- Israel
Roman Katsman
Bar-Ilan University, Literature of the Jewish People, Faculty Member
- Eric Gans, Boris Groys, Agnon, Alexei Feodorovich Losev, Émmanuel Lévinas, Generative Anthropology, and 29 moreHebrew Literature, Dostoevsky, Shai Agnon, Russian Literature, Contemporary Literature, Israeli Literature, Myth and Literature, Chaos Theory, Alternative History, Gesture Studies, Literature and Violence, René Girard, Russian Emigre Literature, Russian contemporary Literature, 20th Century Russian Literature, Literary Theory, Literary Criticism, Literary Theory and Criticism, Postmodern Literary Theory and Popular Culture, Literary studies, Literary and Cultural Theory, History and literature, Body representations in art, cinema and literature, New Sincerity, Rhetoric, Theories of Rhetoric; Myth and Literature, Postmodernism, Postmodern Literature, and Postmodern Fictionedit
- A researcher of a fox type, craving for answers to the key questions of science: why the world is as it is, and how it works.edit
Сборник статей охватывает столетнюю историю русскоязычной литературы в Израиле, включая и догосударственный период. Часть работ посвящена обзору литературного процесса и деятельности его участников, другие — отдельным жанрам и... more
Сборник статей охватывает столетнюю историю русскоязычной литературы в Израиле, включая и догосударственный период. Часть работ посвящена обзору литературного процесса и деятельности его участников, другие — отдельным жанрам и направлениям. В итоге складывается сложная и многоплановая картина не вполне определенного, но весьма живого и динамичного, сообщества, развивающегося в подчас тяжелейших условиях. Авторы статей прослеживают пути становления русско-израильской прозы, поэзии и драматургии, различных волн авангарда, фантастики и литературно-критической мысли. Сегодня в русско-израильской литературе переплетаются голоса писателей самых разных поколений и волн репатриации: от «семидесятников» до «военной алии» последнего времени. Зачастую они, как и критики, по-разному видят свою роль в исторических и литературных бурях, по-разному определяют свое место на карте современной культуры, но всех их объединяет неустранимая причастность к судьбе еврейского государства.
Research Interests:
This collection of articles covers a hundred-year history of Russian-language literature in Israel, including the pre-state period. Some of the works are devoted to an overview of the literary process and the activities of its... more
This collection of articles covers a hundred-year history of Russian-language literature in Israel, including the pre-state period. Some of the works are devoted to an overview of the literary process and the activities of its participants, others — to individual genres and movements. As a result, a complex and multifaceted picture of a not quite defined, but very lively and dynamic community is emerging that develops in the most difficult conditions. The authors of the articles trace the ways of Russian-Israeli prose, poetry and drama, various waves of avant-garde, fantasy, and critical thought. Today, in Russian-Israeli literature, the voices of writers of various generations and waves of repatriation are intertwined: from the "seventies" to the "war aliyah" of recent times. Often, they, as well as critics, see their role in historical and literary storms in different ways, disagree on the definition of their place on the map of modern culture, but all of them are united by an irremovable bond with the fate of the Jewish state.
Research Interests:
Этот сборник посвящен литературному творчеству Давида Шраера-Петрова — поэта, прозаика, мемуариста, драматурга, эссеиста и переводчика (а также врача и исследователя-экспери- ментатора). Давид Шраер-Петров — один из наиболее значитель-... more
Этот сборник посвящен литературному творчеству Давида
Шраера-Петрова — поэта, прозаика, мемуариста, драматурга,
эссеиста и переводчика (а также врача и исследователя-экспери-
ментатора). Давид Шраер-Петров — один из наиболее значитель-
ных представителей того поколения еврейско-русской литерату-
ры, которое начало свой путь в постсталинские годы, развиваясь
как в официальных, так и в андеграундных условиях, затем
перекочевало в эмиграцию, а теперь уже разбросано по разным
странам и материкам. Еврейско-русская культура, соединяющая
две исторические эпохи и два измерения — советское и эмигрант-
ское, — уходит в прошлое. Именно поэтому задача документации
и изучения обширного наследия еврейско-русской культуры
приобретает особую важность в наши дни.
В год 85-летия Давида Шраера-Петрова, по прошествии 35 лет
со времени эмиграции писателя из СССР, под одной обложкой
впервые собраны материалы и исследования, с разных истори-
ко-литературных и теоретических позиций освещающие его
творчество. Фокусируя внимание на многогранном и событийно
насыщенном литературном пути Давида Шраера-Петрова, эта
книга объединяет ведущих американских, европейских, израиль-
ских и российских исследователей еврейской поэтики, литерату-
ры эмиграции, русской и советской культуры и истории.
Шраера-Петрова — поэта, прозаика, мемуариста, драматурга,
эссеиста и переводчика (а также врача и исследователя-экспери-
ментатора). Давид Шраер-Петров — один из наиболее значитель-
ных представителей того поколения еврейско-русской литерату-
ры, которое начало свой путь в постсталинские годы, развиваясь
как в официальных, так и в андеграундных условиях, затем
перекочевало в эмиграцию, а теперь уже разбросано по разным
странам и материкам. Еврейско-русская культура, соединяющая
две исторические эпохи и два измерения — советское и эмигрант-
ское, — уходит в прошлое. Именно поэтому задача документации
и изучения обширного наследия еврейско-русской культуры
приобретает особую важность в наши дни.
В год 85-летия Давида Шраера-Петрова, по прошествии 35 лет
со времени эмиграции писателя из СССР, под одной обложкой
впервые собраны материалы и исследования, с разных истори-
ко-литературных и теоретических позиций освещающие его
творчество. Фокусируя внимание на многогранном и событийно
насыщенном литературном пути Давида Шраера-Петрова, эта
книга объединяет ведущих американских, европейских, израиль-
ских и российских исследователей еврейской поэтики, литерату-
ры эмиграции, русской и советской культуры и истории.
Research Interests:
In the third volume of his studies in Russian-language Israeli literature (the two first are Nostalgia for a Foreign Land, and Elusive Reality), Roman Katsman discusses its fundamental mythologems, while suggesting a new approach to... more
In the third volume of his studies in Russian-language Israeli literature (the two first are Nostalgia for a Foreign Land, and Elusive Reality), Roman Katsman discusses its fundamental mythologems, while suggesting a new approach to myth-creation. This is a book about how the literature preserves its significance nowadays by addressing the main questions of our time through the imagination of miraculous encounter and everyday holiness, catastrophe and salvation, victim and foundation, cities and empires. The book dwells on the most famous as well as the less known but no less bright novelists: Efraim Bauch, Alexander Goldshtein, Linor Goralik, Daniel Kluger, Leonid Levinson, Anna Likhtikman, Elena Makarova, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko and Yury Nesis, Victoria Reicher, Dina Rubina, Yakov Shechter, Nekoda Singer, Dennis Sobolev, Alex Tarn, Yakov Tsigelman, Naum Vaiman, and Mikhail Yudson.
