Language:
German
Year of publication:
2011
Titel der Quelle:
Jahrbuch des Simon-Dubnow-Instituts
Angaben zur Quelle:
10 (2011) 315-328
Keywords:
Grossman, Vasiliĭ.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature
;
Russian literature History and criticism
Abstract:
Argues that Vasilii Grossman's war-epos "Zhizn i sudba" ("Life and Fate") came about through a threefold hermeneutic processing of the key tragedies of World War II. Grossman turned his experiences of the battle of Stalingrad and the liberation of Treblinka and Majdanek into notes, the notes into newspaper reports, and the reports into a novel. States that, whereas Grossman's diaries and Stalingrad novel from 1952 represent the first and second hermeneutic stages, which reveal his faithfulness to official Soviet dogma, according to which the Jews were not to be ascribed a special role as victims, his encounter with the Holocaust made him abandon the party line and socialist realism. In "Life and Fate", Grossman enfolds the whole historical process in an all-encompassing narrative interpretation. The storyline is not dictated by the factuality of the events, but by a logic influenced by Grossman's choice of the epic genre. Contends that belief in the intuitive goodness of man is at the core of his narrative interpretation of history. He allows this goodness to illuminate even the deepest, epic tragedy.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink