Recently my daughter had the opportunity to be in an abridged version of the play A Fiddler on the Roof and so we decided to rent the movie as a family to share with her the whole story. What a wonderful, poignant play that deals with so many complex issues including: youthful challenges to familial, religious and civic traditions; the horror of a Jewish diaspora; and the rise of Bolshevism.
I thought about how tremendous it would be to use this film in an
introductory political science class.
So much could be said here but I will just draw on a few themes that could be explored. I will assume that most readers know the story and just give a brief overview.
Tevye is the head of the household, a traditional Jewish papa with a love for the traditions of his faith and his community. He has five daughters but only three are at the centre of the story.
Yenta, the matchmaker, is responsible for finding a "good" match for each of the girls. This is difficult because Tevye is poor and cannot provide a dowry.
The truth is the girls are not interested in the men Yenta finds.
The oldest daughter has already found her love in the local, soon to be (as soon as he gets a sewing machine), tailor.
The second daughter is smitten by a young "scholar" who comes to teach Tevye's two youngest daughters in exchange for meals.
And the third daughter falls for a young Russian youth.
If you have not seen the film then this is a spoiler:
Each daughter, in turn, betrays an important family tradition in order to marry the man she loves. The oldest daughter must break the tradition of the matchmaker making the match.
The second daughter, Hodel, breaks the tradition of asking for her father's permission. She tells her father that she will be married to Perchik the scholar and hopes he will accept it.
The third daughter must leave her faith to marry the Russian boy.
This story of love and tradition is set against the backdrop of the 1905
Russian Revolution.
We are drawn into the drama of the uprising by the scholar Perchik who comes to the little village of Anatevka from Kiev with ideas about revolution and the rise of poor men over rich men.
His Marxist thinking is exposed in his lesson to Teyve's young daughters. In his interpretation of the Old Testament story about Jacob's promise to work for Laban for seven years in order to marry his daughter Rachael, Perchik says,
"Now, after Jacob had worked for Laban for seven years... do you know what happened? Laban fooled him and gave him his ugly daughter Leah. So to marry Rachel, Jacob was forced to work another seven years. So you see, children... the Bible clearly teaches us... you can never trust an employer."
Hodel, who overhears the lesson, says, "And that is what the Bible teaches us?"
Perchik replies "That is the lesson of Jacob... if you interpret it correctly."
If one did not know the outcome of the revolution, the scenes with Perchik would simply be amusing as his wide-eyed wonder of the promises of
communism are so brimming with hope.
But the juxtaposition that is set up in this story portends the destruction of tradition and the rise of a false utopia that occurred in post-revolutionary Soviet Union.
One of my great joys at UNBC is to co-teach an introductory political science class with my colleague John Young who is a Soviet/Russian specialist.
I have learned a great deal about how the Soviet state dismantled the Russian orthodox traditions and replaced them with a reconstructed history that fit all the needs of an authoritarian regime.
The loss of tradition that supported the Soviet society broke down the foundations of social capital which is the glue of society created by networks of trust built on tradition and shared values.
For all the faults of the little town of Anatevka, there, in fiction, is displayed the certainty of faith and community that gave meaning to the lives of the people who lived there.
For, as Tevye says, "Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as... as... as a fiddler on the roof."