Research Interests:
Around the Point is a unique collection that brings to readers the works of almost thirty scholars dealing with Jewish literature in various Jewish and non-Jewish languages, such as Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, French, Italian, German,... more
Around the Point is a unique collection that brings to readers the works of almost thirty scholars dealing with Jewish literature in various Jewish and non-Jewish languages, such as Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, French, Italian, German, Hungarian, Serbian, Polish, and Russian. Although this volume does not cover all the languages of Jewish letters, it is a significant endeavor in establishing the realm of multilingual international study of Jewish literature and culture. Among the questions under discussion, are the problems of the definition of Jewish identity and literature, literary history, language choice and diglossy, lingual and cultural influences, intertextuality, Holocaust literature, Kabbala and Hassidism, Jewish poetics, theatre and art, and the problems of the acceptance of literature.
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This volume celebrates the literary oeuvres of David Shrayer-Petrov (Давид Шраер-Петров)—poet, fiction writer, memoirist, essayist, and literary translator (and medical doctor and researcher in his parallel career). David Shrayer-Petrov... more
This volume celebrates the literary oeuvres of David Shrayer-Petrov (Давид Шраер-Петров)—poet, fiction writer, memoirist, essayist, and literary translator (and medical doctor and researcher in his parallel career).
David Shrayer-Petrov is one of the most important representatives of the Jewish-Russian literature that gained its shape and form during the post-Stalin years, developed in both officially sanctioned and underground conditions, subsequently emigrated from the USSR along with its creators, and is presently dispersed across many countries and five continents. A product of three historical epochs and a bearer of three dimensions—Soviet, émigré, and transnational—Jewish-Russian culture has transcended national boundaries. Once vibrantly alive, it is starting its descent into the depths of history and memory. This is why the task of studying and documenting its rich and diverse legacy has become especially urgent today.
Published in the year of David Shrayer-Petrov’s eighty-fifth birthday, thirty-five years after the writer’s emigration from the former USSR, this is the first volume to gather materials and investigations that examine his writings from various literary-historical and theoretical perspectives. By focusing on many different aspects of Shrayer-Petrov’s multifaceted and eventful literary career, the volume brings together some of the leading American, European, Israeli and Russian scholars of Jewish poetics, exilic literature, and Russian and Soviet culture and history.
David Shrayer-Petrov is one of the most important representatives of the Jewish-Russian literature that gained its shape and form during the post-Stalin years, developed in both officially sanctioned and underground conditions, subsequently emigrated from the USSR along with its creators, and is presently dispersed across many countries and five continents. A product of three historical epochs and a bearer of three dimensions—Soviet, émigré, and transnational—Jewish-Russian culture has transcended national boundaries. Once vibrantly alive, it is starting its descent into the depths of history and memory. This is why the task of studying and documenting its rich and diverse legacy has become especially urgent today.
Published in the year of David Shrayer-Petrov’s eighty-fifth birthday, thirty-five years after the writer’s emigration from the former USSR, this is the first volume to gather materials and investigations that examine his writings from various literary-historical and theoretical perspectives. By focusing on many different aspects of Shrayer-Petrov’s multifaceted and eventful literary career, the volume brings together some of the leading American, European, Israeli and Russian scholars of Jewish poetics, exilic literature, and Russian and Soviet culture and history.
Research Interests:
Столетие – достаточно большой срок, чтобы можно было говорить о русско-израильской литературе как исторически устойчивом, хотя и неопределенном сообществе. Не будучи историческим исследованием, новая книга Романа Кацмана пунктирно... more
Столетие – достаточно большой срок, чтобы можно было говорить о русско-израильской литературе как исторически устойчивом, хотя и неопределенном сообществе. Не будучи историческим исследованием, новая книга Романа Кацмана пунктирно очерчивает одну из «магнитных линий» этого сообщества: поиск ответа на главный вопрос современности – «что есть реальность?», а также поиск того «реального», что составляет суть еврейского существования. Сегодня, как и сто лет назад, успех этих поисков зависит от способности русско-израильской литературы преодолевать страхи и соблазны русской минорности и израильской маргинальности. Борясь за выживание в уникальных условиях, она вырабатывает сложные формы трансформации своей двойной культурной непричастности в тот парадоксальный философский реализм, который лишь сегодня, с высоты усвоенного и оставленного позади опыта постмодернизма, может быть осмыслен вполне. В то же время, при всей своей особости, русско-израильская литература разделяет с мировой литературой ее основную тенденцию: переход к существованию в виртуальной, сетевой, дополненной реальности. В книге обсуждаются произведения А. Высоцкого, А. Гольдштейна, Э. Люксембурга, Ю. Марголина, Д. Маркиша, Е. Михайличенко и Ю. Несиса, Д. Соболева, Я. Цигельмана, М. Эгарта и других.
Research Interests:
The charm of Agnon’s works lies in an inebriating combination of the funny and the serious, in his famous irony that knocks down every unquestionable certainty and even its very self. Agnon’s humor eludes rhetoric borderlines, does not... more
The charm of Agnon’s works lies in an inebriating combination of the funny and the serious, in his famous irony that knocks down every unquestionable certainty and even its very self. Agnon’s humor eludes rhetoric borderlines, does not tolerates confines of a genre and disobeys simple interpretative solutions.
In his new book, Roman Katsman suggests a new literary-anthropological method to break Agnon’s complicated ‘laughter code’—a method based upon the cultural and semiotic interpretation of symbols. Reading of a wide selection of Agnon’s works, including his four major novels, reveals an entire world of Agnon’s laughter symbols—a world of violence and sacredness, tragic bewilderment and eruption of new possibilities. In this world, arks fly, princes disappear, serpents eat their own tails, angels and demons dance, illusion turns into reality, and other foolish and cruel miracles occur. The research looks for a solution of the riddle: should you consider Agnon’s stories serious or ironic, religious or secular, scornful or emphatic, archaic or modernist, or if you swell with pathos or burst into laughter—how come that Agnon always has the last laugh?
In his new book, Roman Katsman suggests a new literary-anthropological method to break Agnon’s complicated ‘laughter code’—a method based upon the cultural and semiotic interpretation of symbols. Reading of a wide selection of Agnon’s works, including his four major novels, reveals an entire world of Agnon’s laughter symbols—a world of violence and sacredness, tragic bewilderment and eruption of new possibilities. In this world, arks fly, princes disappear, serpents eat their own tails, angels and demons dance, illusion turns into reality, and other foolish and cruel miracles occur. The research looks for a solution of the riddle: should you consider Agnon’s stories serious or ironic, religious or secular, scornful or emphatic, archaic or modernist, or if you swell with pathos or burst into laughter—how come that Agnon always has the last laugh?
