LA GUERRE, LA RÉVOLUTION RUSSE ET LE SIONISME, DISCOURS PRONONCÉE... À LA CONFÉRENCE DES SIONISTES RUSSES À PETROGRADE, LE 24. MAI - 6. JUNI 1917
Copenhague [Copenhagen], Imp. Martius Truelsen, 1917. Item #43403
1st edition. Original printed paper wrappers, 8vo, 22 pages, 23 cm. In French. Title translates as, “The War, The Russian Revolution, and Zionism.”
“publie´ par le Bureau d'organisation sioniste a` Copenhague 1917.”
The Petrograd Conference was the “seventh national conference of the Russian Zionists and the first after the February 1917 Revolution. It opened on June 6, 1917. Five hundred and fifty-two delegates, representing 140,000 shekel holders from 680 cities and towns, took part in the conference.
In the new Russia, the conference demonstrated the growing power of Zionism among Jewry and defined the Russian Zionists' attitude toward the problems of the World Zionist movement and the upbuilding of Erez Israel. It discussed the specific problems of the Russian Jews under the democratic regime with the hope of expanding the movement, which up to that time had acted mainly illegally.
Jehiel Tschlenow [E.W. Tschlenow, this imprint’s author] and Menahem Ussishkin were elected as presidents of the conference.
In his programmatic address, Tschlenow said that the main task of the conference was to lay the foundations for Jewish national autonomy in Russia, as well as to emphasize the Jewish people's aspiration to return to Erez Israel. Ussishkin spoke of the need to immediately mobilize Jewish capital for settlement work, especially for the purchase of land, and to train pioneer workers….
This seven-day conference was the last free countrywide expression of the Russian Zionist movement before the October Revolution of the same year became the starting point of its persecution and liquidation” (Arie Rafaeli-Zenziper in EJ).
Tschlenow opens his speech with great hope and excitement at the recent revolution, welcoming the attendees “to this first meeting in free Russia, you who come to publicly proclaim the hope of our people yearning for liberty and rebirth, and who come to discuss our future work. Nowhere else, it seems to me, could we find, at present, such a resounding echo as in this city, where, barely three months ago, the heavy links of the chain that had bound the life of the immense Empire were broken.
For about a century, since the glorious advent of the Decembrists, the invisible preliminary work had been underway….How much innocent blood was shed! In this blood, we are proud to note—there is also some of our own, Jewish blood. Well then, in this solemn moment, let us recall the memory of those who did not have the joy of greeting the present hour, this hour that makes up for all sorrows….
Only three weeks have passed since Russia won its freedom and the Provisional Government, in cooperation with the Soldiers' and Workers' Council, washed away the stain that had defiled Russia for centuries. I am referring to the disgrace known as "the deprivation of the rights of the Jewish people." It seemed that this stain had become one with the very flesh of the Russian people and that only blood could remove it. Well, no.
The great purifying torrent of the Revolution washed away the filth in a single stroke, irrevocably and without suffering. The sorrowful history of our people knows no other example of the destruction of such a vast ghetto, nor of a liberation established with such simplicity, on the one hand, and accepted with such dignity, on the other. We enthusiastically salute the Provisional Government and beg it to believe in our support and devotion to the heroic work of freedom and greatness for Russia that it has undertaken….
On March 21st, the weight of a burden under which Russian Judaism had been collapsing was lifted. Our hands, so long chained, were freed. The immensity of space unfolded before our minds, before our eyes, still unaccustomed to such splendor. It is precisely at this moment that we, the Russian branch of the Jewish people, will be able, thanks to our accumulated strength and energy, to tackle the national edifice, the work of addressing the great national problems….”
He concludes:
“...here are the walls of the immense ghetto that have just crumbled. And soon the other ghettos will follow, too. Principles of a new life, springing from the global struggle, carry within them the realization of the most beautiful, the most sacred of dreams, which has always shone on the painful path of our wandering people….
