Nochum Shtif
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Nohum Shtif ( yi, נחום שטיף‎; 1879,
Rovno Rivne (; uk, Рівне ),) also known as Rovno (Russian: Ровно; Polish: Równe; Yiddish: ראָוונע), is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the surrounding Rivne Raio ...
– 1933,
Kiev Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
), was a Jewish linguist, literary historian, publisher, translator, and philologist of the
Yiddish language Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
Estraikh, Gennady (2010, October 18).
Shtif, Nokhem
" ''YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe''. Retrieved 2015-09-18 from www.yivoencyclopedia.org.
and social activist. In his early years he wrote under the pen name ''Baal Dimion'' (or ''Bal-Dimyen'', "Master of Imagination").Katz, Dovid (1987). ''Grammar of the Yiddish Language''. London: Duckworth. . p. 294-5, 297.


Early years

Shtif was born on 29 September 1879 (6 October 1879 on the Gregorian calendar) to a prosperous family in Rovno, Volhynia (
Rivne Rivne (; uk, Рівне ),) also known as Rovno (Russian: Ровно; Polish: Równe; Yiddish: ראָוונע), is a city in western Ukraine. The city is the administrative center of Rivne Oblast (province), as well as the surrounding Rivne Raio ...
,
Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
). He received both a Jewish and a secular education. Even as a student at a Russian secondary school and, later, at Kiev Polytechnic University (where he was enrolled between 1899 and 1903), he continued studying religious and modern Hebrew literature.


Activities

Following the
First Zionist Congress The First Zionist Congress ( he, הקונגרס הציוני הראשון) was the inaugural congress of the Zionist Organization (ZO) held in Basel (Basle), from August 29 to August 31, 1897. 208 delegates and 26 press correspondents attende ...
in Basel in 1897, he became an ardent
Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
and helped establish the radical student Zionist organization Molodoy Izrail (Young Israel), and also participated in the 1902 Minsk Zionist Conference. The scholar Gennady Estraikh reports that in an early, unpublished article, Shtif "pioneered an ideological concept later employed by the
Zionist Socialist Workers Party Zionist-Socialist Workers Party (russian: Сионистско-социалистическая рабочая партия), often referred to simply as Zionist-Socialists or S.S. by their Russian initials, was a Jewish territorialist and sociali ...
: emigration and colonization as a means of creating a Jewish proletariat, which, according to Shtif, could not exist in the repressive environment of Russia". In the autumn of 1903, Shtif cofounded the Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance) Jewish socialist group in Kiev with A. Ben-Adir and W. Fabrikant. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for his political activities and was expelled from the Kiev Polytechnic University. From late 1904 until early 1906, he lived in Bern, Switzerland, where he organized a local Vozrozhdenie group and agitated against the
General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia ( yi, ‏אַלגעמײנער ייִדישער אַרבעטער־בונד אין ליטע, פּױלן און רוסלאַנד , translit=Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter-bund in Lite, Poy ...
. In April 1906, with other activists from Vozrozhdenie, he founded the Jewish Socialist Labor Party in Kiev. Its members, also known as Sejmists, sought Jewish national autonomy in Russia and became committed Yiddishists. Between 1906 and 1910, Shtif spent time in Kiev, Vilna, Vitebsk, and Saint Petersburg. He was a party agitator, an editor for modern Yiddish literature at the Kletskin publishing house in
Vilna Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional u ...
(Vilnius), and an employee of the
Jewish Colonization Association The Jewish Colonisation Association (JCA or ICA, Yiddish ייִק"אַ), in America spelled Jewish Colonization Association, is an organisation created on September 11, 1891, by Baron Maurice de Hirsch. Its aim was to facilitate the mass emigratio ...
(ICA). He also published several articles on literary criticism, politics and Yiddish philology in Russian and Yiddish periodicals. In 1910, he moved back to Rovno, where he worked at a Jewish bank and contributed to various periodicals, usually under the pseudonym Bal-Dimyen (Dreamer). He completed his dissertation and graduated from the Jaroslavl (Galicia) Law School in 1913. In 1914 Shtif returned to Vilna, and became the editor of the publication, ''Di Vokh'' (The Week). Also in 1914, he started the Yiddish children's series "פֿאַר אונדזערע קינדער" ("For Our Children"). While living in St. Petersburg during the years 1915-1918, he worked for the Jewish aid organization, YEKOPO (Evreiskii Komitet Pomoshchi Zhertvam Voiny, Jewish Committee to Aid Victims of the War), editing its journal, and was active in Hevrah Mefitsei Haskalah (Society for the Promotion of Culture among the Jews of Russia) and with instituting Yiddish as the language of instruction in Jewish schools. In 1917, after the
February Revolution The February Revolution ( rus, Февра́льская револю́ция, r=Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya, p=fʲɪvˈralʲskəjə rʲɪvɐˈlʲutsɨjə), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and somet ...
, Shtif became one of the founders of the revived
Folkspartei The Folkspartei ( yi, ייִדישע פֿאָלקספּאַרטײַ, , Jewish People's Party) was founded after the 1905 pogroms in the Russian Empire by Simon Dubnow and Israel Efrojkin. The party took part in several elections in Poland and ...
(People’s Party), whose newspaper, ''Folksblat'', he co-published with Israel Efroikin. In 1918, Shtif moved to Kiev, where he was active in YEKOPO and also devoted himself to journalism. His writings, including the pamphlet (Jews and Yiddish, or Who Are the “Yiddishists” and What Do They Want?, 1919), concerned the Jewish future in the post-war world, which Shtif envisioned as a brotherhood of nations that included Jews as an autonomous national collective with a highly developed Yiddish culture. After the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
overtook Kiev in October 1920, Shtif left Russia, spending a short time in Minsk, where he and
Zelig Kalmanovitch __NOTOC__ Zelig Hirsch Kalmanovich ( lv, Zēligs Hiršs Kalmanovičs) (1885–1944) was a Litvak Jewish philologist, translator, historian, and community archivist of the early 20th century. He was a renowned scholar of Yiddish. In 1929 he settl ...
gave lectures for Yiddish teachers, and then moved to Kovno (Kaunas). In 1922 he settled in Berlin after having earned a doctorate at
Yaroslavl State University The Yaroslavl Demidov State University (Russian: ''Ярославский государственный университет имени П. Г. Демидова'') is an institution of higher education in Yaroslavl, Russia. In 1918, Yaroslav ...
, Russia, with a thesis on criminal law in the Torah and Talmud. In October 1924, Shtif drafted a memorandum entitled, ''Vegn a yidishn akademishn institut'' (''About a Yiddish Academic Institute''), in which he outlined a plan for an academic Yiddish institute and library. He proposed that the institute contain four scholarly sections: one for Yiddish philology; one for Jewish history; one to deal with social and economic issues; and a pedagogical section, which would include a bibliographic center, for collecting and recording publications in Yiddish. Shtif argued that the creation of an academic institute to support scholarship was a necessary step in the growth of Yiddish culture: "There arrives the time when every people at a certain level of cultural development must and wishes to participate directly in the scholarly work of the entire intellectual world." On March 24, 1925, the Central Education Committee (Tsentrale Bildungs Komitet or TSBK), the Vilna branch of the Central Yiddish School Organization (Tsentrale Yidishe Shul Organizatsye or TSYSHO) and the Vilna Education Society (Vilner Bildungs Gezelshaft or VILBIG) met to discuss Shtif’s memorandum, which they approved in a brochure entitled, ''Di organizatsye fun der yidisher visnshaft'' (''The Organization of Yiddish Scholarship'', Vilna, April 1925). At a conference held in Berlin, on August 7 to 12, 1925, Shtif, along with
Max Weinreich Max Weinreich ( yi, מאַקס ווײַנרײַך ''Maks Vaynraych''; russian: Мейер Лазаревич Вайнрайх, ''Meyer Lazarevich Vaynraykh''; 22 April 1894, Goldingen, Russian Empire – 29 January 1969, New York City) was a Russ ...
and Elias Tcherikover, among others, came to decisions about the research and publishing programs, and the organizational structure of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, commonly known as
YIVO YIVO (Yiddish: , ) is an organization that preserves, studies, and teaches the cultural history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia as well as orthography, lexicography, and other studies related to Yiddish. (The word '' ...
. With as yet only limited funds, the research sections of the new institute – organized essentially along the lines that Shtif had proposed – began their work, at first both in Berlin and in Vilna, in fall 1925.Kuznitz (2014), p. 68.


