Life and Legend of Zelman Wolfowicz
Life and Legend of Zelman Wolfowicz

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on the legend of Zelman Wolfowicz in statu nascendi; that is, in the case files of his hearing at the royal commissioners’ court, as well as in other judicial records. Those documents provide us with many details about Zelman’s life, but also contain stereotypes and fantasy. It is not possible to definitely sort fact from fiction in the life story of Zelman Wolfowicz, but we can analyse how his legend was created during his life as well as later, in ethnography, historiography, and the popular press of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. This article discusses the existing historiography of Zelman Wolfowicz and then tries to reconstruct his biography on the basis of historical sources, by separating legendary threads from historical data. The legendary aspects are the subject of a separate analysis in the subsequent section. Finally, an attempt is made to explain the way in which Zelman Wolfowicz came to his position in the royal estate and how he succeeded in exercising his informal power for such a long time.

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