Research Interests:
This volume focuses on several Russian authors among many who immigrated to Israel with the “big wave” of the 1990s or later, and whose largest part of their works was written in Israel: Dina Rubina, Nekod Singer, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko... more
This volume focuses on several Russian authors among many who immigrated to Israel with the “big wave” of the 1990s or later, and whose largest part of their works was written in Israel: Dina Rubina, Nekod Singer, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko and Yury Nesis, and Mikhail Yudson. They are popular and active authors on the Israeli scene, in the printed and electronic media, and some of them are also editors of the renowned journals and authors of literary and cultural reviews and essays. They constitute a new generation of Jewish-Russian writers: diasporic Russians and new Israelis.
Research Interests:
Starting with a discussion on the elements of the genre of alternative (counterfactual) history and on its place between the poles of historical determinism and relativism, this book develops a literary theory of the historical... more
Starting with a discussion on the elements of the genre of alternative (counterfactual) history and on its place between the poles of historical determinism and relativism, this book develops a literary theory of the historical alternativeness principle and applies it to the reading of The City with All That is Therein (Ir u-mloa) – one of the most important and less-studied books of the greatest Israeli writer, Nobel Prize winner S.Y. Agnon (1887-1970). The investigation reveals that this principle is by no means inherent solely in modernism and postmodernism, but lies at the very basis of the reading process, particularly at the levels of plot and character origination, and historical and historiographical conceptions that underlie the author’s imagination.
Research Interests:
“A Small Prophecy” is a comprehensive, theoretical and applied, research of sincerity as rhetorical and cultural, lingual and anthropological category. Sincerity and rhetoric provide two ways for constituting a personality (subject,... more
“A Small Prophecy” is a comprehensive, theoretical and applied, research of sincerity as rhetorical and cultural, lingual and anthropological category. Sincerity and rhetoric provide two ways for constituting a personality (subject, identity, character) in the speech. They complement each other till their complete confluence in the intention of persuasion. Two opposite conceptions of sincerity – as genuine self expression and as artificial “theatrical” performance – are not effective, especially in such complex cultural phenomena as S.Y. Agnon’s work. In the first part of the research, the thorough analysis of sincere speech as rhetorical act leads to discussion of the rhetoric itself and to its repositioning in cultural-spiritual practice. By this course, the concept of cultural-communal rhetoric of sincerity is been shaped, which reveals to be extremely efficient in resolving the intricate problems roused within Agnon studies, particularly the problem of author’s sincerity in representation of miracle, his religious or anti religious intentions. In the second part, the discussion of the Book One of ‘Ir u-mlo’a sheds light not only on the Agnon rhetoric but also on what can be called “Agnon’s lessons in rhetoric and sincerity”. The analysis brings out that Agnon’s impossible, multi-intentional discourse on “the impossible” is aimed to scrutinize the realized possibilities of the historical existence of the Jewish community (on the scale from Buchach to the People of Israel), and to create new, not realized possibilities – the most mythic and true ones.
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This book discusses the enchantment and power of gesture in literature and art, using a wide selection of cultural and scientific materials, from the Bible, Quintillian and Buddhism to David McNeil’s cognitive psychology, Eric Gans’... more
This book discusses the enchantment and power of gesture in literature and art, using a wide selection of cultural and scientific materials, from the Bible, Quintillian and Buddhism to David McNeil’s cognitive psychology, Eric Gans’ philosophical anthropology and Richard Sennett’s sociology. The author demonstrates that represented gestures, and even those that are not represented, originate a unique cognitive-physical interaction between the reader or viewer and the composition. The discussion focuses mainly on an analysis of gestural poetics in a number of works of modern Hebrew writers, from the beginning of the twentieth to the beginning of the twenty-first century, from Uri Nissan Gnessin and Jacob Steinberg to Meir Shalev and Etgar Keret. In the course of the discussion gesture is shown to be a micro-myth that unites order and chaos, a mechanism that establishes the power of symbolism and visibility in the modern culture of the «fall of public man». The study demonstrates the variety of ways in which a myth of impossible and inevitable touch-non-touch gestures is created.
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If myth is, as Aleksei Losev formulated it, a miraculous personality’s history given in words, literary mythopoesis is a becoming of narrative personality and its myth in the time of reading. In his previous book The Time of Cruel... more
If myth is, as Aleksei Losev formulated it, a miraculous personality’s history given in words, literary mythopoesis is a becoming of narrative personality and its myth in the time of reading. In his previous book The Time of Cruel Miracles the author developed the theory of literary mythopoesis and its research methodology. The present investigation focuses on the question of what this emergent narrative personality precisely is. The study refers to a wide range of texts. It contributes to further discussion of the poetics of Russian and Hebrew classics (F. Dostoevsky and M. Bulgakov, S.Y. Agnon and A. Oz), applies new methods of multicultural literature studies (I. Babel, L. Lunz, and O. Mandelstam), observes prominent features of postmodern Israeli literature and mythopoesis (O. Castel-Bloom, M. Shalev, E. Keret), and proposes a key for understanding the poetics of the Serbian writer M. Pavić.
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On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a theory of literary mythopoesis and develops a method of... more
On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a theory of literary mythopoesis and develops a method of studying mythopoetic processes on different levels of meaning in a work of literature. As a result, mythopoesis is revealed as one of the fundamental mechanisms of producing a complex of structures, while mythopoetic criticism functions as a dialogue between different cultures thus documenting the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in literature.
Research Interests:
The article proposes a model that allows a new observation of the texts of Russian-Israeli literature as a representation of the complex psycho-cultural processes of repatriation. The model is based on the philosophical- anthropological... more
The article proposes a model that allows a new observation of the texts of Russian-Israeli literature as a representation of the complex psycho-cultural processes of repatriation. The model is based on the philosophical-
anthropological theories of Rene Girard and Eric Gans. Its application seems to be useful, in particular, in the study of the literature of aliyah of the 1970s, as well as the literature of “transit” — authors who left Israel after some time. As an example, the article considers the case of Zinoviy Zinik basing upon the material of some of his works.
anthropological theories of Rene Girard and Eric Gans. Its application seems to be useful, in particular, in the study of the literature of aliyah of the 1970s, as well as the literature of “transit” — authors who left Israel after some time. As an example, the article considers the case of Zinoviy Zinik basing upon the material of some of his works.
