Vilna Jewish Periodicals of the 19th Century: Publishers, Authors and Envisioned Readers

Abstract

Periodical press of the Jewish enlighteners, maskilim, was born with the Haskalah movement itself in the second half of the 18th c., in Germany. It evolved further in Austria-Hungary, and later in the Russian empire. The first maskilic periodicals of Russian empire, the Hebrew magazines Pirche Tsafon („The Northen Flowers“) and Ha-karmel („The Mount of Carmel“), were published in Vilna. An important goal of the Haskalah movements, in the Western as well as the Eastern Europe, was the realization of a broad educational and ideological program aimed at the constructing of a new Jewish identity that will dull some of its traditional elements while enriching it by new ones, those that would bring the Jews closer to the culture of their immediate surroundings and the world culture in general. The paper discusses the content of the Vilna maskilic periodicals, the strategies of the editors and authors, the projected audience and attempts of forming it, and tries to ascertain the success of this enterprise.