THE GALICIAN MASKILIM

IN the mid-1810s, a circle of maskilim gradually formed in eastern Galicia that included Jewish intellectuals and writers, most of them young men in their twenties or thirties, born after the Austrian empire had annexed Galicia from Poland in 1772. This group of maskilim, most of whom lived in the three large communities of Brody, Lvov, and Tarnopol, introduced the Haskalah movement to eastern Europe. Although there were individual maskilim before this period, no cohesive maskilic movement with literary forums and clearly formulated worldviews was yet in evidence. The Galician Haskalah may be viewed as one segment of a Haskalah network that encompassed the maskilim of the entire Austrian empire. The reformist policy of the enlightened absolutist regime in the time of Joseph II, Herz Homberg's tireless activity to establish new Jewish schools, and the support of the maskilim by wealthy Jews in Vienna and Prague were salient features of the historical background to the growth of the Haskalah in Austria at the end of the eighteenth century and its spread to provincial cities in Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary.

In their development and activity the Galician maskilim were closely allied to the Austrian Haskalah. Anton Schmidt's printing-house, for example, was an important focal point uniting the Haskalah movement throughout the entire empire, and it published a great many works by Galician maskilim. Samson Bloch Halevi (1784-1845), one of the leading figures of the Galician circle of maskilim, worked there for a short time as a proof-reader. The ‘Vienna press’ was regarded as a maskilic institution and symbol by both the maskilim themselves and their Hasidic opponents, as is evident from the satires written by Joseph Perl (1773-1839) and Isaac Baer Levinsohn (1788-1860). During their travels to other lands to sell subscriptions to their books, the maskilim enjoyed the support of the communities of Bohemia, Moravia, and Hungary. Some maskilim studied at universities in Vienna and Prague. Isaac Erter (1791-1851) studied medicine in Budapest, and Hayim Ginzburg, the son of Dov Ginzburg, one of the founders of the Haskalah in Brody, studied art at a Viennese academy. Solomon Judah Leib Rapoport (1790-1867) maintained contacts with maskilim in Moravia; for example, he gave much encouragement to Joseph Flesch (1781-1841) for his research and his translations of Philo's writings.