Research Interests:
This collection of articles covers a hundred-year history of Russian-language literature in Israel, including the pre-state period. Some of the works are devoted to an overview of the literary process and the activities of its... more
This collection of articles covers a hundred-year history of Russian-language literature in Israel, including the pre-state period. Some of the works are devoted to an overview of the literary process and the activities of its participants, others — to individual genres and movements. As a result, a complex and multifaceted picture of a not quite defined, but very lively and dynamic community is emerging that develops in the most difficult conditions. The authors of the articles trace the ways of Russian-Israeli prose, poetry and drama, various waves of avant-garde, fantasy, and critical thought. Today, in Russian-Israeli literature, the voices of writers of various generations and waves of repatriation are intertwined: from the "seventies" to the "war aliyah" of recent times. Often, they, as well as critics, see their role in historical and literary storms in different ways, disagree on the definition of their place on the map of modern culture, but all of them are united by an irremovable bond with the fate of the Jewish state.
Research Interests:
The history of Russian-Israeli literature is the history of the deminorization of the Russian-Israeli creative consciousness and the community based on it. To understand it, one must trace this development. In the following pages, I can... more
The history of Russian-Israeli literature is the history of the deminorization of the Russian-Israeli creative consciousness and the community based on it. To understand it, one must trace this development. In the following pages, I can only sketch a historiographic program and tentatively outline this field of historical-literary meaning, since the subject itself still needs to be brought into scholarly circulation.
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abstract The multifaceted oeuvre of Nekod Singer, who writes in Israel in Russian and in Hebrew, is notable for its bilingualism and self-translation. Singer's integration of the two languages reflects his cultural-aesthetic agenda,... more
abstract The multifaceted oeuvre of Nekod Singer, who writes in Israel in Russian and in Hebrew, is notable for its bilingualism and self-translation. Singer's integration of the two languages reflects his cultural-aesthetic agenda, which fluctuates between neoeclecticism and neomodernism, as well as between two centers of gravity—post-Soviet Russian and multilingual Israeli literature. This article discusses Singer's writing with an emphasis on his bilingualism and self-translation.
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Research Interests:
In the chapter entitled “Double Meaning As Hermeneutic and Semantic Problem” in Conflict of Interpretations, Paul Ricoeur says: “Symbolism, taken at the level of its appearance in texts, thus attests to the fact that the language... more
In the chapter entitled “Double Meaning As Hermeneutic and Semantic Problem” in Conflict of Interpretations, Paul Ricoeur says: “Symbolism, taken at the level of its appearance in texts, thus attests to the fact that the language explodes, rushing towards the other than itself.”1 Not just contents, but also the special picturesque and dramatic expressiveness of the above statement shows how tense, dynamic and energetic is the discussion in philosophy dealing with the issue of interconnection between the external and internal in the text. Literary criticism, in turn, considers this issue as the key question in discussing the essence of a literary work. The most important facet of this question is the relationship between the ethical and the aesthetical in literature. Reading and understanding a literary work, enjoying it, and other activities brought about by a person’s encounter with literature, constitute a problem that remains unsolved despite numerous efforts by scholars. The wonderful sensations experienced by a reader still remain a mystery, an aporia. I would like to offer a synthetic theory capable, in my opinion, of describing the entire complex of reading-related phenomena.
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Some critics note that there are no more lacunae on the map of late Soviet unofficial or nonconformist literature. In this extensively developed field of study, however, too little attention has been devoted to the work of the Leningrad... more
Some critics note that there are no more lacunae on the map of late Soviet unofficial or nonconformist literature. In this extensively developed field of study, however, too little attention has been devoted to the work of the Leningrad and Moscow—and since 1987 American—poet, prose writer, and translator David Shrayer-Petrov. This has partly to do with the fact that nonconformist literature has long since developed its own unofficial but fully hegemonic canon. On the other hand, this is related to the question of how the national, particularly the Jewish, component should be related to the discourse on Soviet nonconformism. The theoretical interpretation of the latter is far from completed, nor is the interpretation of the cultural-anthropological motifs at the foundation of nonconformist literature. This essay focuses on the writings of David Shrayer-Petrov, mostly those created while he was a refusenik. I will attempt to show that the arena of the conflict lying at the root of the nonconformist imagination, represented symbolically and aimed at mobilizing a Jewish identity, can be described in terms of the generative anthropology of Eric Gans as the scene of blocking the gesture of appropriation directed at the victim. Jewish nonconformism thereby assimilates and overcomes the victimary state of mind characteristic of the post-Holocaust period and possibly of modern times in general.
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Of all the richness of Jewish gestural culture, this entry focuses on a number of currently active traditional bodily practices, which appear to be the beating heart of this culture. The practices under discussion are: the laying of... more
Of all the richness of Jewish gestural culture, this entry focuses on a number of currently active traditional bodily practices, which appear to be the beating heart of this culture. The practices under discussion are: the laying of phylacteries, mezuzah kissing, Torah scribing, gestures that accompany Torah reading, touching/kissing the Western Wall, prostrating on graves of Tzadiks, applause and hands waving in the prayer, and some others. In these practices, the cultural knowledge opens up for the retaining/advancing cultural work, thus uniting their symbolic and pragmatic functions. The technical and anthropological descriptions of the practices are followed by cultural-rhetorical analysis, which discovers a metaphorical mechanism at their basis. A metaphorical identification is established between a real person and the ideal figure of the perfect worshiper, or between a physical body and a sacred one (the Book, the Word), or between a real space and a sacred one (Holy Land). Some of the mentioned practices, being strongly built in the complex cognitive-physical-lingual activities, enter the everyday communication and oratorical behavior as bodily techniques observed in the closing part of the entry.
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The essay discusses the literary-critical concepts of Matvei Kagan (1889–1937) – a Russian philosopher of Jewish origin, a student and follower of Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer, and a close friend of Mikhail Bakhtin in... more
The essay discusses the literary-critical concepts of Matvei Kagan (1889–1937) – a Russian philosopher of Jewish origin, a student and follower of Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer, and a close friend of Mikhail Bakhtin in his early, constitutive period of the Nevel Circle (1918–1920). The concepts of love and bewilderment, as defined in Kagan’s works on Turgenev and Pushkin, are examined in the context of his philosophy of history, culture, and art. In the center of Kagan’s historical theory of literature lies the idea of the Jewish community as a model for canonization of the cultural work. Kagan views literature as generating self-awareness and national-cultural identity, either through tragic bewilderment at the loss of freedom and love in history (in the case of Pushkin) or through a culture’s self-defining dialogue with other cultures (as in the case of Turgenev). The central concept of this approach is that of svive-libe – “love of environment,” interpreted as love for a community’s cultural contribution in the context of its purposefulness in a universal human context.
