The Redeemer

Moisei Fishbein appeared on the Ukrainian cultural horizon in the 1970s and has not gone unnoticed since. Recommending Fishbein for membership to the Union of Writers of Ukraine, Mykola Bazhan—known for his balanced assess­ments—emphasized Fishbein’s “amazing mastery for a beginner.”⁶⁰ When the copy of Vitchyzna containing Fishbein’s debut arrived at his correction colony, Ivan Svitlychnyi (the father of the Ukrainian dissident movement and a poet and a literary critic) celebrated Fishbein’s “fresh and exquisite” contribution to Ukrainian belles lettres.⁶¹ In his preface to Fishbein’s 1984 collection (contain­ing mostly poems written but not published in Ukraine), Iurii Sheveliov, a respected Diaspora literary critic, dubbed Fishbein a “post-Neoclassicist,” praised him for avoiding Ukrainian poetic sentimentalism, stressed his “philos­ophy of the ineffable,” and remarked that his poetry was worth reading and rereading because of the uniqueness of his voice.⁶² Reviewing Fishbein’s first publication in the West, one critic praised Fishbein’s “lucid Ukrainian style,” argued that the poet has “achieved an original vision and voice,” and suggested that his poetry be translated into English and other Western languages.⁶³

After Ukraine finally achieved formal independence in 1991, Maksym Strikha, a Ukrainian intellectual, public figure, scientist, and the author of a Ukrainian translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, claimed in a review of Apokryph (1996) that Fishbein’s poems would provide more entries in an anthology of Ukrainian verse than contributions by any other contemporary Ukrainian poet.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Fishbein also achieved popu­larity as a wit: Ukrainian news agencies often quoted his ironic sayings and short epigrams criticizing the regime. At the grassroots level, Fishbein made inroads into a new medium. In 2004, members of the popular online Live Journal dis­cussion group competed for the best translation of Fishbein’s verse into English and Russian. Online sources addressed him as “brilliant,” “very Ukrainian,” “ethnic Bukovinian,” “a fighter against bureaucrats,” and even “the people’s voice.” Entries about him appeared in Western encyclopedias, and in Ukraine he has been the subject of a master of arts thesis.⁶⁸ To be sure, Fishbein’s critics have been well aware of his Jewish identity, yet this has not diminished their en­thusiasm. The author of an article on Chernivtsi regarded the city as the birth­place of three wonderful poets: Rose Auslander, Paul Celan, and Moisei Fish- bein.⁶⁹ What has made Ukrainian poets, critics, journalists, and connoisseurs of literature praise the author of scarcely one hundred poems so highly?

First and foremost, it has been Fishbein’s stance on the Ukrainian national revival—a stance that could, with some caution, be dubbed messianic. Jewish messianism had produced, in the distant and recent past, various examples of national leadership. The name Moses, of course, is not uncommon for Jewish in­tellectual and public leaders: Moses took the Jews out of Egypt; Moses Mai- monides argued for the synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Judaism; Moshe ibn Ezra introduced Arabic meter and imagery into Jewish poetry; Moshe de Leon penned the major Kabbalistic opus Sefer ha-Zohar (Book of Splendor); and Moses Mendelssohn proved that Judaism was compatible with the European Enlightenment and gave his blessing to Jewish integration into European society.

Some messiahs claimed that Jews in the Diaspora should dissolve themselves into Roman, Hellenistic, Russian, or German civilization. Others argued that Jews should leave the Diaspora for good and reestablish their own civilization in the Land of Israel. Fishbein claims dual citizenship: one, Israeli, and the other, a metaphorical “citizenship of the Ukrainian language.” Fishbein’s claim that he is an Israeli citizen residing permanently in the realm of the Ukrainian language has a point. There were Jewish messiahs who argued that their mission was to re­deem the Jews; after all even Jesus declared that he had come to the sheep of the Israeli flock. There were other messianic figures of Jewish origin who claimed they had come to redeem all of humankind. Until Fishbein, there were no Jew­ish messiahs who sought to redeem a semi-forgotten language or a despised cul­ture or a colonial or postcolonial gentile nation. Moisei Fishbein is the first. His redeeming effort targets a nation that has been as mistreated and victimized as the Jews, yet is not Jewish; a nation that is an inseparable part of humanity, yet not all of humanity; a nation that Jews have regarded through the centuries as in­herently antisemitic and a nation that is argued to have treated Jews for centuries as enemy aliens.

