Here is the title page:
The approbations inside do not identify the author either. I am not here to debunk the anonymity as a myth, but it is interesting that his name, or at least initials and Russified surname, is definitely on the title page - in Russian - И. М. Каганъ:
Please note that in all likelihood many, if not most, readers of this book could not read Russian.
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Is it safe to say that the Chofez Chaim couldn't read Russian either?
ReplyDeleteI continue to be amazed at your talents. I used to rationalize that you "just" were a google guru and had had some background in academic Jewish studies.
Your eye for detail is totally awesome. Maybe the Robinson Crusoe item should have alerted me , but this something else.
Midwest
>Is it safe to say that the Chofez Chaim couldn't read Russian either?
ReplyDeleteYes. I'm less confident about this, but I feel like it's also safe to say that he did not think of himself in any way as surnamed "Kagan," at least not in 1873.
Thanks. I am indeed a Google guru, but the whole point is to know what to do with it, isn't it? ;-)
>>Is it safe to say that the Chofez Chaim couldn't read Russian either?
ReplyDeleteLet me add the following caveat: although his biography and tradition suggest that he didn't know Russian (it's immaterial if he eventually learned to sign his name in Russian, as perhaps he did), according to tradition he almost came under the sway of Adam Ha-kohen Lebensohn, the maskil and poet, whatever that's supposed to mean. Although the story is that he resisted Lebensohn's intellectual seduction, between you and me I feel it is possible that this story record a youthful dabbling in haskalah. Maybe it lasted two weeks or two hours, or maybe he really did resist it, but in light of the story it seems possible that he did learn at least the Russian alphabet in his youth. But that wouldn't be typical.
You have it all wrong. He may have signed his real name, but nobody knew that anyway. He should have signed it chofetz chayim.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure anybody who had to deal with non-Jews spoke Russian. So Russian-speaking (if not necessarily reading) would have been pretty common, I think.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents did, but hated it, the ones with the tallis - raised chasidic or something close, lost interest in their teens, totally non-religious when Dad was little in the 1920s. They were non-religious by the time they came here in 1914, AFAIK.
Once, the famous movie "Alexander Nevsky" came on the TV. My parents called my grandparents, suggesting they watch it (Russian with subtitles - rare in the early 1970s, before the Russian exodus). They called back a few minutes later, "We don't want to listen to the language of our oppressors."
I wonder what they would think about living in Boro Park today, where you hear Russian almost as often as you hear Yiddish. They moved from Boro Park to Florida in 1975.
Did the Chofetz Chayim grow up in Russia, or Poland? I thought Radin was in Poland. Polish is kinda close to Russian, I think, but written in Latin, not Cyrillic alphabet.
My ex-Bobover friend speaks Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, as well as English, Yiddish, Hebrew and Spanish - so did my grandparents, come to think of it, well, maybe not Spanish. But growing up in Podolia which is Ukraine in frum families, it seems you'd need all those languages.
Pretty common is all relative. A few thousand Jews out of a few million; plus we're talking about 1873, not 1913.
ReplyDeleteThe Chofetz Chaim grew up in White Russia and Lithuania, but all this is somewhat immaterial as all this was the Czar's domain.
another lie my rebbe told me :(
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that. Clearly he made an effort to downplay and obscure the identity of the author. I'm showing that it technically wasn't anonymous, but I wouldn't call it a lie.
ReplyDeleteWoh. This is a major catch. It means the Chafetz Chayim didnt really [in italics] try to conceal himself. Because all it would take was one guy who could russian, and it wouldnt be long before everyone knew who the author was. To me this definitely does put that story to rest.
ReplyDeleteFor all I know he had no choice for it to be published that way, and perhaps he himself even had no idea what the Russian on the title page said. Something tells me that anonymously published books may not have been permitted in Russia. And as I said, I seriously doubt whether he, or other Jews, thought of him as having the surname "Kagan," which is simply Kohen in Russian. So "I.M. Kohen" is still pretty anon. But that said, no one ever seems to point out that obviously at some point the identity of the author became known.
ReplyDeleteSo not so much published anonymously as unobtrusively.
ReplyDeleteNicely put.
ReplyDelete"I'm sure anybody who had to deal with non-Jews spoke Russian. So Russian-speaking (if not necessarily reading) would have been pretty common, I think."