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Etgar Keret (b. 1967) is undoubtedly one of the most popular recent Hebrew writers. However, among critics, there is no unanimity as to the qualities of his oeuvre, both poetic and ideological. In this article, I suggest a new key for... more
Etgar Keret (b. 1967) is undoubtedly one of the most popular recent Hebrew writers. However, among critics, there is no unanimity as to the qualities of his oeuvre, both poetic and ideological. In this article, I suggest a new key for understanding Keret's writing and thinking—the concept of a minimal metaphysical origin. The out-of-date and unfashionable thinking of origin reestablishes the human in the allegedly “posthuman” era. The minimalism of the origin refers neither to the measures of Keret's stories nor to his language, but to the main feature of his poetic thinking: constitution of the whole human condition on the infinitely small but inexhaustible originary scene. This scene is further presented as a source of historical alternativeness. I view alternative history as a metaphysical–personalistic counterbalance to both radical determinism and relativism, and as a minimal metaphysical response to the tragic bewilderment in the face of life and history, when a bifurcation point (the significant center of alternativeness) is the minimal metaphysical origin.
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On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a ge, warum es dieser gelang, sich die altbewahrten... more
On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a ge, warum es dieser gelang, sich die altbewahrten Institutionen, Verbande und Vereine horig zu machen.
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Devoted to the works of the writer A. Goldstein, the paper focuses on his innovative form of novel: the chaos novel. Fundamental for any novel as a genre, the structuralized concept of history appears as a quality of the discursive,... more
Devoted to the works of the writer A. Goldstein, the paper focuses on his innovative form of novel: the chaos novel. Fundamental for any novel as a genre, the structuralized concept of history appears as a quality of the discursive, narrative, and poetic chaos itself: not in spite of it, or as its source, but specifically as its quality and manifestation. Describing the ‘chaos’ of Goldstein’s novels, especially his most famous work Remember Famagusta [Pomni o Famaguste], the author uses the term ‘dissipative’ to define its chaotic and simultaneously deterministic structure: he finds it the best term to characterize the author’s writing method. Taking into account the novel’s numerous critical reviews, he comes up with the most detailed analysis of Goldstein’s ‘continuous writing’, which, the critic believes, proves that the development of complex chaotic-deterministic systems of the novel remains one of modern literature’s most vital tasks.
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История русско-израильской литературы есть история движе- ния деминоризации русско-еврейского творческого сознания и основанного на нем сообщества, поэтому осмысление ее будет идти по следам этого движения. В данном очерке историографи-... more
История русско-израильской литературы есть история движе-
ния деминоризации русско-еврейского творческого сознания
и основанного на нем сообщества, поэтому осмысление ее будет
идти по следам этого движения. В данном очерке историографи-
ческая программа может быть только намечена, поле историко-
литературных смыслов может быть только предварительно
очерчено, поскольку сам предмет его еще нуждается в том, чтобы
быть введенным в научный оборот.
ния деминоризации русско-еврейского творческого сознания
и основанного на нем сообщества, поэтому осмысление ее будет
идти по следам этого движения. В данном очерке историографи-
ческая программа может быть только намечена, поле историко-
литературных смыслов может быть только предварительно
очерчено, поскольку сам предмет его еще нуждается в том, чтобы
быть введенным в научный оборот.
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The history of Russian-Israeli literature is the history of the deminorization of the Russian-Israeli creative consciousness and the community based on it. To understand it, one must trace this development. In the following pages, I can... more
The history of Russian-Israeli literature is the history of the deminorization of the Russian-Israeli creative consciousness and the community based on it. To understand it, one must trace this development. In the following pages, I can only sketch a historiographic program and tentatively outline this field of historical-literary meaning, since the subject itself still needs to be brought into scholarly circulation.
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Contemporary Russophone Israeli literature is no longer émigré, minor, or marginal. In a world in which globalism and cultural neonativism converge, literature reveals new possibilities of expression and thinking. Russophone writers in... more
Contemporary Russophone Israeli literature is no longer émigré, minor, or marginal. In a world in which globalism and cultural neonativism converge, literature reveals new possibilities of expression and thinking. Russophone writers in Israel find a way to overwhelm the traditional Jewish-Russian poetics and ghetto mentality. The key to their artistic achievements is their deep emotional and intellectual involvement in Israeli (and through it, world) life and culture without detaching themselves from the Israeli Russophone community, which sees itself not as a Russian diaspora or emigrant ghetto but as an integral part of global, decentralized, networking Russian and Jewish cultures. Israeli writers and intellectuals escape sociological frameworks that might be limiting, thus achieving the fruitful complexity of a bi-major mentality: as part of the majority in the world Russophone community, and as the Jewish majority in Israel. This is the unique soil in which the works of such authors as Alexander Goldshtein, Dina Rubina, Dennis Sobolev, Gali-Dana and Nekod Singer, Mikhail Yudson, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko and Yury Nesis, Alex Tarn, and many others have grown. * In the modern world of global networks and open borders, virtual geography substantially restructures physical geography. Thanks to the internet, imagined communities become real, albeit micro-sociological, objects. Splitting the relations between people and the products of their creativity into small, unstable, dissipative systems is perceived more as an attribute of crisis and decay and is normalized within the framework of the theory of chaos that is gaining ever greater currency. It was these profound changes— and not only the influence of the theorists of postcollonialism—that should have changed the role and meaning of such concepts as periphery, diaspora, émigré literature, and minor literature, which were relevant as recently as the 1970s of the past century. But this took place only partially and only in relation to the most obvious instances. For example, few today can doubt that the relocation of a writer from Russia to Europe or to Israel can be considered emigration only in the technical sense. And yet Russian literature written in Israel is conferred the label of peripheral. Mikhail Efimov's note about Alexander Goldshtein, published recently in the journal Zvezda [Star], can serve as an example. In it he writes with great sympathy about the opportunity that has emerged for the writer " to breath oxygen " " on the periphery. " On the other hand, the Israeli literary scholar Adia Mendelson-Maoz examines Russophone Israeli literature as part of Israel's " marginal literature " alongside Arab-Israeli literature and the Hebrew literature of refugees from the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Since such definitions, even though they seem intuitively and sociologically founded, obviously contradict the vector of contemporary culture's development, I would like to examine in greater detail here the question of the marginal
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Some critics note that there are no more lacunae on the map of late Soviet unofficial or nonconformist literature. In this extensively developed field of study, however, too little attention has been devoted to the work of the Leningrad... more
Some critics note that there are no more lacunae on the map of late Soviet unofficial or nonconformist literature. In this extensively developed field of study, however, too little attention has been devoted to the work of the Leningrad and Moscow—and since 1987 American—poet, prose writer, and translator David Shrayer-Petrov. This has partly to do with the fact that nonconformist literature has long since developed its own unofficial but fully hegemonic canon. On the other hand, this is related to the question of how the national, particularly the Jewish, component should be related to the discourse on Soviet nonconformism. The theoretical interpretation of the latter is far from completed, nor is the interpretation of the cultural-anthropological motifs at the foundation of nonconformist literature. This essay focuses on the writings of David Shrayer-Petrov, mostly those created while he was a refusenik. I will attempt to show that the arena of the conflict lying at the root of the nonconformist imagination, represented symbolically and aimed at mobilizing a Jewish identity, can be described in terms of the generative anthropology of Eric Gans as the scene of blocking the gesture of appropriation directed at the victim. Jewish nonconformism thereby assimilates and overcomes the victimary state of mind characteristic of the post-Holocaust period and possibly of modern times in general.