Fishbein sees himself not as a regular Ukrainian-Jewish poet but as a Jewish messiah sent to Ukraine. Neither Kernerenko nor Kulyk, neither Troianker nor Pervomais’kyi dared make such a claim or would have found it absurd. The fol­lowing epigraph introduces Fishbein’s 1996 collection of poems: “I was sent to Ukraine from Above. Ukraine will exist eternally because I wish it to do so. The Ukrainian language was given to me from Above. It will exist eternally because I wish it to do so. I write poetry only when it is given to me from Above.” Fishbein presents his relationship with the Ukrainian language as divinely inspired. His Ukrainian is a grace that the authority “above” has bestowed upon him. He is nothing but an instrument in the redemptive scenario of the Almighty. As he uses it the Ukrainian language becomes instrumental in contacting God. Fish- bein borrows from the sanctity of the Judaic Holy Tongue, sanctifies the Ukrai­nian language, and places the sanctified Ukrainian in the gravitational center of his Jewish-Ukrainian symbolism. A language that had served only as a means of communication comes now, together with its medium, poetry, to perform a re­deeming function. The poet exalts and saves the language; the language exalts the voice of the poet, who attaches a divine function to it; and both the poet and the language partake of the redemptive effort targeting a fallen culture and an oppressed country. Speaking and writing Ukrainian is a salvific endeavor, a po­litical statement, and an anticolonialist gesture.

Although Fishbein’s messianic fervor is less palpable in his poetry than in his public appearances, it is still apparent. In a poem from 1993, he addresses the Ukrainian language as victimized, mistreated, and abused, yet pristine and im­maculate in its sanctity.

Untouched and raped, abused

And unblemished like the countryside— Imperceptible and untouched in rye— Melody, the words came into my dream. The winter darkness rolls

And their souls are drenched with mist.

Lean on me, my petty tongue, my Speech,

Unblemished, raped, and sacred.⁷²

Fishbein’s stance on the Ukrainian language is best addressed as “linguistic mes­sianism.” Its pathos has shaped Fishbein’s journalism, talks, interviews, poetry, prose, and conversation.

For Fishbein, the language bears responsibility for the entire Ukrainian cul­tural tradition. “I know Russian, and English, and German, as well as Hebrew and some Slavic languages, but I do not allow myself to speak Russian because the survival of Ukrainian, and consequently, of Ukrainian culture, the Ukrainian spirit, and of Ukraine itself, is at stake,” he says. Fishbein seems to be paraphras­ing Hillel, the famous Talmudic guru, albeit in a very different context: if I do not redeem Ukrainian from Russification, who will? Indeed, who dares publicly to denounce the profound Russification of the Ukrainian language (whereas al­most everybody in Ukraine takes it for granted and hardly anybody corrects the grammatical mistakes of their interlocutors)? Fishbein does. He corrects his Ukrainian-speaking interlocutors, sometimes to their dismay. This “linguistic mission” is part of his lofty calling as a bearer of the Ukrainian language; it is also part of his self-perception as a Jew coming to purify and redeem. For Fishbein, the fusion Russian-Ukrainian surzhyk—characteristic of the heads of the Ukrai­nian Orthodox Church, the MPs, various public figures and cabinet ministers, wealthy and influential tycoons, television stars—betrays a vexing reality: from the linguistic viewpoint, its users are denationalized individuals representing the profound assimilation of Ukraine’s cultural elite.

As a messianic figure, Fishbein needed a prophet to enunciate his coming and his revelation, a prophet capable of demonstrating the continuity between Fishbein and his illustrious predecessors, justifying his messianic pretensions, and prefiguring his advent. There were very few figures capable of assuming this role. Fishbein chose another classic Ukrainian writer—significantly, not Shev­chenko, but Lesia Ukrainka (Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka, 1871-1913), whom, because of her consistent philosemitism, both Pervomais’kyi and Fish- bein associated with the entirety of Ukraine, its people, its language, and its cul­ture.

In the poem “Krym: Osin’” (The Crimea: Autumn), Fishbein addresses Lesia Ukrainka with a friendly patronymic and charming vocative—“Laryso Petrivno”—and, revealing his hidden agenda, unexpectedly replaces Lesia with a different addressee:

I am seeking your voice—perhaps I will hear its flight,

The echo will resonate in the seaside. So I found one day—

Laryso Petrivno, Lesiu, my Ukrainian—Ukraine,

The country that flew to an unconceivable height.

In the autumn wind I am looking for your prophetic word,

In the cold autumn Crimea I am looking for you, Miriam.⁷³

Fishbein finds a prophetic word (slovo proroche) endorsing and justifying his mission—and this word is articulated by the Ukrainian national poetess. Yet for him, as for any Ukrainian poet of stature, a dialogue with Lesia Ukrainka is nec­essary but not sufficient. The imaginary Lesia proves Fishbein’s credentials as a Ukrainian poet but not as an individual of messianic caliber, which would re­quire support from a text tantamount to Scripture. Therefore Fishbein ad­dresses Lesia Ukrainka as Miriam, the biblical wife of Moses, a prophetess. Only Moisei Fishbein and Lesia Ukrainka—Moses and Miriam, a national leader and a national prophetess—are privileged to redeem the Ukrainian language. Lesia Ukrainka thus obliquely testifies to Fishbein’s indisputable right to claim a Ukrainian literary heritage; as the biblical Miriam, she hints at Fishbein’s mes­sianic mission. The quality of Fishbein’s verse and his worldview makes this claim probable.