Last years

Shtif, while involved in organizing the YIVO in Vilna, was lured by the unprecedented scale of state-sponsored Jewish cultural development in the Soviet Union, particularly in Ukraine. In 1926, he was invited to oversee the Kiev Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture (previously known as the Chair or Division for Jewish Culture at the
Ukrainian Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU; uk, Національна академія наук України, ''Natsional’na akademiya nauk Ukrayiny'', abbr: NAN Ukraine) is a self-governing state-funded organization in Ukraine th ...
). At the same time, he launched a professional philological journal, ''Di yidishe shprakh'' (''The Yiddish Language''; 1926-1930), later called ''Afn shprakhfront'' (On the Language Front; 1931-1933), which he also edited. He also continued to publish articles on the history of Yiddish literature and language, on language planning, on the development of Yiddish spelling, and on issues of stylistics. For a short time, he directed the Kiev Institute, but later headed only its philological section. Yoysef Liberberg, a Communist Party member, replaced Shtif as director of the Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture. In 1928, both men were severely criticized for attempting to bring
Simon Dubnow Simon Dubnow (alternatively spelled Dubnov, rus, Семён Ма́ркович Ду́бнов, Semyon Markovich Dubnov, sʲɪˈmʲɵn ˈmarkəvʲɪtɕ ˈdubnəf; yi, שמעון דובנאָװ, ''Shimen Dubnov''; 10 September 1860 – 8 Dece ...
to Kiev as a guest of honor for a ceremonial opening. Shtif died at his desk in Kiev on 7 April 1933, while attempting to vindicate himself of the charge made against him in Soviet Russia for his bourgeois and “provincial Yiddishist approach.”


References


External links


ייִדן און ייִדיש "Jews and Yiddish" (in Yiddish)
by Nochum Shtif, Warsaw, 1920
Papers of Nokhem Shtif
RG 57; YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, NY. {{DEFAULTSORT:Shtif, Nochum Linguists from Russia Russian publishers (people) Russian philologists Lithuanian Jews Russian Jews Writers from Kaunas 1879 births History of YIVO Linguists of Yiddish 1933 deaths 20th-century Russian translators Jewish translators