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ABSTRACT The article proposes a model for analyzing the utterances of Jewish nonconformism in the late-Soviet Russian literature, based on Michel Foucault’s theory of fearless speech and Eric Gans’ theory of the origins of culture. The... more
ABSTRACT The article proposes a model for analyzing the utterances of Jewish nonconformism in the late-Soviet Russian literature, based on Michel Foucault’s theory of fearless speech and Eric Gans’ theory of the origins of culture. The utterances of nonconformism transform an asymmetrical conflict into symmetrical nonvictimary relations, in which a new, supposedly real identity of a figure is revealed and mobilized for protest. These new relations are based on mutual recodification of different discursive configurations – political, moral, social, aesthetical, metaphysical, or mystical. The discussion will focus on the selected novels of Fridrikh Gorenshtein, Felix Roziner, and, in greater detail, David Shrayer-Petrov.
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Abstract This work is an attempt to systematically read the “crisis articles” of Matvei Kagan (1889–1937), a Russian philosopher of Jewish origin who was a student and follower of Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer, and a... more
Abstract This work is an attempt to systematically read the “crisis articles” of Matvei Kagan (1889–1937), a Russian philosopher of Jewish origin who was a student and follower of Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, and Ernst Cassirer, and a close friend of Mikhail Bakhtin during his early, constitutive participation in the Nevel Circle (1918–1920). The articles are discussed in the context of Kagan’s main realm, the philosophy of history; however, they present Kagan as a philosopher of culture and religion. In these works, Kagan defines the origins of the European cultural crisis of the 1910s and 1920s in the terms of Jewish monotheism, and finds the source for its solution in the core model of Jewish community.
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... the complexity of the becoming of that non-linear dynamic system which is Atanas' PDC, which contains not only Atanas' "personage" but also the fabric of the ... Le Goff, Jacques, La... more
... the complexity of the becoming of that non-linear dynamic system which is Atanas' PDC, which contains not only Atanas' "personage" but also the fabric of the ... Le Goff, Jacques, La civilisation de l'occident médiéval, Paris, 1965. ... Pavić, Milorad, Landscape Painted With Tea, trans ...
W kolejnych dwóch częściach artykułu na przykładzie twórczości czterech izraelskich poetek (Alex Rif, Nadi-Adiny Rose, Yael Tomashov i Rity Kogan) zaprezentowane zostały kulturowo-estetyczne właściwości poezji hebrajskiej przedstawicieli... more
W kolejnych dwóch częściach artykułu na przykładzie twórczości czterech izraelskich poetek (Alex Rif, Nadi-Adiny Rose, Yael Tomashov i Rity Kogan) zaprezentowane zostały kulturowo-estetyczne właściwości poezji hebrajskiej przedstawicieli młodego pokolenia — tzw. generation one and a half — dzieci wychodźców z byłego ZSRR. Obszernie omówiono kwestię dziedzictwa oraz transformacji kulturowej i psychologicznej, a także praktyk poetyckich odróżniających poszczególnych autorów, w twórczości których wspomniane dziedzictwo i transformacja są obecne. Niniejszy artykuł poświęcony jest utworom Yael Tomashov i Rity Kogan (część pierwsza traktująca o twórczości Alex Rif, Nadi-Adiny Rose ukazała się w poprzednim numerze).
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W artykule szczerość i nieszczerość traktowane są jako pojęcia retoryczne. Autor stara się uniknąć błędnego utożsamiania szczerości i prawdziwości oraz retoryki i poetyki, a także równie błędnego utożsamiania szczerości i performatywności... more
W artykule szczerość i nieszczerość traktowane są jako pojęcia retoryczne. Autor stara się uniknąć błędnego utożsamiania szczerości i prawdziwości oraz retoryki i poetyki, a także równie błędnego utożsamiania szczerości i performatywności oraz retoryki i manipulacji. W analizie zastosowano całe spektrum odmian (nie)szczerości, które okazują się przydatne w badaniach tekstów literackich (przywołano wiele przykładów z literatury rosyjskiej i żydowskiej). Wyjaśniono również dlaczego czytelnik postrzega i uznaje szczerą wypowiedź za mityczny, mimetyczny i metaforyczny obraz prawdy.
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This volume focuses on several Russian authors among many who immigrated to Israel with the “big wave” of the 1990s or later, and whose largest part of their works was written in Israel: Dina Rubina, Nekod Singer, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko... more
This volume focuses on several Russian authors among many who immigrated to Israel with the “big wave” of the 1990s or later, and whose largest part of their works was written in Israel: Dina Rubina, Nekod Singer, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko and Yury Nesis, and Mikhail Yudson. They are popular and active authors on the Israeli scene, in the printed and electronic media, and some of them are also editors of the renowned journals and authors of literary and cultural reviews and essays. They constitute a new generation of Jewish-Russian writers: diasporic Russians and new Israelis.
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On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a ge, warum es dieser gelang, sich die altbewahrten... more
On the basis of Dostoevsky and Agnon, this book analyzes the problem of literary mythopoesis. Guided by a personalistic-dialogical conception of myth, the author elaborates a ge, warum es dieser gelang, sich die altbewahrten Institutionen, Verbande und Vereine horig zu machen.
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On August 8, 1887, Shmuel Yosef was born in Buchach, Galicia (today located in Ukraine) to Shalom Mordechai and Esther Czaczkes, the family being a traditional, religious observant Jewish family. Agnon learnt in a “cheder,” and received a... more
On August 8, 1887, Shmuel Yosef was born in Buchach, Galicia (today located in Ukraine) to Shalom Mordechai and Esther Czaczkes, the family being a traditional, religious observant Jewish family. Agnon learnt in a “cheder,” and received a traditional Jewish education within the community, and in a more extensive and comprehensive way in personal learning with his father. From a young age, he read classics in German and Hebrew works written during the Haskalah period. He began by writing poetry and prose in Hebrew and Yiddish and, at a more mature age, moved on to writing prose primarily in Hebrew. At the age of twenty-one he immigrated to pre-state Israel, living in Jaffa while leading a secular lifestyle. There he published in 1908 his story “Agunot” (Grass widows), which he signed with his new name Agnon. Four years later the story “Vehaya ha’akov lemishor” (And the crooked shall be made straight) was at first serialized (1912) and later on published as a novella. In 1912, Agnon m...
