Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

How ‘Oyfn Pripetshik’ Traveled the World

Anyone observing the past century of Russian music may wonder why, in spite of all discouragements, so many Jewish overachievers managed to compose and perform immortal music? This basic question is masterfully addressed in a forthcoming book, out today from Yale University Press, “The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire.”

Written by James Loeffler, a University of Virginia history professor who studied with Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi at Columbia University, this new study deftly negotiates such facts as how shortly before World War I, when Jews made up less than 5 percent of Russia’s population, over half of the violin students in the St. Petersburg Conservatory, including greats like Mischa Elman and Efrem Zimbalist, were Jews.

A central figure in “The Most Musical Nation” is the composer and pianist Anton Rubinstein, who, after the notorious 1880s pogroms, told a journalist: “I never felt so close to Jews as I did then, when such a terrible storm burst out against us…In proportion to how much I grew older, my sympathy for my fellow tribe members grew even more.”

Populist expressions of similar emotions resulted in folk-like songs, such as Mark Warshawsky’s lastingly popular “Oyfn Pripetshik,” which, due to its inclusion on the soundtrack of the Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” has now genuinely traveled the world.

Loeffler notes that the advancement of Jewish musical culture and performing careers was in large part due to the benevolence of a philosemitic composer Alexander Glazunov, who lorded over the St. Petersburg Conservatory for many years. Glazunov famously confided to Mischa Elman’s father: “In nine cases out of ten, the mere fact that the entering student was a Jew was sufficient indication of talent.”

With such active encouragement, small wonder that such talents as Joseph Achron, composer of the famous 1911 “Hebrew Melody,” recorded by the child prodigy violinist Josef Hassid, as well as the prodigious theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore (née Reisenberg), herself a product of the Russian violin school, flourished.

Loeffler’s lively and informed study goes far to explain how and why, soon after a period of ghastly pogroms, Russian Jews were able to make such beautiful music in different genres that even today’s audiences are still admiring it.

Watch the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Student Union Chorus performing “Oyfn Pripetshik” in 2007:

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.