ABSTRACT
The rise and fall of Berdichev's 'untypical, but very characteristic Jewish community', in the words of the economic historian and demographer Jacob Lestshinsky, is one of the most fascinating pages of Russian Jewish history. Yisroel Aksenfeld's depiction of Berdichev is brief and fragmentary, but it captures important features of the town's character in a fashion that suggests the future symbolism of Mendele. Maskilim, the champions of enlightenment, were not the only party to utilize Berdichev's commercial character for the purposes of their propaganda. Hasidim, their opponents on the traditionalist side, were no less keen to use commercial metaphors in their critique of Jewish materialism and selfishness. Saltykov's anonymous ironic narrator is somewhat similar to the figure of Mendele Moykher Sforim, the fictional author/editor/narrator in the Yiddish novels of Abramovitsh. Friedrich Gorenshtein's play echoes many of the themes from the works of his predecessors. Some of the satiric effects have associations with the early Yiddish comedy of the Haskalah.