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The published materials are the correspondence of Maxim Gorky and Abraham Leibovich Vysotsky, which had been awaiting publication for many years. Publishers raise the question of A.L. Vysotsky’s place in Jewish literature in Russian and... more
The published materials are the correspondence of Maxim Gorky and Abraham Leibovich Vysotsky, which had been awaiting publication for many years. Publishers raise the question of A.L. Vysotsky’s place in Jewish literature in Russian and in Russian literature. It is noted that Vysotsky’s works, appreciated by M. Gorky, who published a number of them in the journals “Letopis’” and “Beseda”, were not included in the canon of both Russian literature as well as its RussianJewish branch, and Israeli literature in Russian . The writer's biography, genesis and poetics of his works have so far remained beyond the attention of researchers, and one of the objectives of this publication is to try to fill this gap. In the introductory article, relying on archival materials, Vysotsky’s biography is reconstructed, a number of important facts are clarified, including his date of birth, information about his education, literary activity and connection with the Zionist movement is presented, the ...
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Перекрестья: размышления на полях одного эссе Александра Любинского
«Артикль», № 49 (17), 2021.
https://sunround.com/article/?page_id=3173
«Артикль», № 49 (17), 2021.
https://sunround.com/article/?page_id=3173
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Русско-израильская литература как эмерджентное сообщество
«Артикль», № 48 (16), 2021. https://sunround.com/article/?page_id=2994
«Артикль», № 48 (16), 2021. https://sunround.com/article/?page_id=2994
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«Освобожденье речи». Предисловие // Семен Крайтман. «…снова о готике». СПб.: Геликон Плюс, 2021. С. 3-10.
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Рецензия: Яков Шехтер, «Ангел-водопроводчик. Рассказы о неожиданном», Тель-Авив, Издательство «Артикль», 2023.
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This book by Adam Katz and Eric Gans makes a significant and original contribution to the study of antisemitism. It serves as a new stage in the development of the theory and method of generative anthropology developed by Gans and his... more
This book by Adam Katz and Eric Gans makes a significant and original contribution to the study of antisemitism. It serves as a new stage in the development of the theory and method of generative anthropology developed by Gans and his school, as well as of philosophical anthropology as the study of the mechanisms of sign and culture origination in general. At the foundation of Gans’s theory lies the idea that the human collective is formed at the moment when the “gesture of appropriation” in relation to the object of desire characteristic of the “pecking order” is aborted and deferred, is transformed into an originary sign, a symbol of this object. The sacral is the object that is designated as unassignable. The aborted gesture becomes the first sign of both language and morality, which henceforth transforms from a tribal codex into a universal correlative of the sacral as such.
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Рукописи, как известно, не горят. Это тем более замечательно, что изданные по ним книги зачастую исчезают с полок магазинов и библиотек и становятся малодоступными раритетами. Изданный много лет назад сборник стихов Дениса Соболева... more
Рукописи, как известно, не горят. Это тем более замечательно, что изданные по ним книги зачастую исчезают с полок магазинов и библиотек и становятся малодоступными раритетами. Изданный много лет назад сборник стихов Дениса Соболева постигла именно такая участь, и если бы не счастливая идея переиздать с трудом сохранившиеся рукописи, то русско-израильский литературный ландшафт, лишившись этой книги, был бы сегодня существенно беднее. Эти стихи были написаны в 1994-1997 годах, незадолго то того, как Соболев начал работать над своими иерусалимскими сказками, позднее составившими роман «Иерусалим» (2005). Их появление теперь, после выхода в свет в 2016 году его второго романа «Легенды горы Кармель», создает любопытное одновременное со-бытие двух локусов его творчества, превращая их в два параллельных мира, в две тропы или два тропа, которые накладываются друг на друга, но не пересекаются, создавая своеобразную оптическую, вернее, поэтическую иллюзию – новый троп или новую тропу, заслуживающую того, чтобы быть пройденной.
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«Легенды горы Кармель» Дениса Соболева, как и его роман «Иерусалим» (2005), принадлежат новейшей русско-израильской литературе, главной особенностью которой является интенсивное интеллектуальное и культурное вживание в израильскую почву —... more
«Легенды горы Кармель» Дениса Соболева, как и его роман «Иерусалим» (2005), принадлежат новейшей русско-израильской литературе, главной особенностью которой является интенсивное интеллектуальное и культурное вживание в израильскую почву — не идеологическое или политическое, а магическое и, если так можно выразиться, герменевтическое. В стиле фрагментарного романа Соболев собирает реальность и историю по кусочкам, в каждом из которых отражается вся вселенная — и в то же время не остается закрытой и бесспорной ни одна идея. Как и в «Иерусалиме», мысль автора занята отчаянным поиском свободы среди хаоса истории.
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Review of the collection of papers:
Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East.
Edited by Ber Kotlerman.
Vol. 2: Religion– Philosophy– Identity.
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2011, 288 pp.
Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East.
Edited by Ber Kotlerman.
Vol. 2: Religion– Philosophy– Identity.
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang, 2011, 288 pp.
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The habit of referring Dostoevsky to the genre or style of realism has turned a good theory into a triviality. Meanwhile, the very concept of realism is undergoing profound changes today, especially in philosophy, for example, in the... more
The habit of referring Dostoevsky to the genre or style of realism has turned a good theory into a triviality. Meanwhile, the very concept of realism is undergoing profound changes today, especially in philosophy, for example, in the diverse schools of speculative realism (Harman). Among others, such a dichotomy, established in the time of Dostoevsky, as positivism vs. constructionism is being revisited. In the 20 th century phenomenological and hermeneutic philosophy affirmed the victory of the latter over the former, identifying finally being with cognition. At least, this victory was final in the field of cultural thought and criticism. And yet today the question of realism and truth in the philosophy of culture is being raised anew, and with it the question of understanding realism in literature, which can no longer be understood in terms of mimeticism after the crisis of representation in art. There is also an ongoing discussion about Dostoevsky's realism (Contino, Brunson). In this work, I will try to raise anew the question of Dostoevsky's realism and propose the following hypothesis: his realism is a complex, often chaotic system of culture-cognizing objectifying practices. I suggest that Dostoevsky, despite his usual and often superficial rejection of the positivist worldview, inscribed in characters such as Raskolnikov, Myshkin, Arkady, Verkhovensky, Ivan Karamazov a realistic critique of the poverty of constructionism.
