Zionism and the fin de siècle : cosmopolitanism and nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky / Michael Stanislawski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stanislawski, Michael, 1952-

Series:

S. Mark Taper Foundation imprint in Jewish studies

The S. Mark Taper Foundation imprint in Jewish studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Zionists--Biography.

Zionists.

Zionism--History--20th century.

Zionism.

History.

Nordau, Max Simon, 1849-1923.

Nordau, Max Simon.

Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 1880-1940.

Jabotinsky, Vladimir.

Lilien, Ephraim Mose, 1874-1925.

Lilien, Ephraim Mose.

Politics and culture.

Nationalism.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xxi, 282 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2001]

Summary:

Michael Stanislawski's provocative study of Max Nordau, Ephraim Moses Lilien, and Vladimir Jabotinsky reconceives the intersection of the European fin de siecle and early Zionism. Stanislawski takes up the tantalizing question of why Zionism, at a particular stage in its development, became so attractive to certain cosmopolitan intellectuals and artists. Using hundreds of previously unavailable documents, published and unpublished, he reconstructs the ideological journeys of writer and critic Nordau, artist Lilien, and political icon Jabotinsky. He argues against the common conception of Nordau and Jabotinsky as nineteenth-century liberals, insisting that they must be understood against the backdrop of Social Darwinism in the West and the positivism of Russian radicalism in the fin de siecle, as well as Symbolism, Decadence, and art nouveau. The latter movements also defined the artistic and symbolic development of Lilien, the first important Zionist iconographer. When these men turned to Zionism, Stanislawski says that, far from abandoning their aesthetic and intellectual preconceptions, they molded Zionism according to their fin-de-siecle cosmopolitanism. Showing how cosmopolitianism turned to nationalism in the lives and work of these crucial early Zionists, this story is a fascinating chapter in European, Russian, and Jewish cultural and political history.

Contents:

1. Cosmopolitanism, Zionism, and Assimilation: The Case of Theodor Herzl 1

2. Max Nordau, the Improbable Bourgeois 19

3. Nordau and Novikova: Romance with an Antisemite and the Road to Zionism 36

4. Nordau's Zionism: From Heine to Bar Kochba 74

5. From Jugendstil to "Judenstil": Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in the Work of Ephraim Moses Lilien 98

6. Vladimir Jabotinsky, from Odessa to Rome and Back: "Dichtung and Wahrheit" 116

7. Jabotinsky's Road to Zionism 150

8. Jabotinsky's Early Zionism: From "In the City of Slaughter" to Alien Land 178

9. Vladimir Jabotinsky, Cosmopolitan Ultra-Nationalist 203.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 267-275) and index.

ISBN:

0520223969

0520227883

OCLC:

44391763