Fishbein sanctifies the Ukrainian language. He treats it as a two-way con­ductor between himself and the Almighty. Fishbein “hears” the call from on high in Ukrainian—and in the same Ukrainian he returns his pleas, petitions, supplications, and dirges to his sublime addressee. If poets from Taras Shev­chenko and Panteleimon Kulish to Oxana Zabuzhko cast biblical psalms in Ukrainian, Fishbein crafts psalms of his own, psalms regretfully absent from the Bible. He “nationalizes” or “Ukrainizes” Hebrew biblical poetry. The Ukrai­nian tradition, he seems to argue, now has acquired its original psalmody— Fishbein’s poetry: let modern Hebrew poets recast it in their Hebrew, this re­vived biblical tongue! To be sure, Fishbein recreates a corresponding genre in Ukrainian, as if Ukrainian is and has ever been the genuine biblical medium. Thematically and metaphorically, there is hardly anything in the Prophets or Scriptures similar to Fishbein’s imagery. He composes the apocryphal psalm as if crafted by a person dying in the Auschwitz crematorium (“Tenebrae: Psa- lom”). He complains to God of the theological emptiness of the postcatastrophe world (“Hospody, porozhnio v nashii hospodi”; Lord, it is empty in our house­hold). He asks the Almighty to judge him—“Onde, Otche, ondechky. Sudy” (Here, Lord, over here. Judge us!). He imagines God as the God of the vine, as She (“pozanebesna moia okhorono,” my supracelestial guardian, and “storozha vysoka,” lofty protector; both cases are vocatives of the Ukrainian feminine sin­gular), and beseeches Her for a “swallow” of the “juice” of life. In “Pomizh ro- viv, kanaliv ta kanav” (Between Ravines, Canals, and Pits) he presents apoc­ryphal Gospel depicting a crucified God, “our God,” who fails to resuscitate.

Ukrainian becomes not only the language of yet another biblical apocrypha (this is, I suppose, the source of the title of his 1996 collection): it also turns into the language of Judaic liturgy. Whereas Celan only briefly mentions the Judaic mourning prayers, such as yizkor and kadish, in his poems, Fishbein crafts the Ukrainian for them. This is how his “Kol Nidrei”—the first prayer of the Day of Atonement—comes into being. Ukrainian is another sacred liturgical language, suggests Fishbein. On the eve of his emigration from Ukraine in 1978, he dedi-

cated a poem crowned by “there is still the silence of prayer on my lips” to Mykola Lukash.⁷⁴And on the eve of the 2005 Jewish High Holidays he recreated in his dazzling Ukrainian the Day of Atonement vidui, a penitential prayer whose recitation manifests the purification of personal and collective sins. Fishbein demonstrates that Ukrainian perfectly fits the most sublime Judaic liturgy. After all, who can reassure us that the Yom Kippur atonement works better in Hebrew than in Ukrainian?

Before purifying Jews with a prayer in Ukrainian, Fishbein, a high priest in the temple of Ukrainian culture, atones for the collective contamination of the Ukrainian language and calls on the Ukrainian people for its purification. At the Congress of Ukrainian Intellectuals (Konhres ukrains’koi intelihentsii) in 1995, he emerged as an ardent advocate of linguistic purity. For him, “purity” does not mean cleansing the language of dialecticisms. In fact, Fishbein argues for the incorporation of Ukrainian localisms, dialect vocabulary, archaisms, and neolo­gisms into colloquial speech. But the syntax and phraseology should be Ukrai­nian and the vowels—as against spoken Russian, never reduced in Ukrainian— should be properly vocalized. Let Russians suppress their vowels; Ukrainians must treat them with respect. Fishbein insists on the deliberate disassociation of Ukrainian language from Russian, and especially from Russian pop culture. Fishbein also insisted that Ukrainian cultural elites should make every effort to improve their knowledge of the Ukrainian language, which he sees as a guaran­tor—if not the guarantor—of statehood and independence. His linguistic ex­tremism, which rests on a vision of the universe and history as language-cen­tered, does not seem strange if one takes into account that Fishbein paid dearly for his Ukrainian. His personal journey considerably enhanced his sense of ex­clusion: the fact that his only true and faithful Ukrainian interlocutor in Israel was Borys Hrynchenko’s dictionary of Ukrainian usage from 1907 to 1909, tells volumes about his linguistic solitude. Yet it raised rather than diminished his self-awareness as a Ukrainian poet.

