Bunt i melancholia. Obraz życia anarchisty w Memuarn fun Lejbn

Abstract

The subject of the paper is a unique autobiographical text written in interwar Poland by a Jewish anarchist. A small booklet in Yiddish, Memuarn oder shpliters fun a lebn fun Leybn (also known as Memuarn fun Leybn) was published in 1933 in Łódź; the Polish translation appeared in 2017 under the title Memuary albo okruchy z życia Lejba. In the first part of the paper the author of the text, Leyb Berkenvald, known as “Leyb the Anarchist,” is identified and described, with a focus on the social milieu to which he belonged, and his position on the map of interwar anarchism. In the second part, Leyb’s autobiography is analyzed from the perspective of the microhistory of affects to reveal an alternative form of male subjectivity emerging from the text, which countered the dominant, heteronormative model of masculinity. This specific form of subjectivity is interpreted – both in its hopes and disappointments – in the context of an unattainable messianic community which Leyb strove to conceive.

Keywords

• Leyb Berkenvald
• “Leyb the Anarchist
• ” Jewish anarchism
• individualist anarchism
• history of affects
• queerstory