Judeo-German poetry has developed in Russia in precisely the opposite direction from the one generally taken by that branch of literature among other nations. Whereas the usual course would have been to pass from the simple utterings of the folksong to more and more elaborate forms, the process among the Jews in Russia has been inverted. The first poetical expressions were those of Dr. Ettinger, who may be regarded as a dialectic continuator of Schiller and Lessing. After that followed the school of popular poets of the Gordons, Goldfaden, Linetzki, Ehrenkranz, Berel Broder. In the seventies a few traces of that school are still to be found, but the majority of songs produced then smack of the badchen's art, while Goldfaden himself has deteriorated into a writer of theatre couplets. The explanation of this is found in the fact that in the sixties the efforts of the folk-singers were crowned with success. The Rabbinical schools had graduated several classes of men trained in the Reform, the Gymnasia and Universities had been thrown wide open to the Jewish youths, and in the next decade a large number of them had availed themselves of the highest advantages offered in these institutions of learning. The cloud of a stubborn ignorance had been successfully dispelled, the light shone brightly over the whole land. The bard's task was done; he had no need to spur the people on to progress, for that duty was now devolved on the large host of younger men who had tasted the privileges of a Russian education. But these had been identifying themselves with Russian thought, with Russian ideals. For them German culture had little of significance, except as it appeared in universal literature, or had affected Russian ideas. Still less were they interested in Jewish letters, whether in Hebrew, or in Judeo-German. On the contrary, they were trying hard to forget their humble beginnings. Neither for these nor by these could the Judeo-German language be employed for any literary purposes. The masses had become accustomed to look with favor on the new education, and one by one the better elements were disappearing from the narrow world of the Ghetto. There was still left a large proportion of those who could not avail themselves of the benefits offered them. They knew no other language than the homely dialect of their surroundings, and they were still thirsting for entertainment such as the folk-singers have offered to them. The older men, the champions of the Haskala, were dead, or too old to write; the younger men had other interests at heart, and thus it was left to a mediocre class of writers to supply them with poetry. This part naturally fell to the badchens. Another quarter of a century, and Judeo-German literature would have run its course; even the badchen would have been silenced. But it suddenly rose from its ashes with renewed vigor after the riots against the Jews in 1881. VII. POETRY SINCE THE EIGHTIES IN RUSSIA