Laughing on the Verge of Disaster: The Tradition of Yiddish Satires in Poland in the Interwar Period

Satire has been a crucial genre in the development of modern Yiddish literature. It accompanied its development from the beginning of the 19^th century and was one of the central ingredients in the creations of the three classics (Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem Aleykhem and Y. L. Perets). Although some aspects of this genre have already well been studied, like the (mostly anti-hassidic) satirical tradition embodied by writers such as Perl, Aksenfeld, Linetski, or the profusion of satirical periodicals which appeared in Russia in the wake of the 1905 revolution, the interwar period in Poland has not yet been fully analyzed in this respect. It has several interests: first of all, Yiddish literature had already entered a stage of maturity, its literature could rely on the foundations laid by the classics and satire had to build upon this heritage. Secondly, Poland was an independent republic in which Jews had to define their own fate and satire, as a way to chastise and to favor reforms, had to deal with most of the issues Jews faced in this new state. Thirdly, in spite of the relative liberty that writers, journalists and theatres enjoyed, the threats the Jewish community was confronted with kept growing making it always more difficult to laugh from everything. My paper will focus not only on major representatives of the genre at the time, such as the fine satirist Yosef Tunkel but also on more or less ephemeral enterprises such as the periodicals “der Mekhabl” and “der Blofer”.