To the Readers of Literarishe monatsshriften

The Yiddish literary critic Shmuel Charney, who adopted the pen name Shmuel Niger as a young revolutionary and writer, grew up in fervently Hasidic surroundings in the Belorussian region of the Russian Empire. At the age of seventeen, in the middle of advanced religious studies, he abandoned religious observance. Becoming active in widening Jewish intelligentsia circles that advocated a mix of socialist and cultural nationalist ideas before and during the 1905 Revolution in Russia, he devoted himself thereafter intensely and exclusively to the cultivation of modern secular Yiddish literature and culture. By 1907 and 1908, he had begun to emerge as a leading champion of the fledgling Yiddishist movement and as the most influential Yiddish literary critic of the next decade. Fiercely committed to the idea that Yiddish should become the chief language of Jewish culture while Jews recast themselves as a secular diasporic nation, he also demanded that the Jewish intelligentsia approach Yiddish literature and culture as valuable ends in themselves rather than subordinating them to narrow party-political agendas or treating them merely as disposable tools of popular enlightenment, famously articulated in 1908 in the short-lived but influential journal Literarishe monatsshriften. Within the literary sphere, Niger emerged as a champion of the neo-Romantic aesthetics of the mature Y. L. Peretz and the young Sholem Asch, and more generally as an enthusiast of all forms of literary creativity that, in his view, had the potential to help bring about a “Jewish national renaissance.” In later years, Niger also wrote pioneering work in Yiddish cultural and literary history, including an influential essay on the role of women readers in the shaping of modern Yiddish literature. In 1919, disillusioned with the Russian Revolution and barely escaping death at the hands of the invading Polish army, he left Vilna for New York City, where he played a central role in the American Yiddish cultural scene as a literary and cultural critic. Among his more notable later works was a pioneering Yiddish biography of Y. L. Peretz and a book-length defense of the equal value of Hebrew and Yiddish as languages of modern Jewish creativity. 

His exact intent in taking the pen name Niger, pronounced according to most sources like the American racist epithet, is unknown. It does seem that he meant to invoke associations with contemporary racism directed at African-Americans and people of African descent generally, and he may even have meant the racist epithet that the Yiddish pronunciation of his pen name elicits. Possibly he also meant to evoke the meaning of his real name, Tsharni/Charney, which is linked to the Slavic root for the color black. Most scholars find it hard to imagine that he identified with white racism, however. It seems much more likely that he chose the moniker out of a sense of his own targeted status as a revolutionary and/or Jew under the oppressive tsarist regime. In scholarly terms, Niger is the standard transliteration of the name under which readers will find all his Yiddish work. For this reason, the Posen Library retains the pen name as the author’s primary identifier.

Born in Benakani, Russian Empire (today in Belarus), to a religious family that ran an inn, Ayzik Mayer Devenishki received a traditional upbringing from his grandfather. Exposed to works of the Haskalah as well as Russian and Polish literature while studying in Smargon, Devenishki eventually turned away from his observant background, joining The Bund soon after its formation in 1897. He became a prolific propagandist for The Bund, working in Kovno, Vilna, and Minsk to promote the cultural program of the party. Tsarist authorities exiled him to Siberia for his political work, and after his return in 1905, he settled in Vilna, where he participated in the 1905 revolution. Employing the pen name A. Vayter, he then began a modest literary career, contributing short stories to the Yiddish press and trying his hand as a playwright. In 1908, Vayter collaborated with Shmuel Niger and Shmarye Gorelik to found Literarishe monatsshriftn. In 1911, he took over management of Boris Kletskin’s publishing house in Vilna. Again exiled to Siberia, he made his way back to Vilna in 1918, working to promote Yiddish culture as the city passed back and forth between various regimes. He was murdered by Polish soldiers when Polish forces occupied Vilna in 1919.

Born in Lokhvytsia, Russian Empire (today in Ukraine) and given an education that combined traditional and maskilic dimensions Shmarye Gorelik moved to Vilna around 1890 and began a writing career contributing to Russian-language newspapers. Initially aligned with The Bund, Gorelik adopted Zionism around 1905. In 1908, he cofounded Literarishe monatsshriftn, a monthly Yiddish literary magazine, with Shmuel Niger and A. Vayter (Ayzik Mayer Devenishki). Gorelik spent the duration of World War I in Switzerland, where he continued to write and was imprisoned for six months. He moved in 1933 to Palestine, where he contributed to several papers, including Ha’aretz. Gorelik later lived in the United States.