s of South Russia, where the two extremes, stagnant Hasidism and
radical Russification, fought for supremacy. The founder of this branch
of Jewish literature was Osip (Joseph) Rabinovich (1817-1869), a
Southerner, a native of Poltava and a resident of Odessa. [1] Alongside
of journalistic articles he wrote protracted novels. His touching
"Pictures of the Past," his stories "The Penal Recruit" and "The
Inherited Candlestick" (1859-1860) called up before the generation
living at the dawn of the new era of reforms the shadows of the passing
night: the tortures of Nicholas' conscription and the degrading forms of
Jewish rightlessness.

[Footnote 1: See above, p, 219.]

The fight against this rightlessness was the goal of his
journalistic activity which, prior to the publication of the _Razswyet_,
he had carried on in the columns of the liberal Russian press. The
problems of inner Jewish life had but little attraction for him. Like
Riesser, he looked upon civil emancipation as a panacea for all Jewish
ailments. He was snatched away by death before he could be cured of this
illusion.

Rabinovich's work was continued by a talented youth, the journalist Ilya
(Elias) Orshanski of Yekaterinoslav (1846-1875), who was the main
contributor to the _Dyen_ of Odessa and to the _Yevreyskaya
Bibliotyeka_. [1] To fight for Jewish rights, not to offer humble
apologies, to demand emancipation, not to beg for it, this attitude
lends a charm of its own to Orshanski's writings. His brilliant analysis
of "Russian Legislation concerning the Jews" [2] offers a complete
anatomy of Jewish disfranchisement in Russia, beginning with Catherine
II. and ending with Alexander II.

[Footnote 1: Compare above, p. 220 et seq.]

[Footnote 2: The title of his work on the same subject which appeared in
St. Petersburg in 1877.]

Nevertheless, being a child of his age, he preached its formula. While a
passionate Jew at heart, he championed the cause of Russification,
though not in the extreme form of spiritual self-effacement. The Odessa
pogrom of 1871 staggered his impressionable soul. He was tossing about
restlessly, seeking an outlet for his resentment, but everywhere he
knocked his head against the barriers of censorship and police. Had he
been granted longer life, he might, like Smolenskin, have chosen the
road of a nationalistic-progressive synthesis, but the white plague
carried him off in his twenty-ninth year.

The literary work of Lev (Leon) L