SH”Y KATSENELEBOGEN
He was a
poet, journalist, and playwright. Few of
his biographical details are known—even the initials Sh”Y are unclear. We only know that he descended from a Vilna
follower of the Jewish Enlightenment named Hirsh Katsenelenbogen, that he was
born in the 1840s or 1850s, and that he lived into the mid-1880s in
Odessa. He wrote poetry, plays, and
fables. He began writing poems in the
1860s, as we can see from his note to the poem “Dos yudel” (The little Jew),
that “this poem is not like the ‘Yudel’ of Goldfaden.” Goldfaden’s poem was published in a book in
1869 (and earlier in Kol mevaser [The
herald]). Two of his poems were
published in Tsederboym’s Yudishes
folksblat (Jewish people’s newspaper) (1884-1885). His poems differ according to content:
ethnic, lyrical, satirical, some of them poetic renditions of work by Heine,
Lermontov, Krylov, as well as from prayers and Sabbath melodies. On the frontispiece of his first book, Yudishe melodyen oder folks lieder
(Jewish melodies or folksongs), it reads after the title: “Written by R. Sh”Y
Kattsenellenbogen. Selected songs,
couplets, and fables from his written theatrical work: R. Sh”Y, Elkhonen (Elḥanan), Dos ferlorene kind (The lost child), Yudes (Judith), Der fayner kaptsn (The fine pauper), A sheyne mase vematn (A beautiful transaction), Kamlet prints gnilopyatski (Kamlet,
prince of Gnilopiat [?]), and more.” (Vilna: Avrom-Hersh Katsenelenbogen,
Publ., 1887) 11 pp. + 86 pp. The same
publisher brought out in 1914 a second edition under the title Lieder zamlung (Song collection),
thirty-eight selected songs and theatrical pieces. The listed plays, it seems, were not
performed, but they did stage his other two plays: Menakhem ben yisroel (Menakhem son of Israel), by Goldfaden in
Odessa and also Y. Y. Lerner; and Sh”Y
(in several places the drama was called Rsh”Y),
by a Yiddish troupe in Paris in 1889.
The latter was also published. As
Zalmen Reyzen wrote: “In fact, Katsenelenbogen’s songs excel in their
thoroughly regulated verse structure, an exceedingly rare benefit in Yiddish song
of that era, before Frug began composing Yiddish songs following the rules of
tonic meter.” He himself thought very
highly of his own material. In the
preface to his Yudishe melodyen, he
wrote: “Much better than these songs are exceedingly few which other authors
have composed until now in our zhargon
[Yiddish], because they have been assembled according to the laws and rules…of
the poetry…. Unlike this, others of our
poor poets write that their works must only rhyme, so that as long as they are
adjusted externally, they ignore them internally—they just need to rhyme.”[1] Leo Wiener notes that Katsenelenbogen “was
the most original and literary playwright of his time, including A. Goldfaden.” In 1861 there was published by Yoysef Ruvn
Rom a booklet entitled Mishle muser oder
krilovs fabelen (Musar proverbs or the fables of Krylov), 49 pp. The Russian subtitle was provided by “S.
Katsenelenbogen.” Zalmen Reyzen assumes
that this is the same person as Sh”Y Katsenelenbogen. The fact that the latter translated many of
Krylov’s fables into Yiddish corroborates Reyzen’s assumption.
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Reyzen, in Literarishe
bleter (Warsaw) 2 and 3 (1932); Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook
of the Yiddish theater), vol. 6 (Mexico City, 1969); Leo Wiener, Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century
(New York, 1899), pp. 76, 99-100, 238.
Berl Cohen
[1] Translator’s note. Katsenelenbogen actually rhymes
this last sentence in two places, apparently mocking those he is
criticizing. This is not reflected,
unfortunately, in my translation. (JAF)
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