Semën Frug’s An Admirer of Napoleon

Abstract

An original English translation of An Admirer of Napoleon by Semën Frug (1860–1916) is presented, together with an account of the historical context and creative development of this Jewish writer, who wrote mainly in Russian. In particular Frug’s fall into obscurity is examined. Although he was first and foremost a lyric poet, he also wrote stories, mainly lyrical sketches of the type illustrated by An Admirer of Napoleon, which portrayed those ‘small but at the same time kind people’ who lived and worked in the agricultural colonies in the south of Russia. Attention is also paid to his attitude to Zionism, to his literary style, which references nature and the Bible, and to his themes, especially the joys and sufferings of his people.

Keywords:

• Frug
• historical context
• creative development
• literary style
• Napoleon

Notes

1. Heinz-Dietrich Löwe, The Tsars and the Jews: Reform, Reaction and Anti-Semitism in Imperial Russia, 1772–1917 (Chur, Switzerland: Harwood Academic, 1993), 2, 34.

2. Olga Litvak, Conscription and the Search for Modern Russian Jews (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), 3.

3. Löwe, The Tsars and the Jews, 6, 62.

4. Ibid., pp.74–5.

5. Brian Horowitz, ‘Poet and Nation: Fame and Suffering in Shimon Frug’s Life and Works’ (paper presented at conference in Moscow, 2005), 4–5.

6. S.G. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa: Vospominaniia, ocherki, fel’etony [Judaic fig-tree: Recollections, sketches, feuilletons], compiled with an introductory article and commentary by N.A. Portnova (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1995), 21.

7. Ibid., 9; also Ėntsiklopedicheskiĭ slovar’ [Encyclopaedic dictionary], ed. I. Andreevskiĭ (St Petersburg: I.A. Efron, 1890–; reprinted 1990–), vol. 72, 824.

8. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 23.

9. Ibid., 29.

10. Horowitz, ‘Poet and Nation’, 12–13; also Löwe, The Tsars and the Jews, 34, 37.

11. Benjamin Nathans, Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia (Berkeley: California University Press, 2002), 105.

12. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 12.

13. Ibid.

14. Ben-Ami, ‘Frug (Vospominaniia [Recollections])’, Rassvet [Dawn], 10–11, September 20, 1917, 16.

15. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 20.

16. Ibid., 14.

17. D. Miron, ‘Introduction’, Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nahman Bialik, ed. and trans. Adar Hadari (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), xvii.

18. Horowitz, ‘Poet and Nation’, 14.

19. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 13–14.

20. Ėntsiklopedicheskiĭ slovar’, 825.

21. A.M. Skabichevskiĭ, Istoriia noveĭsheĭ russkoĭ literatury 1848–1903 gg. [History of the latest Russian literature 1848–1903], 5th ed. (St Petersburg: F. Pavlenkova, 1903), 499.

22. Ėntsiklopedicheskiĭ slovar’, 825.

23. Horowitz, ‘Poet and Nation’, 21 and 3–4.

24. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 19.

25. Horowitz, ‘Poet and Nation’, 9.

26. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 18. Also see Ėntsiklopedicheskiĭ slovar’, 824–5.

27. Horowitz, ‘Poet and Nation’, 19.

28. Ibid., 20.

29. Richard S. Levy, Anti-Semitism, vol. 1 (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2005), 345.

30. Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 20.

31. Ibid., 30.

32. 700–933 yards, 639–852 metres. The sazhen’ is equal to 2.13 metres.

33. 1350 acres, 545 hectares. The desyatina is equal to 2.7 acres.

34. Portnova observes of Frug: ‘Unlike the theoreticians of “spiritual Zionism”, Frug, the poet and man of letters, takes account of all the unpredictable complexity and spontaneity of the people’s life and is far from theorizing’ (Frug, Iudeĭskaia smokovnitsa, 30).

35. The shultse [village headman] is rather on a par with the Russian starosta.

36. Assessors

37. This is the saddest day of the Jewish year, marked by a fast commemorating the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.

38. The minyan (number) is a quorum of 10 Jewish males over the age of 13, who constitute a community necessary for public acts of worship.