Without Jews Yiddish literature in the People's Republic of Poland on the Holocaust, Poland and Communism - Magdalena Ruta [KSIĄŻKA]

Magdalena Ruta explores the virtually unknown area of Yiddish literature created in Poland after World War II. She unravels before general readers and future researchers numerous texts and analyses them in a lucid and captivating manner. The book should appeal to readers from various disciplines as well as to a non-scholarly audience as it touches upon difficult and complex problems that only recently have become the subject of thorough research and that are still perceived as controversial, such as Polish-Jewish relations after the war, or the fascination of a substantial number of Polish Jewish intellectuals with communism. It is worth stressing that the author deals with this sensitive topic competently and objectively. Prof. Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska Magdalena Ruta is Associate Professor at the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where she teaches Yiddish language and literature. She has translated several prose works from Yiddish into Polish and published numerous articles on modern Yiddish literature. She is the editor of three books: Nusech Pojln: Studia z dziejow kultury jidysz w powojennej Polsce (Nusakh Poyln: Studies on Yiddish Culture in Post-war Poland, 2008), Under the Red Banner: Yiddish Culture in the Communist Countries in the Post-war Era (co-edited with Elvira Groezinger, 2008), and a trilingual (Yiddish-Polish-English) anthology, Nisht bay di taykhn fun Bovl: Antologyefun deryidisher poezye in nokhmilkhomedikn Poyln (Not on the Rivers of Babylon: An Anthology of Yiddish Poetry in post-WWII Poland, 2012). Her monographs include Pomiędzy dwoma światami: O Kalmanie Segalu (Between Two Worlds: Kalman Segal, 2003), and Bez Żydów? Literatura jidysz w PRL o Zagładzie, Polsce i komunizmie (Without Jews? Yiddish Literature in Post-war Poland on the Holocaust, Poland and Communism, 2012 [in Polish]). She is President for Polish Association of Yiddish Studies, and Secretary for Polish Association of Jewish Study.

Przyczyną, dla której opętanie wywołuje takie emocje, wydaje się fascynacja tym zjawiskiem. Według Vincenta Crapanzana cechuje ona cały zachodni krąg kulturowy, a jej korzenie sięgają V wieku p.n.e., kiedy to Eurypides napisał swoje Bachantki. W sztuce tej król Penteusz sprzeciwia się kultowi nowego boga, którego wyznawcy powoli, ale nieubłaganie zmierzają do Teb []. Przeciwieństwem zachodniej postawy jest podejście dominujące w kultach vodun.

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