Research Interests: Dostoevsky and Realism
Julius Margolin (1900-1971), a Jewish author of Russian and Polish origins, wrote his famous Russian-language novel A Journey to the Land Zeka in pre-State Israel, one year after his release from a Soviet concentration camp (1946-1947).... more
Julius Margolin (1900-1971), a Jewish author of Russian and Polish origins, wrote his famous Russian-language novel A Journey to the Land Zeka in pre-State Israel, one year after his release from a Soviet concentration camp (1946-1947). Having been one of the earliest testimonies about Stalin’s atrocities, this book was published in 1952 in its abridged version, whereas the unabridged version came out only in 2016. While the social and political significance of this book has been repeatedly discussed, its poetical and discursive strategies are understudied. This article makes a few steps in the direction of understanding of Margolin’s book seriocomic style, discourse of fairytale and fantasy, the Palestine-Zionist text, the sea motif and other themes. The analysis unveils the author’s ambitious literary project that hides behind the historical testimony and is intended to strengthen it.
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I use here the word KIKAYON as a symbol of the recent state of literature, after it lost its metaphysical and existential foundations: it grows up in “the desert of the real” to give us a passing sense of order and to dissipate next day... more
I use here the word KIKAYON as a symbol of the recent state of literature, after it lost its metaphysical and existential foundations: it grows up in “the desert of the real” to give us a passing sense of order and to dissipate next day in the chaos of unpredictability, having been damaged by the worm of skepticism or of its opposite, dogmatism. Throughout its history, literature has inhabited different conceptual spaces shaped by dominant socio-scientific paradigms: temple, castle, and city; factory, institution, and network; universe and multiverse; geocentric, heliocentric, and expanding cosmos; wave, particle, and quantum mechanics; and so on. What are scientific paradigms that form the oikos in which the contemporary kikayon literature inhabits? The research in this field has one substantial limitation: when it is strongly sociologically oriented, as it is the case in most recent works, it avoids dealing with strictly scientific issues or treats them too superficially; when it is scientifically oriented, it tends to treat humanistic and cultural issues in too reducible and simplistic way. The purpose of the KIKAYON project is to overcome this limitation and observe the attitude of the contemporary (Hebrew) literature to the today’s scientific theories and problems while keeping an eye on both humanistic and scientific complexities.
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(הרצאה באוניברסיטת חיפה, בכנס התוכנית לפילוסופיה וספרות, ביוני 2018) האם נכונות השמועות שהתאוריה הספרותית נמצאת היום במגמה של תחייה? כיצד מדעי הרוח נקלעו למשבר ומה הדרך להתגבר עליו? האם פילוסופיית הראליזם הספקולטיבי עשויה לסייע בכך, והאם... more
(הרצאה באוניברסיטת חיפה, בכנס התוכנית לפילוסופיה וספרות, ביוני 2018)
האם נכונות השמועות שהתאוריה הספרותית נמצאת היום במגמה של תחייה? כיצד מדעי הרוח נקלעו למשבר ומה הדרך להתגבר עליו? האם פילוסופיית הראליזם הספקולטיבי עשויה לסייע בכך, והאם היא מאותת את הפרידה מפוסטמודרניזם?
האם נכונות השמועות שהתאוריה הספרותית נמצאת היום במגמה של תחייה? כיצד מדעי הרוח נקלעו למשבר ומה הדרך להתגבר עליו? האם פילוסופיית הראליזם הספקולטיבי עשויה לסייע בכך, והאם היא מאותת את הפרידה מפוסטמודרניזם?
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Contemporary Russophone Israeli literature is no longer émigré, minor, or marginal. In a world in which globalism and cultural neonativism converge, literature reveals new possibilities of expression and thinking. Russophone writers in... more
Contemporary Russophone Israeli literature is no longer émigré, minor, or marginal. In a world in which globalism and cultural neonativism converge, literature reveals new possibilities of expression and thinking. Russophone writers in Israel find a way to overwhelm the traditional Jewish-Russian poetics and ghetto mentality. The key to their artistic achievements is their deep emotional and intellectual involvement in Israeli (and through it, world) life and culture without detaching themselves from the Israeli Russophone community, which sees itself not as a Russian diaspora or emigrant ghetto but as an integral part of global, decentralized, networking Russian and Jewish cultures. Israeli writers and intellectuals escape sociological frameworks that might be limiting, thus achieving the fruitful complexity of a bi-major mentality: as part of the majority in the world Russophone community, and as the Jewish majority in Israel. This is the unique soil in which the works of such authors as Alexander Goldshtein, Dina Rubina, Dennis Sobolev, Gali-Dana and Nekod Singer, Mikhail Yudson, Elizaveta Mikhailichenko and Yury Nesis, Alex Tarn, and many others have grown. * In the modern world of global networks and open borders, virtual geography substantially restructures physical geography. Thanks to the internet, imagined communities become real, albeit micro-sociological, objects. Splitting the relations between people and the products of their creativity into small, unstable, dissipative systems is perceived more as an attribute of crisis and decay and is normalized within the framework of the theory of chaos that is gaining ever greater currency. It was these profound changes— and not only the influence of the theorists of postcollonialism—that should have changed the role and meaning of such concepts as periphery, diaspora, émigré literature, and minor literature, which were relevant as recently as the 1970s of the past century. But this took place only partially and only in relation to the most obvious instances. For example, few today can doubt that the relocation of a writer from Russia to Europe or to Israel can be considered emigration only in the technical sense. And yet Russian literature written in Israel is conferred the label of peripheral. Mikhail Efimov's note about Alexander Goldshtein, published recently in the journal Zvezda [Star], can serve as an example. In it he writes with great sympathy about the opportunity that has emerged for the writer " to breath oxygen " " on the periphery. " On the other hand, the Israeli literary scholar Adia Mendelson-Maoz examines Russophone Israeli literature as part of Israel's " marginal literature " alongside Arab-Israeli literature and the Hebrew literature of refugees from the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Since such definitions, even though they seem intuitively and sociologically founded, obviously contradict the vector of contemporary culture's development, I would like to examine in greater detail here the question of the marginal
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In this presentation I discuss the Hebrew poetry of three emigrants from the former Soviet Union in Israel: Alex Rif, Yael Tomashov, and Rita Kogan.
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Presentation at the 14th Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference, Bar-Ilan University, June 14-16, 2021 (online)
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Presented at the symposium “Russian-Israeli Literature, A History”, 29 June 2021, Bar-Ilan University. /// Russian-Israeli literature, as a whole historical phenomenon, contradicts the neo-Marxist paradigm of identity politics, which... more
Presented at the symposium “Russian-Israeli Literature, A History”, 29 June 2021, Bar-Ilan University. ///
Russian-Israeli literature, as a whole historical phenomenon, contradicts the neo-Marxist paradigm of identity politics, which includes, for example, the theories of minor and marginal literatures, hybrid and transnational literatures. And thus, it reflects the necessity of searching for a new paradigm.
Russian-Israeli literature, as a whole historical phenomenon, contradicts the neo-Marxist paradigm of identity politics, which includes, for example, the theories of minor and marginal literatures, hybrid and transnational literatures. And thus, it reflects the necessity of searching for a new paradigm.