Language:
English
Year of publication:
2010
Titel der Quelle:
East European Jewish Affairs
Angaben zur Quelle:
40,2 (2010) 147-157
Keywords:
Orzeszkowa, Eliza,
;
Dygasiński, Adolf
;
Prus, Bolesław,
;
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
;
Pogroms
;
Jewish literature History and criticism
;
Jews
Abstract:
On Christmas Day of 1881 a pogrom broke out in Warsaw, following a disaster in one of the city's largest churches, the blame for which was laid on Jews. The pogrom shattered the sense of Polish moral superiority over the pogromist Russians, shared by the Polish intelligentsia after the pogrom wave in Russia that year. It caused the intelligentsia to reexamine the Polish-Jewish relationship. Shows how the Christmas pogrom was depicted in several Polish works of literature, including Eliza Orzeszkowa's pamphlet "On Jews and the Jewish Question" and her novel "Mirtala"; Adolf Dygasiński's novel "From under an Evil Star"; Bolesław Prus's novel "The Doll"; and Maria Konopnicka's short story "Mendel Gdański". Only Dygasiński represented the pogrom in a direct form. Prus's attitude toward the Polish-Jewish relationship was ambivalent, and some motifs in his novel seem to be antisemitic.
DOI:
10.1080/13501674.2010.494045
URL:
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