Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Kwartalnik Historii Żydów
Angaben zur Quelle:
279 (2021) 857-876
Keywords:
Shraer-Petrov, David Criticism and interpretation
;
Jewish authors
;
Russian fiction History and criticism
;
Autobiography
;
Karaites
;
Karaites in literature
Abstract:
David Shrayer-Petrov is a prolific Russian-Jewish writer, poet, litterateur and scientist. His novels, short stories and memoirs contain much information on the Crimean and Polish-Lithuanian Karaites. This article for the first time analyzes the Karaite theme in the publications of this important Russian-Jewish author. David Shrayer-Petrov came across the East European Karaites and their historical legacy at different times (from 1941-1943 to 1984) and in various geographical regions: in the Urals, Leningrad, Moscow, Crimea, and Lithuania. The Karaites and the picturesque myths surrounding the formation of their identity (from rigorous non-Talmudic Jews to a people with a bogus Turkic identity based on several pseudo-scholarly theories) produced a strong impression on the writer. When seen from this perspective, Trakai and Crimea of Shrayer-Petrov’s novels and memoir prose appear as isolated lieux de mémoire where a Jew can travel in order to put his own Jewishness to test by venturing there, passing this test – and remaining Jewish
Note:
With an English abstract.
URL:
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