1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910141367203321

Autore

Sicher Efraim

Titolo

Babel in context [[electronic resource] ] : a study in cultural identity / / Efraim Sicher

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Boston, : Academic Studies Press, 2012

ISBN

1-61811-853-6

1-61811-145-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (308 pages) : illustrations; digital, PDF files

Collana

Borderlines : Russian and East European-Jewish studies

Disciplina

891.7342

Soggetti

Authors, Russian

Biographies

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Note on References and Translations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1 / Isaak Babelʹ: A Brief Life -- 2 / Reference and Interference -- 3 / Babelʹ, Bialik, and Others -- 4 / Midrash and History: A Key to the Babelesque Imagination -- 5 / A Russian Maupassant -- 6 / Babelʹ's Civil War -- 7 / A Voyeur on a Collective Farm -- Bibliography of Works by Babelʹ and Recommended Reading -- Notes -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

Isaak Babel' (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel' was-an Odessa Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant centers of east European Jewish culture, and who all his life loved Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem This is the first book in English to study the intertextuality of Babel''s work. It looks at Babel''s cultural identity as a case study in the contradictions and tensions of literary influence, personal loyalties, and ideological constraint. The complex and often ambivalent relations between the two cultures inevitably raise controversial issues that touch on the reception of Babel' and other Jewish intellectuals in Russian literature, as well as the "Jewishness" of their work.