Tsu der erefnung fun Teater-studye Kultur-lige(Opening of the Theater Studio of the Kultur-lige), Kiev, 1921. (Hillel Kazovsky)
Kultur-lige
(Culture League), general name of a number of cultural and social organizations formed in the 1920s and 1930s in Eastern Europe as well as in certain countries of Western Europe and the Americas. The Kultur-lige was founded in Kiev during the period of the Central Rada (the Ukrainian Council that declared an independent state in January 1918), early in 1918. Its aim was to promote the development of all spheres of contemporary Yiddish culture, including education, literature, theater, art, and music.
Kultur-lige had the support of the Ukrainian Ministry of Jewish Affairs as well as of a coalition that included Jewish socialist parties, left-wing Zionists, and Folkists. Its founding conference (in April 1918) created its main administrative bodies, a central committee, and an executive bureau. Prominent cultural and political figures became members of these bodies, including Dovid Bergelson, Nakhmen Mayzel, and Yekhezkl Dobrushin. Moyshe Zilberfarb was elected head of the executive bureau.
At first, Kultur-lige’s activities were restricted to the sphere of Jewish culture, and in fact the organization served simply as an auxiliary organ of the Ministry of Jewish Affairs. After the ministry’s liquidation under Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, who ruled Ukraine from April though November 1918, Kultur-lige inherited the ministry’s financial assets, the cultural institutions it had created, and many of its functions. In fact, Kultur-lige began to play the role of an organ of Jewish autonomy in Ukraine. The largest Jewish cultural and professional associations supported it, and some actually formed Kultur-lige’s central organizational subdivisions—its “sections” (...).
By the summer of 1918, Kultur-lige had gained a leading position in Ukrainian Jewish social and cultural life (...) Organizations modeled on the Ukrainian Kultur-lige, and using its name, appeared at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919 outside Ukraine, in Petrograd, Crimea, Minsk (where Ester Frumkin supported its creation), Grodno, Vilna (where Zalmen Reyzen became one of its leaders), and Białystok. For a short time, these organizations were formally considered branches of the central Kiev organization, but they quickly became independent. In late 1919, Kultur-lige organizations were also founded in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Chita in the Soviet Far-Eastern Republic, and Harbin.
Until the beginning of 1920, the Ukrainian Kultur-lige remained the largest and most important of all these organizations, thanks to the scope and variety of its activities. After the Bolshevik takeover of Ukraine, Kultur-lige enjoyed the support of Soviet authorities. Virtually all Jewish cultural institutions established under the new regime were founded and administered by Kultur-lige’s representatives. At the same time, the organization remained autonomous, though it received generous subsidies from the state budget (...).
During the second half of 1920 the Evsektsiia, which was consolidating its position in the Ukraine, tried to take control of Kultur-lige. As a result of this campaign, in December 1920 Kultur-lige was forcibly taken over by the Communists, its central committee was dissolved, and in its place an organization bureau consisting almost entirely of Communists was created. Most of the educational institutions belonging to Kultur-lige were nationalized and handed over to the Jewish Sections of the People’s Commissariat of Education. In the provinces, this process proceeded more slowly than in Kiev. However, by 1922 Kultur-lige branches almost everywhere had been turned into appendages of Soviet bureaucratic organs directed by Jewish Communists. Many of the provincial branches were closed down and their properties confiscated. Kultur-lige activity in Ukraine at this time came to almost a complete standstill, becoming limited to irregular cultural activities in Kiev. Its press was reorganized into a joint stock company. The name Kultur-lige was retained, but only an insignificant share of the stocks was granted to the Kultur-lige organization.
Kultur-lige associations in other Soviet republics suffered a similar fate. The previously existing or recently opened branches in Minsk, Vitebsk (Vitsyebsk), and Gomel (Homel’) became inactive and were soon liquidated. Kultur-lige formally existed until 1924, and was a member of the Jewish Public Committee to Aid Victims of the War and Pogroms (JPC; Rus., Evobshchestkom; Yid., Yidgezkom or Idgezkom; existed from 1920 to 1924), established by the Soviet government in order to receive and control the distribution of funds from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). After the JPC was dissolved, Kultur-lige’s last institutions in Kiev (the art and music schools) were handed over to the People’s Commissariat of Education. There is no evidence of Kultur-lige activities in the USSR after 1924. The Kultur-lige Press was officially closed down in 1931.
In Poland, efforts to create a Kultur-lige organization that would serve the whole country were undertaken in 1921, after several members of the liquidated Kiev Kultur-lige’s central committee came to Warsaw. They tried to make use of existing branches of Kultur-lige in the eastern regions of Poland, in Vilna, Grodno, Białystok, and elsewhere, and they also enjoyed the support of the Fareynikte, Po‘ale Tsiyon, and Folkist parties. However, their efforts were opposed by the Bund, which sought to monopolize leadership in the cultural sphere. Nevertheless, at a conference in Warsaw in autumn 1921, it was decided to create a Kultur-lige covering all of Poland. New branches were founded in Warsaw, Łódź, and other towns.
The Kultur-lige Press of Warsaw was founded in 1922, and soon occupied a leading place in the Yiddish-language book market. In addition, the publication of the critical bibliographical periodical Bikher-velt, formerly of Kiev, was renewed. The leaders of Kultur-lige assisted in producing a weekly magazine, Literarishe bleter, in 1924; it eventually became one of the most important Yiddish literary and artistic periodicals. Kultur-lige also played a prominent role in developing the Yiddish-language school system. In eastern regions of Poland, cooperating with local Jewish educational organizations, it directed schools and high schools. It played an active role in the activities of TSYSHO (the Central Yiddish School Organization).
The Polish Kultur-lige’s intensive cultural work, together with its constant shortage of financial resources, brought it to the verge of bankruptcy. This grave situation deepened into a crisis and led to a split in leadership. Finally, in 1925 the Polish Kultur-lige was completely subordinated to the Bund and began to implement the cultural programs of that party, organizing lectures and a People’s University of Culture, and subsidizing theatrical performances and concerts for Jewish workers. Kultur-lige’s leaders were now appointed from among the party functionaries of the Bund, and in practice it became the Bund’s “cultural section.” In this form, Kultur-lige continued its existence in Poland until World War II.
In the 1920s, efforts were made to create Kultur-lige organizations outside of Eastern Europe. In 1922, Dovid Bergelson organized a Kultur-lige in Berlin. It continued to exist for about two years as an intellectual club of Yiddish-speaking Jewish cultural figures. The Kultur-lige of Paris, founded at the end of the 1920s by a group of Jewish Trotskyites, played a similar role. In the United States, Kultur-lige was founded in 1922 by Ezra Korman, at first in New York, and then in Chicago. In 1926, it became part of the Arbeter-ring (Workmen’s Circle). In 1935, Kultur-lige organizations were established in Mexico and Argentina, where they took part in developing Yiddish schools and promoting publishing projects.