ABSTRACT
This chapter leads us into 1900s and the 1910s, the formative years of Lev Simkhovich Vygodsky, a young man in the provincial town of Gomel at the western outskirts of the Russian Empire, and then, in 1913–1917, a student at the Moscow University. We see the protagonist as the person genuinely interested in the issues of Jewish history and culture, theatre, and literary criticism. His persona as the “prophet” emerges in his writings on the fate of the Jewish people, his criticism of “New Jewry” and socialism, and, in contrast, a prophetic and messianic call for the Jewish orthodox return to the traditional values of the nation.