Unlike many Ukrainian emigres, Fishbein managed to take the Ukrainian language with him and preserve it, against the odds, in his journey through the Soviet army, in which Ukrainian was regarded as the medium of Ukrainian ul­tranationalism; through the Israeli purgatory, where immigrants preferred Rus­sian to any language, including Hebrew; and through the deceptive German par­adise, where—beyond the limited circle of the Free Ukrainian University’s unchanging group of very senior Ukrainians and the two-three people at the Ukrainian division of Radio Liberty in Munich—the Ukrainian language was no more than a second-world curiosity. IfFishbein had managed to preserve the language throughout his peregrinations, the people of Ukraine had all the more reason to do so.

The Ukrainian upheavals of the late 1980s and early 1990s, pregnant with the upcoming Ukrainian independence and cultural reorientation, broadened the spectrum of Fishbein’s linguistic messianism yet brought him little relief. On one hand, the new political leaders, the heads of the Ukrainian Popular Rukh among them, emphasized their adherence to the revival of the Ukrainian lan­guage and culture, in fact, the very concept of the “Ukrainian” perestroika. On the other hand, the former bureaucracy all too opportunistically adapted to the new national revival, undermining the integrity of post-Soviet Ukrainian na­tional slogans. Those Communist Party leaders who had harshly suppressed the Ukrainian national revival in the Shcherbyts’kyi era felt the winds changing and proclaimed themselves the champions of the Ukrainian national movement. Yesterday’s watchdogs of proletarian internationalism declared their whole­hearted support for Ukrainian national strivings.

Fishbein felt nothing but disgust watching those corrupt bureaucrats as­sume the role of leaders of the institutionalized national revival. His response was immediate. To convey it, he resorted to bitter sarcasm and to his idiosyn­cratic messianic imagery. Since Ukrainian history, from the perspective of his poetry, unfolded according to a mysterious redemptive scenario, it was logical to ponder yesterday’s persecutors of the national revival as “Judas” and the na­tional revivalists as “Jesus.” Jesus and Judas presented an excellent opportunity to look at the New Testament’s messianic plot through a Ukrainian prism. Fish- bein reimagined Jesus as a Ukrainian who suffered on the cross for his wish to re­deem the nation. And Judas assumed the role of the defector of the national movement who, under new circumstances, was the first to sing hosanna to the Ukrainian Jesus. The old traitors of the messianic cause turned into its apostles as soon as it became politically expedient to do so.

To all those phony converts and their denationalized followers who in the 1970s had sold their Ukrainian souls only to rediscover them suddenly in the 1990s, Fishbein addresses his 1991 “Apocrypha”:

Sweetness is the seasoning of sorrow,

Comforting is the shadow of the Cross.

A sweet word of grief is a caress,

A tickle in a beggar’s mouth—from where

You come and who you are, all have forgotten now,

Since His, “Forgive, they know not what they do.”

Cities are stifled in their violence,

A thousand-throated mob howls in the street,

While you, their leader, Judas Iscariot,

Raise your voice and glorify dead Christ.⁷⁵

Judas could and should not be preaching Christianity: if this were to happen, added Fishbein in his aphoristic epigraph to his poem, “the land where Judas preaches Christ” would never be happy. Fishbein, outraged by the cynicism of self-proclaimed Ukrainian patriots, lashes out at them with religious allegories full of venom.

Among late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century politicians the con­sensus was that Ukraine’s national survival required the cooperation of new na­tional-minded leaders and former dissidents of various political orientations, in­cluding former Communist apparatchiks and socialist populists, but Fishbein could neither agree with nor understand that necessity. Although Jesus in accor­dance with his own teaching would have forgiven Judas, Moisei Fishbein is not ready to forgive those who betrayed the national cause. He is too Jewish to en­dorse alliances with unrepentant Soviet Ukrainian collaborators. And his Jesus is too Ukrainian, human, and mortal to afford postmortem mercy to those who betrayed him, particularly because the miracle does not happen and he—u nas (among us, in our environment), emphasizes Fishbein—is not resurrected.⁷⁶ The mortality of his Messiah is seen not only in Fishbein’s treatment of Jesus but also in the sober assessment of his own linguistic messianism. Fishbein can­not change things on his own: he needs volunteers eager to help him to bear his Ukrainian cross. Perhaps, therefore, Fishbein expresses his readiness to embrace anyone in Kyiv—Ukraine’s regretfully Russified capital—who dares speak Ukrainian publicly.⁷⁷