THE RADICAL HASKALAH: A LOSS OF OPTIMISM

THE intellectual world of Russian maskilim in the 1860s and 1870s was marked by internal change and revisionism that led them to question the basic premisses of the maskilic sense of the past. There was struggle and strife, not only between the traditional camp and the maskilic élite but also within the ranks of the standard-bearers of modernity in Jewish society. Rifts were evident among the maskilim, leading to the formation of distinct groups. The Haskalah's diversification during this period resulted from the emergence of a new generation of young maskilim, some of whom were sharply opposed to the older generation, including both its Orthodox members and the founding fathers of the Haskalah. These developments also occurred against the background of other changes during the reign of Alexander II in Russia: the government's policy of Russification, growing Russian cultural influence on Jewish intellectuals through the schools and the universities, and the penetration of concepts and ideals espoused by the radical Russian intelligentsia into the maskilic consciousness. Some of the maskilim had also begun to have second thoughts about the entire maskilic ideology, largely as a result of their frustration and disillusionment about an imminent solution to the ‘Jewish question’ in Russia and their scepticism about the chances of the Haskalah's overwhelming success within the general Jewish community.

The maskilim began to re-examine the fundamental concepts of the Haskalah and to ponder the role of the Hebrew language. Was there any need to continue to encourage it? What attitude should be adopted towards the Russian government? Had the time come to press their demands on the rabbis and to call for a new, updated Shulḥan arukh? Should they continue their extreme anti-hasidic approach? Ought they to continue to follow the tradition of the Berlin Haskalah? These and other questions became the focus of public debate in the 1860s and 1870s, leading the maskilim to the recognition that the very concept of the Haskalah was far from self-evident and monolithic. ‘The word Haskalah’, Moses Lilienblum wrote in 1872, ‘has not yet been sufficiently defined.’

In the 1860s the radical maskilim burst onto the stage of the Haskalah in Russia, provoking a protest from within the maskilic camp.