Brenner In French: A Forgotten Essay on Y. H. Brenner's Literary Work, Paris, 1913

Abstract:The article presents a forgotten manuscript of the first extensive critical evaluation of Y. H. Brenner's literary work, a complete dissertation written in French by Shmuel Homelsky-Sagiv (Kiev, 1892–Tel Aviv, 1966) and submitted to the Sorbonne University, Paris, in 1913. It was composed under the supervision of Nahum Slouschz (Smorgon, 1872–Tel Aviv, 1966). Homelsky's work on Brenner has hardly been mentioned in later research, due mainly to the publication of a shortened Hebrew version in the journal Hatsefirah following Brenner's death in 1921. This later version was assumed to be a mere translation of the earlier French dissertation, and the important differences between the two were ignored. No critical writing preceding Homelsky's 1913 dissertation either addressed Brenner's complete work or assessed its chronological development. In this article, I present the archival findings that led me to read Homelsky's French dissertation. I then discuss his pioneering attempt at a typology of the modern Jewish protagonist in Brenner's writings. In the second part of the article, I proceed to a detailed study of the context in which the dissertation was written in pre–World War I Paris. Homelsky's "French Brenner" is situated at a rare historical moment, disclosing important parts of the ideological maze from which the modern Jewish protagonist emerged. This is closely bound up with what I call "the other legacy" of Jewish-European modernism, adding new information regarding the provenance and conception of the Hebrew talush ("uprooted person").