ABSTRACT
The key dichotomy, which framed the interpretation of Sholem Aleichem throughout the entire Soviet period, was articulated already around 1918. Sholem Aleichem occupied the central place in Oyslender's scheme. Combining Mendele's panoramic vision of the Jewish community with Peretz's insights into individual psychology, Sholem Aleichem created the symbolic shtetl image of Kasrilevke as a comprehensive metaphor of Jewish existence. It might come as a surprise that both critics focused on Sholem Aleichem's humour as the most characteristic feature of his writing, which in their view revealed his essentially petty-bourgeois character. Wiener rejected the view of Sholem Aleichem as a 'consoler' of the petty bourgeoisie who deliberately perpetrated historical illusions. He viewed the large number of unhappy endings in Sholem Aleichem's works as an additional proof of the writer's commitment to realism. Unlike Mendele and Peretz, who remained firmly embedded in their socio-cultural contexts, Sholem Aleichem was turned into a timeless universal figure of the 'folk writer'.
