Di Shvue

Lyrics by S. An-ski (Shlomo Zanvil Rappoport) 1902

Zahava Seewald's stunning performance of 'Di Shvue' in mp3 format is here thanks to her generous permission. It comes from the CD, Zahava Seewald and Psanim Ashkenaz songs 2: work and revolution sub rosa, Brussels 1999. The CD is still available from sub rosa and some retailers on the web.

'Di Shvue' is the anthem of the Bund. The General Jewish Workers' Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia, known as the Bund, was the first Marxist group in the Russian Empire to create a mass organisation. This was amongst the Jewish, overwhelmingly Yiddish speaking working class. Although founded in October 1897, its leaders had been organising since the early 1890s, at the latest. The Bund offered a consistent critique of Zionism.

In 1898, the Bund organised the first Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The Bund remained the largest social democratic (Marxist) organisation in Russia until the massive political upsurge of the revolution of 1905-1906, when it was overtaken by groups which organised Russian workers.

At the second RSDLP Congress, in 1903, the Bund split from the all-Russian Party when it was not granted the right to be the sole representative of Jewish workers in the Russian Empire. A distinctive feature of Bund policy from 1901 was the demand for national cultural autonomy for the Jews in the Russian Empire, through separate democratic institutions, to take responsibility for Jewish cultural and educational affairs and their funding. This position was also rejected by the RSDLP in 1903.

The Bund rejoined the all-Russian Party at its 1906 Congress, which also saw the temporary reunification of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. The Bund became closely aligned with the Mensheviks, particularly after 1912. Large sections of the Bund, however, went over to the Bolsheviks/Communist Party in the four years following the Russian revolution of October 1917.

At the end of 1917, the section of the Bund in Poland established itself as an independent organisation which merged with the Jewish Social Democratic Party of Galicia (formerly Austrian occupied Poland) in 1920. The Bund was the overwhelmingly dominant party in the Jewish working class in Poland during the interwar period. The Bund played an important role in resisting the Nazis but, with the Nazi murder of Polish Jews, the Bund ceased to be a mass organisation. Groups which identified with the Bund were established or sustained by refugees in the United States, Australia, Israel and other countries and still exist.

There are exhibitions on the history of the Bund on the sites of the International Institute for Social History and YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research.

The music and a transliteration of the Yiddish first verse and chorus of 'Di Shvue' can be found at Henry Wolkowicz's site.

The text of 'Di Shvue' below is in Yiddish, the language in which it was originally written. The translation follows that by Jeanne Bonnette from Henry J. Tobias The Jewish Bund in Russia from its origins to 1905 Stanford University Press, Stanford 1972 p. xiii. It is not entirely literal. Lucas Bruijn prepared the transliteration of the Yiddish into the Roman alphabet. The contemporary Bund only sings the first and last verses, leaving out the other more revolutionary ones.

The vow

di shvue

brider un shvester fun arbet un noyt,
ale vos zaynen tsezeyt un tseshpreyt,
tsuzamen, tsuzamen, di fon zi is greyt,
zi flatert fun tsorn, fun blut iz zi royt.
a shvue, a shvue oyf lebn un toyt.