–25.Google Scholar

6. Gershom Scholem, Devarim be-go(Tel-Aviv 1975), p. 463.Google Scholar

7. Scholem, Gershom, “Agnon in Germany: Recollections,” in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays (New York, 1976), p. 119.Google Scholar

8. Buber, Martin, “Über Agnon,” Treue (Eine Jüdische Sammelschrift) (Berlin: Leo Hermann, 1916), p. 59. See also Grete Schaeder, “Martin Buber: Eine biographischer Abrif,” in Martin Buber, Briefwechsel(Heidelberg, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 58–59: “In Bubers eigener Gegenwart entsprach kein anderer Dichter sinem Erzahler-Ideal mehr als sein viljähriger Freund, der hebräische Dichter Samuel Joseph Agnon.”Google Scholar

9. Of the few accounts of the life and activities of Salman Schocken (including his special relationship with Agnon), some were written by his eldest son, Gershom Schocken. See, e.g., “Ich werde seines gleichen nicht mehr sehen,” Der Monat20 (November 1968): 13–30; “Darko shel Salman Schocken el ha-yahadut uve-tokha,” Ha'aretz,January 20, 1989 (a lecture delivered on the thirtieth aniversary of Schocken's passing). See also Volker Dahm, Das Jüdische Buch im Dritten Reich (Zweiter Teil): Zalman Schocken undSein Verlag)(Frankfurt a.M., 1962); Stephen M. Poppel, “Salman Schocken and the Schocken Verlag: A Jewish Publisher in Weimar and Nazi Germany,” Harvard Library Bulletin21 (January 1973): 20–49.Google Scholar

10. The relationship between Agnon and Schocken, as reflected in their correspondence, is discussed in my essay “Ba-ḥanuto shel mar Schocken,” Ha'aretz,July 5, 1991.Google Scholar

11. Holtzman, Avner, “Berdychewsky ve-Agnon: panim 'aherot,” Dapim le-meḥkar besifrut 3 (1986): 168–169. After being refused once by Berdychewsky. Agnon tried once more, offering to assist him without any charge. This offer also seems to have been rejected.Google Scholar

12. Kahn, Frieda, Generation in Turmoil(New York, 1960), pp. 108–109.Google Scholar

13. Scholem, Devarim be-go,p. 463.

14. Agnon's “reading list”during the course of his stay in Germany is documented in detail in many of his letters to Salman Schocken. See, for example, the letter in which he discusses his impressions upon reading Strindberg (Yaron, pp. 78–79).

15. Band, Nostalgia and Nightmare,pp. 94–95.

16. The letter to Lachower was sent by the end of November 1913 (Genazim Institute, Tel- Aviv). Agnon writes: “I translated Peter Schlemihlby Chamisso, a complete translation. What am I going to do with it?” And indeed, this translation was never published.

17. Agnon's letters to Buber, except those few that have been published, are kept in the Buber Archive, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem (Ms. Var. 350/65 'n). Buber's letters to Agnon from this period were obviously destroyed in the fire in Agnon's house.

18. The relationship of this particular work to Agnon's biography is discussed by A. J. Brawer, ‘“Bi-Ne'arenu uvi-zekenenu’ bemisgeret ḥayyei meḥabro,” Yovel Shai(Ramat Gan, 1958), pp. 39–48.Google Scholar

19. Agnon's letter to A. D. Friedman was published by M. Ungerfeld in Moznayim50 (1968): 218–220.Google Scholar

20. For detailed information about Agnon's numerous publications, see Band, Nostalgia and Nightmare,pp. 453–496 (“Works by Agnon Listed Alphabetically”) and 527–539 (“Fiction in Hebrew in Order of Publication”).Google Scholar

21. This aspect of Agnon's work is the theme of a Ph.D. dissertation by Judith Halevi– Zwick, “Tekufat Germania bi-yesirato shel Shai Agnon” (Jerusalem, 1967).Google Scholar

22. An examination of Agnon's literary and stylistic growth, as it is reflected in the metamorphosis of this story, is offered by Shaked, Gershon, ‘Omanul ha-sipur shel Agnon (Tel-Aviv, 1973), pp. 137–150.Google Scholar

23. The criticism of Agnon's early writings is the topic of Judith Halevi–Zwick, Reshitashel bikoret Agnon(Haifa, 1984), pp. 55–100.Google Scholar

24. Eliezer, Moshe Ben, ‘“Al kapot ha-man'ul,” Ha-Tekufah 8 (1923): 521–523.Google Scholar

25. A partial list of Agnon's works in German translation is included in Band, Nostalgia and Nightmare,pp. 552–553.Google Scholar

26. Agnon's letters to Gershom Scholem are kept at the Scholem Archive, Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem.

27. Scholem, Gershom, “Mekorotav shel ma7prime;ase rabi Gadi'el ha-tinok be-sifrut hakabalah,” Le-Agnon shai (Jerusalem, 1959), pp. 89–306.Google Scholar

28. Brod, Max, “Zwei Jüdische Buchers,” Die neue Rundschau 29, no. 2 (1918): 1362–1367.Google Scholar

29. Kaufman, Fritz Mordechai, “Der Erzähler S. J. Agnon,” Vier Essais über osjüdische Dichlung und Kultur (Berlin, 1919), pp. 21–23.Google Scholar

30. The manuscript of Krojanker's book, which was to have been published in 1938 by Schocken Verlag in Berlin, was recently translated into Hebrew and published posthumously on my initiative. See Gustav Krojanker, Yefirato shel Sh. Y. Agnon,with introduction and notes by Dan Laor (Jerusalem, 1991).Google Scholar

31. This project is mentioned in a letter Agnon wrote to Schocken in September 1917 (Yaron, pp. 56–57).Google Scholar

32. Agnon7prime;s letter to Schocken of March 1916. A previous letter from Schocken to Agnon (March 6, 1916) includes a contract for the book to be signed by Agnon, in which the writer commits himself to complete the project within five years (Yaron, pp. 19–20). Agnon probably also prepared an anthology of Jewish jokes (Jüdische fVitze),mentioned in the article “Humor” in Das Jüdisches Lexicon,but this book, too, was never published.Google Scholar

33. The original contract is kept in the Buber Archive, Jerusalem. It was recently published by Barshai, Avinoam, Ha-romanim shel Agnon (Tel-Aviv, 1988), pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

34. See “Shai Agnon kotev el Martin Buber,” Ha'aretz, September 15, 1985.Google Scholar

35. The novel is by now available in English translation. See Agnon, S. Y., Shira, trans, from the Hebrew by Zeva Shapiro, afterword by Robert Alter (New York, 1989).Google Scholar

36. The German theme in Agnon's writing is discussed by Baruch B. Kurzweil: “The Image of the Western Jew in Modern Hebrew Literature,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book6 (1961): 175–182. See also Dan Miron, “German Jews in Agnon's Work,” Ibid. 23 (1978): 265–280.

37. Agnon, Sh. Y., “‘Ad hena,” in Kol sipurav shel Sh. Y. Agnon (Tel-Aviv, 1953), pp. 147–148.Google Scholar

38. Schocken, Gershom, “Prida me-'Ashkenaz, prida me-'Eropa ha-yeshana,” Ha'aretz, September 16, 1974.Google Scholar

39. Kurzweil, Baruch, ‘ldquo;Ad hena,” Masot 'al sipurei Shai Agnon (Tel-Aviv, 1963), pp. 161–162.Google Scholar

40. Yaron, pp. 152–154.

41. For an English version of Agnon's Nobel Prize speech, see Les Prix Nobel en 1966(Stockholm, 1967), pp. 67–70.Google Scholar