#Bovo bukh

[yiddishknights]

Do you all know the 16th century Old Yiddish chivalric epic Bovo d'Antona? Have you ever wanted to read a facsimile of the original 1541 edition? In vaybertaytsh font and everything? The Yiddish Book Center's got one fully digitized.

[aeide-thea]

beautiful & also terrible to have the sort of brain where you find yrself at 4:30 AM looking up intersections between jewishness & arthuriana. like. fucking amazing rabbit hole but. why am i not asleep. my head hurts and my eyes are sandy.

however. some cool things (that probably some of you knew abt already, but i did not!):

King Artus – "a 'Hebrew Arthurian Romance of 1279… Judaized and transformed.' […] Although the story in 'King Artus' is fairly straightforwardly Arthur’s as we know it today, there are little touches that tie it to Jewish literature. When, for example, Arthur’s mother, the Duchess, learns that her husband is dead and she has been deceived by the shape-shifting Uther Pendragon, she tries to figure out how that could be possible. 'No sooner had he gone more than a bow-shot’s distance away from the castle than the messenger came straight to my chamber.' That bow-shot’s distance comes not from Arthurian legend but from the story of Hagar, who sits a bow-shot’s distance away from her son Ishmael when Abraham casts them out and she does not want to see her son die."

Bovo-Bukh – "a chivalric romance adapted in 1507 by Elye Bokher (Elijah Baḥur *Levita) into 650 ottava rima stanzas in Yiddish from a Tuscan version (Buovo d'Antona) of the early 14th-century Anglo-Norman original, Boeuve de Haumton. This tale of the heroic adventures of the noble Bovo, exiled from his homeland by the machinations of his murderous mother, his wanderings through the world (as far as Babylon), and the love story of Bovo and Druzyana, their separation, his triumphant return home, and the final reunion with Druzyana and their two sons, proved to be one of the most beloved tales in the Yiddish literary tradition over the course of more than two centuries."

Vidvilt – "anonymous 15th–16th-century Yiddish epic. This Arthurian romance of the chivalric adventures of Sir Vidvilt (and his father Gawain), based on Wirnt von Gravenberg's 13th-century Middle High German Wigalois, proved to be one of the most enduringly popular secular narratives in Yiddish literary history, with numerous manuscript recensions, printings (the first in an extensively expanded version by Joseph b. Alexander Witzenhausen, Amsterdam 1671), and reprintings, in rhymed couplets, ottava rima (Prague 1671–79), and prose, over the course of three and a half centuries. The anonymous poet of the earliest Yiddish version composed more than 2,100 rhymed couplets (probably in northern Italy), following Wirnt's plot rather closely through the first three-quarters of the narrative (abbreviating much and generally eliminating specific Christian reference), before offering quite a different conclusion."

Sir Gabein – "from 1788-89, a tale in which the Arthurian knight Gabein does not return to Camelot but – via Russia and Sardinia – reaches China and ultimately ascends to the Chinese imperial throne as the new emperor." slow blink.

also this is getting beyond arthuriana into just epic poetry generally but. literally all of this sounds fascinating.

anyway. literary scholar manqué.e hrs as always here at k dot tumblr dot edu obviously! however. my ear is open like a greedy shark, &c.

[we-are-knight]

So, it’s Passover, and I wanted to put out some Jewish focused content that related to Knighthood and chivalry. But as you can imagine, with Knighthood being tied closely to Christianity in the West, straight examples are hard to find...

So I’ve got for you a work of fiction that is a Jewish Chivalric Romance, and the first non-religious Yiddish text produced: Bovo-Bukh, a Yiddish Chivalric Romance.

Linked above is the Amazon.co.uk copy I’ve found with translation for the Yiddish-deprived (such as Knight).

So what is it about?

Basically, it takes the story of Bevis of Hampton, and re-works it by changing some character names, downtoning Christian themes, and swapping some for Jewish themes. It’s not a straight example of Jewish literature for various reasons, but it plays heavily into Chivalric romance territory, having themes of romance, betrayal, heroism, magic swords, good defeating evil, and ultimately a happy ending!

If you can read Yiddish and want a copy, download it HERE. Otherwise, buy a translated copy like Knight will probably do.

Happy Passover

...and remember: while Jewish Knights may not have existed as direct examples, Knighthood itself is a romantic ideal. Like the tale of Bovo, anyone that aspires to be and behaves like a Knight, is far more worthy of that lofty title than many real life examples. Be the change you wish to see. That alone, brings to life the tales of Knights like Bovo, in a way history alone never will.

[healand]

Bovo-Bukh - בָּבָא-בּוּך, בּאָבאָ-בּוּך (1541)

[dr-treyf]

gut yontiff. on shvues, you're supposed to stay up late learning about jewish stuff, and later tonight i'm going to give the rambly presentation below to my jewish community group. hopefully they don't kick me out. i don't say "death to israel" but i make my allegiances pretty clear. i hope you enjoy the song attached if you've never heard it before.

