Le manifeste hébraïque: un genre monologique dialogisé

The manifesto is considered the ultimate monologic genre, a genre of decisive univocal expression, a genre that “refuses dialogue”. This reputation, however, relies on the concentration of research in the vociferous, aggressive, historical modernist and avant-garde European manifestos. This article presents another side of the manifesto as a profoundly dialogic genre, by examining another, peripheral case study – that of Hebrew manifestos, mostly those written with the establishment of new periodicals starting the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment). Observing these manifestos through the perspective of dialogism reveals tense, polyphonic textual spaces. The manifestos contain a weave of imagined voices that ostensibly react to the founding of a new cultural arena in the Hebrew language, which was only at the beginning of its revival as a language of daily speech and secular writing. The imitation of imagined voices of readers that question the moment of foundation enables the manifesto writers to create an inclusive sense of participation, but at the same time to force the readers to grant their support, since their opposing voices were allegedly already heard. This is a passive-aggressive rhetorical technique, significantly different from the combative rhetoric associated with the manifesto genre, though in a sense no less aggressive and similarly directed toward recruiting recognition and legitimization of action. Observing the dialogical dimension of the manifesto enables a return to typical models of the genre, such as The Communist Manifesto and Italian Futurist manifestos, and to reveal their dialogical aspect that had not yet been considered. The article argues, in fact, that dialogism is inherent to the manifesto genre as it is inherent to any enunciation, according to Bakhtin, and even manifestos that strive for monlogization do not totally eliminate it. The Hebrew case is an extreme example of marked dialogization of the genre in a fragile historical moment in which taking other voices into account is crucial for the establishment of a modern Hebrew collectivity.