Menachem Mendel Morgensztern of Kotzk (1787–1859), known simply as “the Kotzker,” was one of the leading figures in Polish Ḥasidism in his day. He has been much romanticized by those—among them Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel—wishing to bring ḥasidic ideas to a non-ḥasidic audience. Jonathan Boyarin has recently translated a Yiddish-language collection of stories, compiled (or authored) by one Menashe Unger, in which a very different image of Morgensztern emerges. Alan Brill writes:
Even though the Kotzker died in 1859, the early 20th century saw his reputation ascend through many works that painted him as a master epigrammist with a sharp wit. . . . The major collections of his sayings appeared in 1929 and 1938. [In these collections and other writings,] the Kotzker was variously recast as an individualist, truth-seeker, opponent of the religious establishment, and, in later years, as a proto-existentialist. . . .
Menashe Ungar . . . [was] the son of a prominent ḥasidic rabbi, receiving rabbinic ordination at the age of seventeen; he then turned his back on the religious world to attend university and join the Labor-Zionist movement. He worked as a stonemason and journalist, and eventually immigrated to America, where he spent the remainder of his life writing about East European Jews, their histories, folk tales, and wisdom. . . .
Centered around a core narrative of crisis in ḥasidic leadership, Unger’s stories [about Morgensztern] offer a detailed account of everyday ḥasidic court life—filled with plenty of alcohol, stolen geese, and wives pleading with their husbands to come back home. . . . First published in Buenos Aires in 1949, Unger’s volume reflects a period when East European Jewish immigrants enjoyed reading about ḥasidic culture in Yiddish articles and books even as they themselves were rapidly assimilating into American culture.
Read more on Book of Doctrines and Opinions: https://kavvanah.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/jonathan-boyarin-on-menashe-ungers-tales-of-the-kotzker-rebbe/