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather was born in Russia and came to the US at 17. Plus he had a mandatory Russian class in his cheder. And with that, he never learned more Russian than a few phrases like good morning and good night.
My father asked him how he dealt with the goyim and he said he rarely if ever saw a goy.
He came from a small town. But I think the CC did as well.
Is the anonymity of the Chofetz Chaim the reason it did not become popular until much later?
ReplyDeleteWhat does the rest of the Russian text say? Is it identifying the author or the distributer?
ReplyDeleteSQ said...
ReplyDelete"So not so much published anonymously as unobtrusively.
5:15 PM
S. said...
Nicely put."
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Agreed. This does not show that, contrary to what we always thought, the CC was a publicity hound. But it does show - [assuming he knew that the publisher would print his name, and is there any reason to think otherwise?] - that he did quite do everything possible to hide himself. Like this blog does.
>What does the rest of the Russian text say? Is it identifying the author or the distributer?
ReplyDeleteIt says:
SEFER CHOFETZ CHAIM
i.e. One who desires life
comp. by. I.M. Kagan
VILNA, in the printshop of Hillel Dvorzhetz,
on Troksy St., in the Krukovsky House, #400, 1873
Well, there goes that legend that R' Kook's father was able to tell who wrote it right away when the Chafetz Chaim came through selling it.
ReplyDelete"Please note that in all likelihood many, if not most, readers of this book could not read Russian"
ReplyDeleteread or understand it? i can "read" russian ok, but i don't know more than a few words. is it far fetched to conjecture that many jews could identify the alphabet even if they didn't really understand the words?
Why are you so sure that so many Jews could not read Russian? When I was in yeshiva as a 16/17 year old and bored during the shiur a friend who had picked up the Russian alphabet from an encyclopedia taught it to me.I remember enough to read the the top part that says "sefer Chofetz Chaim" and his name Kagan .
ReplyDeleteSomeone living under the Czar would likely have much more exposure.
I think some people here are forgetting that the name printed is Kagan, i.e. Cohen, one of the most common jewish names (it would be like printing J.Smith in the US). It doesn't even say what village he's from.
ReplyDelete>Well, there goes that legend that R' Kook's father was able to tell who wrote it right away when the Chafetz Chaim came through selling it.
ReplyDeleteThe story is about R' Kook's father in law, the Aderet - R' Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim. And I am not sure it destroys the story. I would have been surprised if the Aderet read russian.
>Why are you so sure that so many Jews could not read Russian?
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, because so many couldn't. Not only couldn't they read it, but they also couldn't speak it. Of course some could, no one id saying otherwise. Secondly, the real issue is the Jews likeliest to be the reading public for Sefer Chafetz Chaim. But what does the ma'aseh with you and your friend prove? Did most guys in your shiur pick up the Russian alphabet? No one is disputing that you could pick up a little Russian. You could pick up a little of anything, for that matter, if you're motivated. But in 1872 the Jews in the Pale - certainly the most traditional - were very, very far from Russian culture. If they were literate, they were literate in Yiddish or Hebrew. If they had some secular education, it was more likely than not in German, not Russian.
Benny, you are correct that I.M. Kagan does not give up a whole lot. I said as much. Furthermore, as I said, I am of the opinion that neither the Chofetz Chaim nor others saw his surname as "Kagan," certainly not at this early juncture. Nevertheless, if your name is John Smith and it says J. Smith on the cover, that is somewhat different from it saying nothing at all.
Maybe I am missing something, but even if his name was on the title page, the way I remember the story is that he went around selling the book, not telling anyone (who he was), that he was the author. People thought he was the middleman, not the main man.
ReplyDelete"Chardal said...
ReplyDelete>Well, there goes that legend that R' Kook's father was able to tell who wrote it right away when the Chafetz Chaim came through selling it.
The story is about R' Kook's father in law, the Aderet - R' Eliyahu David Rabinowitz-Teomim. And I am not sure it destroys the story. I would have been surprised if the Aderet read russian."
The Chofetz Chaim asked the Aderet to write a Hashkama for his sefer. The Aderet, who for some reason being unable, got Rav Kook to write the haskama and he signed off on it.
When did the Jews in the Pale start using last names among themselves?
ReplyDelete-DYM