But let us also remember, as the other nations do, that we have no right to be ashamed of our origin, that it is our duty to hold dear our national language and our national dignity." [Footnote 1: See above, p.

218.] In his first great novel "A Rover on Life's Paths" (_Ha-to-'eh bedarke ha-hayyim_, 1869-1876), Smolenskin carries his hero through all the stages of cultural development, leading from an obscure White Russian hamlet to the centers of European civilization in London and Paris.

But at the end of his "rovings" the hero ultimately attains to a synthesis of Jewish nationalism and European progress, and ends by sacrificing his life while defending his brethren during the Odessa pogrom of 1871.

The other _Tendenz_-novels of Smolenskin reflect the same double-fronted struggle: against the stagnation of the orthodox, particularly the Hasidim, and against the disloyalty of the "enlightened." Smolenskin's theory of Judaism is formulated in two publicistic works: "The Eternal People" (_'Am 'olam_, [1] 1872) and "There is a Time to Plant" (_'Et la-ta'at_ [2], 1875-1877).

As a counterbalance to the artificial religious reforms of the West, he sets up the far-reaching principle of Jewish evolution, of a gradual amalgamation of the national and humanitarian element within Judaism.