-----

Yiddish...what is it? what is language? what is culture? what is civilization?

i'm being coy and speaking in silly grandiose terms, but if there's one thing i want people to take away from this, it's is that yiddish was an entire civilization, a way of living and understanding life.

yiddish is a 1,000 year old language -- pieces of yiddish writing have been found in the cairo geniza in egypt -- and it is a global language. one yiddish writer called it the most widely spoken language in terms of geography.

if you've heard of the PEN international association of writers and its clubs that are based on geography...yiddish was the first international PEN club admitted to its ranks and they had to go through a unique application process because they had 'headquaters' in a number of countries.

i also don't think it's a coincidence that the guy who invented esperanto, the universal language, was a native yiddish speaker.

so yiddish is a civilization and for me this has enabled it to fill a unique role.

and i might start speaking in vague terms again...but i have another preface:

in many ways i feel alienated from the normative jewish community, inasmuch as i remain a straight white male. i feel alienated -- or rather, i see alienation and deep division within the jewish community -- because of my politics.

i also want to say that the rest of what follows is in good faith. as i get to know people in this group i don't want to troll anyone. the positions that i've come to come from a long-time engagement with jewish issues in a variety of settings, academic, professional, activist. writing and corresponding with others.

but i would be remiss if i spoke about yiddish without speaking of the jewish radical tradition, which i believe has been suppressed within the jewish community. and so for me my identity as a marxist and anti-zionist -- as well as an atheist, which is not super important because atheism has no real content or goal -- aligns very much with an attachment to yiddish. if it weren't for yiddish i would have a much harder time feeling jewish.

so the point is that -- and i wrote about this for jewish currents -- our way of life does not allow for the adequate cultivation of this thing we call jewish identity. assimilation has a political explanation: jews have become wealthier, and we have become attached to nationalism. this has entailed casting off yiddish-ethnic identity.

and so i'm getting rambly but i want to tie this back to yiddish being civilizational:

you've probably heard the phrase old wives' tale, or in yiddish a bubbe mayse.

well that comes from a yiddish adaption of an italian romance story from the early 15th century called the bovo bukh. bovo was the name of a knight. it sounds similar to bubbe. it was an outrageous tale and thus became associated with made up stories that your grandmother might tell you. this is yiddish language understanding the world and putting its own spin on it.

another example: in the 17th century, after a devastating series of pogroms, a rabbi wanted to help jews cope with and understand the horror. he wrote, in yiddish, about how demons who work in the underworld control the machinations of evil people on earth. so in the absence of any sort of political or scientific understanding, jews turned to yiddish and demons to make sense of bad shit.

and as we move along in the history of yiddish civilization we come to socialism.

we're going to sing a yiddish socialist song shortly, but briefly: as a socialist and yiddish lover living in 5778, what is the role of yiddish absent a robust yiddish society? well, i believe per the literary theorist and marxist frederic jameson, that we can study culture and tease out a buried historical narrative that has important things to say about world events and political economic systems.

so for a language that was created through a series of migrations and oppression and spoken across borders; and then brought to the edge of extinction by fascism; and was suppressed by other jews in the name of building a nation for ourselves (yiddish plays were banned in israel for a while); we can begin to craft a radical yiddish tradition.

This song, called Barikadn (barricades), was written by Shmerke Kaczerginski, a communist who was 15 at the time. He was orphaned in WWI – note the line that describes pots and pans as orphans. He was a member of the Paper Brigades of the Vilna Ghetto in WWII, responsible for rescuing numerous literary and religious works (there’s a new book out about them). He also fought as a partisan with the Soviets. He died in Argentina in 1954 after living mostly in Poland and Paris.

I associate two things with children throwing rocks: in the early 20th century, when the lower east side was mostly immigrants, sight-seeing tour buses would go through and kids would throw rocks at them; second, there are people resisting oppression, which is being carried out by our people, and their only recourse against heavily armed border guards is throwing rocks.  the song is linked here. 

[flagsasiapacthoughts]

First printed books in various languages and scripts

As I have mentioned - a few times - of the first printed book containing Burmese abugidas, it's only fair to tell you all, about the history of printing press in relations to other scripts.

[The order is a compromise between chronological and my heart.] Done in Chinese logograms, the first-ever known printed book, in recorded history and still in existence, is“Jikji” (1377 AD). Place of Publication: Cheongju. (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6300067k/f42.image)

The most widely-used - in the World (Global North and Global South) - Roman script

The first Roman-script and also first-ever book to have been printed in Europe is The Gutenberg Bible. Place of publication: Mainz (1455 AD), in Latin language. (http://www.gutenberg-bible.com/)

For the English language, the first printed book is William Caxton's translated work ”The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye” (1473 AD); original was in French. Place of publication: speculated to be Bruges or Ghent. (http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126577.html) 

In New Zealand, first printed book are the earliest Maori-language translations of the Bible (1837 AD). Place of publication: Paihia. (https://teara.govt.nz/en/publishing/page-1) 

In Spanish language, it is ”Sinodal de Aguilafuente” (1472 AD). Published in Segovia. [NB. this text is a diocesan synodal proceedings record, rather than a work of an individual author.] (http://www.sinodaldeaguilafuente.com/joomla/images/stories/triptico-2018.pdf)

In High German, “Der Ackermann aus Böhmen” by Johannes von Tepl (1461 AD) has this honour. Published in Bamberg (http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/15Jh/Tepl/tep_tod.html) 

Semitic scripts

In Yiddish literary history, first known printed texts are ”Mirkeves hamishne”, “Azhores noshim”  by David Kohen, “Den muser un hanhoge” by Asher ben Yeḥi’el in their Hebrew original and Yiddish translation,and  “Ka‘arat ha-kesef” by Yosef ha-Azuvi (1534-1535 AD), published in Cracow. First printed non-religious book in Yiddish was Elia Levita's “Bovo Bukh” (1541 AD), printed somewhere in Papal States. (

https://archive.org/stream/nybc207004?ref=ol#mode/2up

&

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Yiddish_Literature/Yiddish_Literature_before_1800

) 

Finally, in Standard Arabic, the first printed text is  “Kitab Salat al-Sawa'i“ (A Book of [Christian liturgical] Hours) by Gregorio de Gregorii (1514 AD), published in Fano. (http://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?entryid=402 & https://www-jstor-org.ez.library.latrobe.edu.au/stable/26400278?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents)

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_books#List_of_notable_printing_milestones

[smallbutviciousblog]

“Why is this knight different from all other knights?”