Title:

From Paris to Izmir, Rome, and Jerusalem: Armand Lévy as the Missing Link between Polish Romantic Nationalism and Zionism

Subtitle:

Acta Poloniae Historica T. 123 (2021), In Memory of Professor Jerzy W. Borejsza

Creator:

Silber, Marcos (1934– )

Institutional creator:

Polska Akademia Nauk. Komitet Nauk Historycznych ; Polska Akademia Nauk, Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla

Contributor:

Instytut Historii Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Publisher:

Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe

Place of publishing:

Warszawa

Date issued/created:

2021

Description:

p. 95-116

Subject and Keywords:

nationalism ; Zionism ; Romanticism - political aspect ; Mickiewicz, Adam (1798-1855) ; Lévy, Armand (1827-1891) ; Hess, Moses (1812-1875)

Abstract:

This article focuses on Armand Lévy, Adam Mickiewicz’s secretary, as the missing link between Romantic Polish nationalism and proto-Zionism. It examines Lévy’s interpretation of Adam Mickiewicz’s use of Jewish motifs and how Lévy’s interpretation provided his friend and neighbour in Paris, Moses Hess, a German-Jewish socialist, colleague and rival of Karl Marx, with a repertoire he had lacked to structure his proto-Zionist ideas.The article discusses how ideas from one cultural sphere were transferred to others. Mickiewicz, seeking to find ways to strengthen the Polish nation-building process following the partition of his motherland, used his interpretation of the contemporary Jewish Diaspora as a model. His secretary, the Frenchman Armand Lévy, reinterpreted Mickiewicz’s interpretation. His convoluted life course eventually led him to think about the Jews in nationalist terms via the discursive tools he acquired from Mickiewicz. Going beyond the latter’s views, Lévy regarded the Jews as a diasporic nation aspiring to gain political statehood. He championed Jewish messianism as a concrete step towards the Jews’ sovereignty. This, in turn, provided Moses Hess with a repertoire he had lacked until this point: namely, an acquaintance with Jews who were committed to renewing the sovereign Jewish life as of old.The article shows how Armand Lévy – a person acting in a sociological ‘contact zone’, i.e. in a social space where cultures meet, clash, and grapple – was able to cross the boundaries of Frenchness, Polishness, Jewishness, cosmopolitanism and nationalism, transferring motifs between Jewish and non-Jewish émigrés in complex ways which provoked unexpected results.

References:

Borejsza Jerzy W., Sekretarz Adama Mickiewicza: (Armand Lévy i jego czasy 1827–1891) (Gdańsk, 2005).
Katz Jacob, Leumiyut yehudit masot u-mekhkarim (Jerusalem, 1979).
Scheps Samuel, Armand Lévy: compagnion de Mickiewicz – révolutionnaire romantique (London, 1977).
Shimoni Gideon, The Zionist Ideology (Hannover–London, 1997).
Silber Marcos, ‘Stateless Nation: A Reciprocal Motif between Polish Nationalism and Zionism’, in Kenneth B. Moss, Benjamin Nathans, and Taro Tsurumi (eds), From Europe’s East to the Middle East: Israel’s Russian and Polish Lineages (Philadelphia, 2021), 87–116.

Relation:

Acta Poloniae Historica

Volume:

123

Start page:

96

End page:

116

Resource type:

Text

Detailed Resource Type:

Article : original article

Format:

application/octet-stream

Resource Identifier:

0001-6829 ; 2450-8462 ; 10.12775/APH.2021.123.04

Source:

IH PAN, sygn. A.295/123 Podr. ; IH PAN, sygn. A.296/123 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

eng

Rights:

Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. [CC BY-ND 4.0] May be used within the scope specified in Creative Commons Attribution BY-ND 4.0 license, full text available at: ; -

Digitizing institution:

Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Institute of History PAS

Projects co-financed by:

National Programme for the Development of the Humanities

Access:

Open