Sir Toggenburg of the Shtetl: Friedrich Schiller in the East European Jewish Imagination

The German writer Friedrich Schiller was arguably the most important non-Jewish writer for east European Jews. Although these readers revered him even more than they did his contemporary Goethe, they often treated Schiller’s works as middlebrow fiction that was most appropriate for women—as exemplif...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polin 2025, Vol.37, p.217-238
Main Author: Gollance, Sonia
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:The German writer Friedrich Schiller was arguably the most important non-Jewish writer for east European Jews. Although these readers revered him even more than they did his contemporary Goethe, they often treated Schiller’s works as middlebrow fiction that was most appropriate for women—as exemplified by ‘Friedrich Schiller’, a 1919 short story by Galicia-born American Yiddish writer Fradel Shtok, which describes the inner life of a young Jewish woman in Galicia who develops an increasingly elaborate fantasy about her favourite German writer as her quiet life is rocked by the forces of modernity. Shtok suggests that an obsession with Schiller comports with a Jewish girlhood in a refined family. As such, this story provides a new perspective on how German literature was viewed—and reclaimed—by Yiddish-speaking Jews.
ISSN:0268-1056
2516-8681
DOI:10.3828/polin.2025.37.217