by Janna Kaplan
~
Janna Kaplan
is a Research Scientist at
~
I really do feel, every Passover, that I personally came out of
My mitzrayim is
And yet, I loved
I loved the powerful intensity of friendships so inherent in the Russian
character. It was precisely because I treasured these friendships so much that
losing them, as I eventually did, brought
bitterness and a sense of void. I admired Russian literature and music, the
arts, the language. I loved the Russian language passionately! It delighted me
in every form - spoken, written, versed, sung. I enjoyed thinking in Russian,
sharing with friends, composing poems, and reading poetry to myself, aloud or
silently. When I immigrated to the
It took me a long time and much effort to rebuild my life after I came to
the
Transplanted to a culture where a person’s privacy, pursuit of happiness,
human and civil rights are real and undeniable, speakers of Russian like myself
discovered the frustrating limitations of our native tongue. In Russian
grammar, for example, past and future tenses are somewhat undeveloped in
comparison with many other languages, reflecting fear and ignorance both of
history and of what is yet to come. We lived in the present; truth about the
past was denied to us for fear that those who knew their history would become
empowered to shape their future. Control was only possible in the present; the
past could not be changed, and the dreams we had of the future knew no boundaries.
And so it came to be - for me - that in
Aside from the grammar, Russian lacks the vocabulary to express deeply personal, intimate issues, like sexuality or privacy. To talk about sex, for example, only two possibilities exist: an obscene jargon whose vocabulary is authentically Russian, or proper literary language, which evolved around the usage of Latin roots with, in some instances, Russian suffixes and endings attached. In Latin-based languages, such words do not strike me as dissonant, or artificial. But in Russian, they sound alien and unbecoming intimacy.
English, even as a foreign language, helped me understand what was most precious in my new life, the personal, the intimate, the aspirations and values I struggled and sacrificed so much for. It gave me the voice and the words to express myself in the “desert” of my personal wanderings, and, as such, it was truly a blessing.
My separation from the Russian language was a long and agonizing process.
Within months of my emigration I stopped writing poetry. Russian seemed
inadequate, yet no other language could transmit the poetic emotion I felt
better than my mother tongue. I avoided other Soviet refugees so that I would not
have to speak Russian and thus distanced myself from the only community that
could have helped me preserve my bond with the language. The language spoken by
this refugee community quickly became invaded by English words and expressions,
as a result losing much of its unique harmony and intrinsic melody. Even so
distorted, their Russian was, for me, heavily loaded with associations of my
life in the
Five or six years into my life in
When I married a wonderful American Jewish man, he decided to learn
Russian and I encouraged him with all my heart. Yet more often then not I would
find excuses to avoid helping him in his study. I thought that when we had
children, I would teach them Russian. On a rational level, I wanted them to know
my native language. I also thought that if and when my parents left
Interestingly, I never ceased to enjoy reading, watching movies, or listening to operas in Russian. My problem was with the spoken language and with writing, the most obvious means of self-expression. Using Russian began to feel forced and unnatural, as if something in my bond with it had broken irreparably. I did not forget the language; nor did I lose my fluency. The effect of this alienation was much more elusive: it was in the buildup of a subtle anxiety that seemed to hover in the background, causing constricting tensions somewhere deep within me. Where? I did not know. But I found out when my first child, my son, was born.
Nursing my baby, admiring and cuddling him, I was enjoying motherhood as I had never enjoyed anything else in my life. I felt that if for this alone - finding my beloved and having this child with him - all my sufferings were justified, for they had led me to these blessed moments of happiness. And yet, talking to my baby in Russian became a dreaded experience. I would feel the tension creeping inside of me. My son, with the unfailing intuition of an infant, would sense that anxiety and become restless, crying bitterly. Nursing became torture when I tried to speak to him in Russian. The tension within me would rise like a tidal wave, penetrating my whole being. I would feel painful constriction in my breasts, and my milk would stop flowing. I could not nurse in Russian! There, in my most female parts - in my nursing breasts - I was not free. I was still living in bondage.
A few months after the birth of my
son, I gave up speaking Russian to him. When my daughter was born three years
later, I never even started. Abandoning the effort altogether was like letting
go of my mitzrayim: I finally left
Two things connect the child to the
mother. They cannot both work at the
same time; one has to give way to the other. The umbilical cord to the mother
culture was cut; the time had come to nurse. And I wonder, sometimes, in what
tongue the Hebrew mothers nursed their babies in the desert. Did they sing to
them in Egyptian? Or was it then that the Hebrew language became, in its divine
beauty, the sustaining energy of my people
[i] Re-printed from The Women’s Passover Companion: Women’s
Reflections on the Festival of Freedom, Jewish Lights, 2003
[ii] Refuseniks in the