evanda (1835-1888) was of a more
complicated character. A graduate of one of the official rabbinical
schools, he was first active as teacher in a Jewish Crown school in
Minsk, and afterwards occupied the post of a "learned Jew" [1] under
Muravyov, the governor-general of Vilna. He thus moved in the hot-bed of
"official enlightenment" and in the headquarters of the policy of
Russification as represented by Muravyov, a circumstance which left its
impress upon all the products of his pen. In his first novel, "The
Grocery Store" (1860), of little merit from the artistic point of view,
he still appears as the naive bard of that shallow "enlightenment," the
champion of which is sufficiently characterized by wearing a European
costume, calling himself by a well-sounding German or Russian name (in
the novel under discussion the hero goes by the name of Arnold),
cultivating friendly relations with noble-minded Christians and making a
love match unassisted by the marriage-broker.

[Footnote 1: In Russian, _Uchony Yevrey_, an expert in Jewish matters,
attached, according to the Russian law of 1844, to the superintendents
of school districts and to the governors-general within the Pale.]

During this stage of his career, Levanda was convinced that "no educated
Jew could help being a cosmopolitan." But a little later his
cosmopolitanism displayed a distinct propensity toward Russification. In
his novel "A Hot Time" (1871-1872), Levanda renounces his former Polish
sympathies, and, through the mouth of his hero Sarin, preaches the
gospel of the approaching cultural fusion between the Jews and the
Russians which is to mark a new epoch in the history of the Jewish
people. Old-fashioned Jewish life is cleverly ridiculed in his "Sketches
of the Past" ("The Earlocks of my Mellammed," "Schoolophobia," etc.,
1870-1875). His peace of mind was not even disturbed by the
manifestation, towards the end of the sixties, of the anti-Semitic
reaction in those very official circles in which the "learned Jew" moved
and in which Brafman was looked up to as an authority in matters
appertaining to Judaism. [1] But the catastrophe of 1881 dealt a
staggering blow to Levanda's soul, and forced him to overthrow his
former idol of assimilation. With his mind not yet fully settled on the
new theory of nationalism, he joined the Palestine movement towards the
end of his life, and went down to his grave with a clouded soul.

[Footnote 1: Levanda sat side by sid