We, gentlemen, aspire to our place in the sun, not only to warm ourselves better, but also for other, more generous reasons. We are certain that when our people live a normal life on their own soil, their national genius will fully unfold; we are certain that then the era will be reborn when they created not only for themselves but also for humanity, the era when they produced eternal books and proclaimed eternal truths. A long, sunlit road stretches before us. We live by this faith. It is this faith that inspires us. It is with this faith that we will win!”
Yefim Vladimirovich Tschlenow (1863-1918) was a “Zionist leader. Born in Kremenchug, Ukraine, into a well-todo hasidic family, Tschlenow studied medicine in Moscow where his family had settled in 1876. He graduated as a physician in 1888 and became a well-known practitioner.
The pogroms of 1881 turned Tschlenow from a sympathizer with the revolutionary populists (Narodniki) into a Jewish nationalist.
In 1883 he became active in the Moscow Hibbat Zion group, Benei Zion (to which Menaem Ussishkin, Jacob Mazeh, and Abraham Idelson belonged). After some hesitation, he joined Herzl 's Zionist Organization and attended Zionist Congresses.
Tschlenow presided at the all-Russian Zionist Conference in Minsk in 1902. During the Uganda controversy at the Sixth Zionist Congress (1903), Tschlenow left the hall after the vote in favor of Herzl's proposal and 128 other opposition delegates followed him. He published a series of articles in the Zionist press against the Uganda scheme entitled ‘Zion and Africa.’
At the Helsingfors Conference (1906), he was an articulate promoter of the idea that the political goal of Zionism must be closely associated with immediate settlement work in Erez Israel and particularly with large-scale purchases of land….
From 1908 he was head of the Zionist Movement in the Moscow district and developed extensive activities, including the arrangement of meetings and conferences, opening of information offices on questions of Jewish education, publication of programs for the study of Jewish history, and preparation of catalogues for Jewish libraries.
In 1909 he organized a group of Russian Jewish investors that established the farm Migdal on the shores of Lake Kinneret. He also actively supported the settlement work of the Odessa Committee. Since the general trend in the Zionist Movement was in this direction, Tschlenow's role steadily increased. He was a member of the board of the Jewish Colonial Trust .
At the Tenth Zionist Congress he was elected to the Zionist Executive, and at the 11th Congress (1911) he was elected vice president of the Executive (under Otto Warburg ). He moved to Berlin and directed Zionist activities from there. In 1912 he again visited Ere? Israel. During this visit he laid the cornerstone of the Haifa Technion, as a member of its governing board, and purchased the plot of land on which the Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv was later located.
Forced to leave Berlin at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Tschlenow returned to Russia (1915). By the end of that year he was in London for consultations with Na?um Sokolow and Chaim Weizmann on the political situation and the program of the movement. During the war he was active in aiding Jewish refugees expelled from the front area by the Russian army command.
After the February Revolution in Russia (1917) Tschlenow headed the all-Russian Zionist Convention in Petrograd [where he gave this speech]. In July 1917 he left for London, where he participated in the negotiations that led to the Balfour Declaration. He died in London” (Mark Perlman in EJ)
For more on Tschlenow, see is biography [S. Eisenstadt (ed.), Yehi'el Tschlenow (Heb., 1937) as well as: N. Sokolow, History of Zionism, 1 (1919), index; A. Boehm, Die zionistische Bewegung (1935), index; Y. Gruenbaum, Penei ha-Dor, 1 (1958), 137–48; S. Kling, in: Herzl Year Book, 6 (1965), 83–108.
OCLC: 307880. OCLC locates only 7 copies worldwide, only 2 in North America (Harvard & HUC). Bound with double wrapper (the exact same identical cover with blank rear cover twice) with some light wear and staining on the outer wrapper and then the inner wrapper cleaner and bright with a European Jewish institutional stamp. Light toning, touch of spotting and rust at staple, thus a very well-preserved copy of this scarce Zionist publication from within the unfolding drama of the Russian Revolution. Very Good Condition (ZION2-4-10-XX).
Price: $300.00