Galicia as a Literary Idea : Jewish Eastern Europe in the Writings of Joseph Roth and Soma Morgenstern / Kata Gellen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gellen Norberg, Kata, 1978- author.

Series:

German and European studies ; 64.

German and European studies ; 64

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Morgenstern, Soma, 1890-1976--Criticism and interpretation.

Morgenstern, Soma.

Roth, Joseph, 1894-1939--Criticism and interpretation.

Roth, Joseph.

German fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

German fiction.

Judaism in literature.

Galicia (Poland and Ukraine)--Social life and customs--20th century.

Galicia (Poland and Ukraine).

Galicia (Poland and Ukraine)--In literature.

Genre:

Critiques litteraires.

Literary criticism.

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (348 pages).

Place of Publication:

London : University of Toronto Press, 2026.

Summary:

"In the decades following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the former province of Galicia inspired the literary imagination of two German-language natives of this region, Joseph Roth and Soma Morgenstern. Galicia as a Literary Idea explores what their engagement with Galicia means for modern Jewish culture, history, and memory. For Roth and Morgenstern, Galicia encapsulates the rich interplay between contemporary developments – including urbanization, secularization, embourgeoisement, political self-determination, and new technologies – and traditional Jewish life in Eastern European villages and shtetls, characterized by tight-knit families and communities, religious observance and ritual, Yiddish language and culture, and Hasidic belief systems. Despite the tensions between these elements, this book presents them as a complex network rather than a battle between old and new, east and west, or tradition and modernity. German and Jewish studies scholar, Kata Gellen, also traces the shifting attachments of Galician Jews to German, a language that symbolized emancipation, culture, empire, and, ultimately, disillusionment and persecution. Through original readings of well-known and neglected works by Roth and Morgenstern, Gellen shows how the literary idea of Galicia is shaped by continuous struggle and emergent hope, whether as earthly possibility or redemptive promise. This book thereby uncovers the complex relationship between center and periphery in Jewish modernity and reanimates a dimension of modern Jewish literary history that has been obscured by the dark shadow of the Holocaust."-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-04-980019-2

1-4875-2900-7

9781049800196

OCLC:

1534732868