In his three­paneled dust jacket—designed to wrap around the entire The dust jacket reproduced here is held by the Research Library of the book—Lissitzky made a pronounced move away from the figurative, Chagall­ Getty Research Institute. It is one of only three known complete examples like traits of his colorful lithographs toward an abstract, Cubo­Futurist lan­ and it belongs to the small edition of seventy­five copies of the Had gadya guage consisting of fractured planes and triangles in ocher, black, and violet. 16 book that Lissitzky made in 1919. That so few of the dust jackets have sur­ The dust jacket bears no date but must have been completed sometime vived may be explained by the fact that they were less sturdy than the book after 6 February 1919, the date on the title page, and before he arrived in and so may have fared less well, particularly in children's hands. Also, whole Vitebsk in May The complete verses of the Passover song appear on the copies of the 1919 edition may have been destroyed during the Stalin era. left­hand interior panel of the dust jacket, while on the right­hand panel a cir­ Though primarily in Yiddish, which in Russia had a longer life in print than cle overlaps a large polygon. In the center panel, set within another polygon, Hebrew since it was considered a proletariat language, the book would none­ are two smaller geometric shapes, each of which represents the Hebrew let­ theless have been associated with the traditional Jewish Passover service ter yud ('). Yudyud is one of several ways of expressing the name of God in and so may have been more vulnerable to government censorship. Hebrew letters. These letters are balanced by two other angular letters on Following the completion of his Had gadya, Lissitzky moved from Kiev the right­hand panel, lamed (W and yud ('), most likely the first and last letters back to Vitebsk, where he taught painting alongside Malevich and where of Lissitzky's surname. The mixture of decorative Hebrew letters and flat cir­ he developed his own abstract geometric language, which he named Proun cular and triangular planes of color demonstrates the primacy of Lissitzky's (Proekt utverzhdenia novogo; Project for the affirmation of the new). He would concern with design, which he would later espouse as the basis of an inter­ make brief reference to his Jewish background by publishing the article on national language. The design of the dust jacket also suggests that Lissitzky the Mohilev synagogue in 1923 and also in several Proun works that incor­ already may have been familiar with the suprematist work of Malevich and porated Hebrew letters. But, chiefly, after the Had gadya project he pre­ Alexandra Exter: Malevich's paintings had been shown at the Tenth State Exhi­ sented himself as "El" Lissitzky, and he would soon travel to Berlin to further bition: Non­Objective Creativity and Suprematism (Gosudarstvennaia vystavka: the exchange between the European and Russian avant­gardes. Bespredmetnoe tvorchesto i suprematizm), which opened in Moscow in 15 January 1919, and Exter had her own studio in Kiev. NOTES 1. Seth L. Wolitz, "The Jewish National Art Renaissance in 6. Roskies, Against the Apocalypse (note 5). 12. Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, s.v. "Had gadya." Russia," in Ruth Apter­Gabriel, ed., Tradition and Revolution: The Jewish Renaissance in Russian Avant­Garde Art, 7. El Lissitzky, "The Mohilev Synagogue Reminiscences 13. Alan Birnholz, "El Lissitzky and the Jewish Tradition," 1912­1928, 2d ed., exh. cat. (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, (1923)," trans. Louis Lozowick, in Peter Nisbet et al., Studio International, no. 186 (1973): 131. For a discussion of 1988), 23. El Lissitzky 1890­1941, exh. cat. (Cambridge: Harvard the iconography, specifically the czarist crown and the University Art Museums, 1987), 55­59. hand on the printed stamp, see Haia Friedberg, "Lissitzky's 2. Michael Hickey, "Revolution on the Jewish Street: Smolensk, Had Gadia'," Jewish Art 12­13(1986­87): 292­303. 1917," Journal of Social History 31 (1998): 823­50; Avram 8. Wolitz, "Jewish National Art" (note 1), 41 n. 40; and Kampf, Chagall to Kitaj: Jewish Experience in 20th Century Art, Roskies, Against the Apocalypse (note 5), 138. 14. Haia Friedberg introduced the idea of this color coding in exh. cat. (London: Lund Humphries/Barbican Art Gallery, her article "Lissitzky's Had Gadia" (note 13), 294­95. 1990), 15; and Wolitz, "Jewish National Art" (note 1), 41 n. 9. 9. Ruth Apter­Gabriel, "El Lissitzky's Jewish Works," in idem, ed., Tradition and Revolution: The Jewish Renaissance 15. Apter­Gabriel, "El Lissitzky's Jewish Works" (note 9), 116. 3. For a discussion of the history of the Jews in Russia in Russian Avant­Garde Art, 1912­1928, 26 ed., exh. cat. during this period, see Michael Stanislawski, "The Jews (Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1988), 104. 16. John Bowlt, as quoted in "The 'Vasari' Diary: A Child's and Russian Culture and Politics," in Susan Tumarkin Topography of Typography," Artnews 81, no. 7 (1982): 13­17, Goodman, ed., Russian Jewish Artists in a Century of Change: 10. Editions of Yingl tsingl khvat were published in 1919 and announced the first known copy of the dust jacket, which 1890­1990, exh. cat. (Munich: Prestel/Jewish Museum, 1922; see Peter Nisbet et al., El Lissitzky, 1890­1941, exh. cat. was acquired by a Paris collector from a private seller in the New York, 1995), 16­20. (Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 1987), 180 former Soviet Union (p. 17). A second copy with a set of (cat. no. 1919/7), 183 (cat. no. 1922/1). lithographs was sold at Christie's, London, 26 June 1986; see 4. Wolitz, "Jewish National Art" (note 1), 25; and Kampf, Nisbet et al., El Lissitzky (note 10), 179 (cat. no. 1919/1). VI Chagall to Kitaj (note 2), 15­16. 11. Centered in Kiev, Kultur Lige played a prominent role in The dust jacket and lithographs reproduced here were obtained the renaissance of Jewish secular traditions in Russia in the by the Research Library of the Getty Research Institute in 5. Scholars disagree about the date of the first expedition early part of the twentieth century. Its mission was to create a February 1997 from a private dealer in New York. of the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society; see modern Jewish art that incorporated Jewish folk traditions. Kampf, Chagall to Kitaj (note 2), 16; Wolitz, "Jewish National Kultur Lige published historic studies, teaching materials, liter­ Art" (note 1), 25; and David Roskies, Against the Apocalypse: ary journals, graphic work, and children's books; see Hillel Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture Kazovsky, The Artists of the Kultur­Lige (Jerusalem: Center for (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1984), 281. Jewish Art, 2003).