The One-Man Army     by Moacyr Scliar, Translated by Eloah F. Giacomelli Original title: O Exercito do um homem so Original language: Portuguese Country: Brazil   Published by Ballantine:NY Pub. Date: 1986 Pub. Place: USA Format: Paperback, 154 pages Not available for ordering

One-Man Army starts with a brief run-down of the origins of the Jewish population in Scliar’s hometown Porto Alegre; they were escapees from Baron Rothchild’s agricultural colonies, designed to re-settle the ‘surplus Jews’ of the violently anti-Semitic Tsarist Empire.

Mayer Guinzburg is one these ex-colonists, and typical of Scliar’s over-the-top but sympathetic heroes; is ultimately defeated by the conundrum of integrating his Jewish identity and ‘backstory’ with life in Brazil.

His particular gate out of the everyday is his dream of creating ‘New Birobidjian’ in Brazil. ‘Old’ Birobidjian was a Jewish settlement created under the auspices of the Communists in the Soviet Far East, near the Amur river. Supposedly a national home for Russia’s Jews its actual history was a sad mixture of frustrated idealism and political cynicism. Mayer’s New Birobidjian though is a subtle means of talking about the Messianic and Utopian impulse in twentieth Century Jewish history.

The book is very much a gentle satire on the dream of Communism in young Jewish hearts in the 1930s. It’s also a gentle satire on Jewish obsessions in general, as in the very funny episode where Scliar puts two Jewish manias back to back; the taboo on pork and the transcendent force of motherlove...

Meyer’s favourite phrase is ‘At this moment we begin the building of a new society...’ and we get to witness the ‘creation; of various separate attempts at New Birobidjian with echoes of Orwell’s Animal Farm (whose comic qualities were often lost when read in a harsh cold war context) when the only other denizens of are ‘Comrade Pig’, ‘Comrade Hen’ and ‘Comrade Goat’. Meyer is by nature an autocrat which of course has its effect on the egalitarian society he is supposed to be creating in miniature.

On the other hand Scliar is also presenting us with a man of hope in the sense that Meyer rejects a life based on only the concerns of today, daring to look into the future and trying to be a pioneer and a prophet. He turns us to a remark of another Russian-born visionary, cinéaste Andrei Tarkovsky; ‘It’s far harder to maintain a high moral state than to vegetate in insignificance.’

Mayer Guinzburg discourses on New Birobidjian; the crops, the factories, the Palace of Culture. he ends his speech in a firm, calm voice: ‘At this moment we begin the building of a new society.’

They shove a tall bamboo pole into the ground to be used as a flagpole, and on it they raise Lydia’s colorful kerchief, seeing .that New Birobidjian doesn’t have a flag of its own yet. Marc Friedmann opens the door with difficulty. The house is empty except for an old brown leather couch. The floorboards are strewn with dead insects. Mayer Guinzburg immediately divides the group into several committees: the Cleaning-up Committee; the Food Committee; and the Political Studies Committee, of which he is the chairman. How will they spend the rest of the day? ‘In feverish work’, Marc Friedmann will write in his journal. ‘Cleaning up the filth of years,’ Lydia will write in hers. At noon they take a break and eat sandwiches. At seven o’clock they hold a meeting in order to assess their activities. The Cleaning-up Committee has cleaned and tidied the house and decorated it with posters and banners supplied by the Political Studies Committee; in addition, having completed its tasks earlier than anticipated, the committee members have erected a new flagpole, the trunk of a eucalyptus tree. Mayer Guinzburg praises their accomplishment. The Food Committee has cooked a hot, reviving dinner, and when this is announced the Political Studies Committee postpones the reading of its report, seeing that it deals with complex issues, such as productivity, the control of power, and consciousness-raising. After dinner, they sit around a campfire and begin to sing war songs, which are followed by melancholy Yiddish songs. Finally, they lower the flag, Mayer Guinzburg delivers a brief speech on the tasks awaiting them, and then to bed. 20