Litvakes, Omelette Fight and our ‘Soviet Motherland’
Velvl TCHERNIN on his Yiddish background, fights between Galitzianers and Litvakes in Soviet Ukraine and tricky Estonian Yiddish
Velvl Tchernin is one of a kind — one of few contemporary Yiddish poets, he is also known as ethnographer, interpreter and theorist of Jewish literature. He was born and raised in Russia, his career of a Yidishe shrayber started in “Sovetish Heymland” (Soviet Motherland), Yiddish literary and political journal published in Moscow from 1961 to 1991, that was product of the post-Stalinist “thaw”.
There was a popular Soviet Jewish joke about this magazine: “What is “Sovetish Heymland?” — “It’s a magazine issued in Moscow, Jewish national in form, Anti-Semitic in content”
Below are fragments of Tchernin’s memoirs about the Soviet Yiddishkayt, “Family Tree”, published in Russian (translated from Yiddish) in “Yierusalimskiy Journal” (Israel) in 2008.
Yiddish-speaking Muscovite
“I was born in 1958 in Moscow. A bit weird birthplace for an Yiddish poet, nevertheless, a great Jewish poet Moyshe Broderzon was also born Muscovite. My age-mate and friend, poet Boris Karlov (Dov-Ber Kerler) also was born there. So there are three of us.
My dad also was born in Moscow. His father Mendel-Shmuel was born in the shteytl of Senno in Belarus. His sister, auntie Perl, was teaching me Hebraic alphabet on my request. My dad’s mom was not Jew, but Russian Cossack from North Caucasus. No wonder that my father could hardly speak Yiddish.
My late mother’s family was a source of Yiddish for me: I’ve learnt to understand and talk Yiddish there. My mom Zhanna was born in the shteytle of Piryatin in Eastern Ukraine. Her parents Aron and Dina were native of this region. They met each other in Piryatin after the Civil war (1918–1921). Since both of them were grown in villages, not in shteytlakh, Ukrainian was their mother tongue along with Yiddish. Mum studied in Ukrainian, not in Jewish school, though there were functioning Yiddish schools in Ukraine till the end of 1930s. She understood Yiddish, but she talked to her parents and to me mostly in Ukrainian and Russian.
When I was kid, almost every summer we visited Piryatin for vacations. About 40 Jewish families, who could survive after Shoah, lived there. Jewish area was concentrated in two streets: Proizdny lane and Zamkova street. There Yiddish was widely spoken in and out of doors. This being said, old Jews were speaking with kids, including me, in Ukrainian or Russian (if some of them could speak Russian…)
But “it was not the done thing” for them to talk to each other NOT in Yiddish. It was inappropriate. I remember there was a big news for Piryatin, when uncle Menya-Slepoy, my mom’s cousin, came to Piryatin, met uncle Yoseyf, my grand-dad’s cousine and greeted him: “Sholom-aleykhem!” And uncle Yoseyf, who lived all his life in Piryatin, greeted him back in Ukrainian: “Zdoroven’ki buly!” Uncle Menya-Slepoy had felt humiliated, and all the fellow villagers sympathized with him in his feelings.
Very particular kind of Jews
Nobody taught me Yiddish purposefully, but this agonizing language without official status and literary standards was always all around me. It was tied-in to this certain place. Other Jews spoke in a different way. For example, our neighbors, family of Shilman, who moved there from Gaisin. They were Galitzianers — their speech was more “melodic”, they also spluttered and used vowel “i” instead of “u”. People of Piryatin’s speech was nothing of melodic, they were not in a hurry and said “ey” instead of literary “oy”. But it didn’t mean they were Litvakes.
Litvakes were a very particular kind of Jews. For instance, my paternal grand-dad. One day he came to visit relatives in Piryatin and obviously was speaking his Belarusian Yiddish.
The neighbor Shilman had reproached me: “Your grand-dad is Litvak!” — “So what?” — I asked. — “Litvakes are the most rancid people in the world! When they cook borschtik, they don’t slice beetroot, but put it as a whole thing into a saucepan!” — explained Shilman.
But G-d is good. This dispute was settled fairly, Shilman’s daughter married Litvak and left with him to Moscow.
Litvish nuances
“In 1981, when I’ve got my university degree, Yiddish course was launched at the Higher Literary Training Courses in the Moscow Gorky Literary Institute. Only post-graduates, fluent in Yiddish and recommended by Aron Vergelis, chief-editor of Sovetish Heymland, qualified. I’ve got it all.
Thus and so, I was enrolled in the course, and there were only five of us: Moyshe Pens, Lev Berinsky, Alexander Brodsky and Boris Sandler were my fellow learners. I was the youngest.
We often spent weekends in Kaunas or Vilnius (then Lithuanian SSR).
Lithuanian Jews were not assimilated as much as their Muscovite fellows. A lot of my age-mates, guys and girls, spoke Yiddish. Lithuania was the land of a real proud Lithuanian Jews, whose self-appellation was “Litvak”: they put the accent on the last syllable. They chaffed at my Yiddish, as well as Piryatiners chuckled at my Belarusian grand-dad (who also considered himself Litvak).
“What is dos meydl?” — they questioned. — “You should speak ‘di meydl’!”
When I was explaining that the word “meydl” (girl) is of neuter gender, they laughed, saying that no one wants a neuter gender girls! Was funny.
Culinary-philological Jewish war
One of my friends was Avi Nedzvetsky from Tallinn, Estonian Jew. Once he came to Moscow together with other guy from Tallinn, Samuel Lazikin.
They both were fluent in Yiddish, though it was special, sounded very German. I asked them if they want to eat a fried eggs — prezhenitse, as I used to name it in my Yiddish. Avi and Samuel have never heard this word.
“What is a prezhenitse?” — they asked.
“Well, it’s a fried eggs, “yaitchnitsa” — I tried to explain this word in Russian.
But Samuel’s Russian was very far from perfect, he didn’t know what does “yaitchnitsa” mean.
“Velvl wants to say ‘fan-kukhe” — explained Avi.
This was the first time when I’ve heard this word.
“Well, guys — I said. — Jak reydala, to reydala, aby dobra meynala… Take skovrede (frying pan)”
But my guests also were not familiar with this term. “What is skovrede?” — they asked me. — “It’s a skovorodka (frying pan)” — I again tried to explain it in Russian. — “But frying pan in Yiddish is “fan” — they said. — “No, fan is a saucepan!” — I said. — “Saucepan in Yiddish is top!” — they objected.
I’ve disagreed again. — “Top is a earthenware pot. How do you name earthenware pots in Estonia?” — “Estonia is not Ukraine. It’s a civilized country, we never cook in earthenware pots!” — Ari tried to humiliate me.
After all we cooked in skovrede a big prezhenitse, more accurately, fan-kukhe.
