Autobiographical Parabasis. Mojżesz Kaufman (1880–1936) and the Politics of Historical Writing
Autobiographical Parabasis. Mojżesz Kaufman (1880–1936) and the Politics of Historical Writing

Summary/Abstract: Mojżesz Kaufman is best known, if at all, for his two historical accounts, largely autobiographical, of the Jewish militancy within the ranks of the PPS (Polish Socialist Party) before and during the Revolution of 1905. The texts were published in Polish in the 1930s in the journal Niepodległość (The Independence) edited by former PPS militants. The aim of the paper is to provide re-reading of these accounts informed by (1) the analysis of manuscript versions written both in Polish and Yiddish (Kaufman probably hoped to publish the Yiddish version in the third volume of Historishe shriftn fun YIVO), preserved in the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto (Ringelblum Archive), and of the typescript of Kaufman’s other texts meant for publication in Niepodległość (The Independence), preserved in the Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw; (2) the review of Kaufman’s biography with a focus on two elements hitherto unnoticed by scholars: his imprisonment for communist activity in 1923, and his involvement in anarchist militancy at the time he wrote his historical essays. The paper explores the tension between last stages of Kaufman’s life and the tone of his historical writings, and – in Hayden White’s terms – traces the transformation of Kaufman’s narration from Metaphoric to Ironic. It suggests regarding Kaufman’s historical works as deeply ironic reflection on failed dreams that fueled his political engagement in the Polish socialist movement at the turn of centuries, and at the same time as an important political manifesto addressed to his old party comrades who in the 1930s were a part of the ruling elite in Poland.

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