- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770552
- eISBN:
- 9780804775625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770552.003.0016
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter examines the place of Christian and post-Christian imaginative patterns in the cultural and artistic self-image of Russian-Jewish artists, and in their ideas of “the Jews” and ...
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This chapter examines the place of Christian and post-Christian imaginative patterns in the cultural and artistic self-image of Russian-Jewish artists, and in their ideas of “the Jews” and “Jewishness.” It explains the identity problems of assimilated Jewish authors that arise from their encounter with “the Jews” of the Christian imagination. The chapter also suggests that, like other minorities, assimilated Jews often uncritically absorb the majority discourse about them, and considers the appropriation of a Gentile cultural icon by a traditional Jewish community on its own terms.Less
This chapter examines the place of Christian and post-Christian imaginative patterns in the cultural and artistic self-image of Russian-Jewish artists, and in their ideas of “the Jews” and “Jewishness.” It explains the identity problems of assimilated Jewish authors that arise from their encounter with “the Jews” of the Christian imagination. The chapter also suggests that, like other minorities, assimilated Jews often uncritically absorb the majority discourse about them, and considers the appropriation of a Gentile cultural icon by a traditional Jewish community on its own terms.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770552
- eISBN:
- 9780804775625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770552.003.0017
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter examines the place of the generative model of “the Jews” in Isaak Babel's artistic self-image through the close reading of his two stories, “Moi pervyi gus” and “Guy de Maupassant.” It ...
More
This chapter examines the place of the generative model of “the Jews” in Isaak Babel's artistic self-image through the close reading of his two stories, “Moi pervyi gus” and “Guy de Maupassant.” It discusses Babel's depiction of “the Jews” as epitomizing the physical and spiritual decline of the European male, and considers his fictional and nonfictional writings as a coherent autobiographical narrative that presents in the symbolic language of a post-Christian culture a portrait of the artist as a former Jew. The chapter also argues that Babel's artistic affronts to Jewish and Christian sensibilities indicate his break from the traditional choices of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia.Less
This chapter examines the place of the generative model of “the Jews” in Isaak Babel's artistic self-image through the close reading of his two stories, “Moi pervyi gus” and “Guy de Maupassant.” It discusses Babel's depiction of “the Jews” as epitomizing the physical and spiritual decline of the European male, and considers his fictional and nonfictional writings as a coherent autobiographical narrative that presents in the symbolic language of a post-Christian culture a portrait of the artist as a former Jew. The chapter also argues that Babel's artistic affronts to Jewish and Christian sensibilities indicate his break from the traditional choices of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia.
