Researcher of Russian-Israeli literature and the theory of culture on the issue of the connection between myth, myth-making and catastrophe. Address: Israel
This essay is part of the book "Studies In The History Of Russian-Israeli Literature" (ed. by Rom... more This essay is part of the book "Studies In The History Of Russian-Israeli Literature" (ed. by Roman Katsman and Maxim D. Shrayer, Boston, 2023). Focusing on the literary production in the Russian language in Israel during the 1970s and 1980s, this paper endeavors to provide a survey of the works authored by Russian-Israeli writers of the period while also offering an analysis of the poetics that underlie their prose.
For Russian-Israeli literature, the city of Jerusalem is a “medium” of multiple realities and mea... more For Russian-Israeli literature, the city of Jerusalem is a “medium” of multiple realities and mean-ings. Some authors view it as an eternal city immersed in biblical stories, while others see it as a multidimen-sional universe of mythical and real, historical and legendary. Nekod Singer, in his novel "Drafts of Jerusalem" (Черновики Иерусалима, 2013), created his own Jerusalem — a city-universe of world literature, a city of “an infinite book of culture that encompasses all texts.” It may seem that by constructing a model of the universe reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges’ "The Library of Babel", Singer is participating in a postmodernist game, the goal of which is to show that “statement as such is an empty process” (Barthes), that cultural texts have long been written. All that remains is to ironize over the impossibility of breaking through to the “transcendental signi-fied” (Derrida) and to engage in endless interpretations of one text through another. This paper aims to demon-strate the fallacy of such a judgment. By pretending to be a postmodernist, Singer is actively arguing against it, as well as against Borges’ “Library of Babel,” by constructing his own concept of the Draft as a mythopoetic generator of meanings and ideas, demonstrating the possibility of overcoming the crisis of culture.
This paper was presented during the 12th EAJS congress in Frankfurt on July 16th - 20th, 2023. It... more This paper was presented during the 12th EAJS congress in Frankfurt on July 16th - 20th, 2023. It focuses on the urban mythology and mythopoetics utilized by Russian-Israeli writers in their work. Specifically, it examines three novels about three Israeli cities: Haifa, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Through these examples, the paper analyzes the various mythological devices and strategies employed by the authors to create new, symbolic images of these cities. This exploration aims to provide a deeper understanding of the ways in which mythology contributes to the creation of literary works in Russian-Israeli literature and the ways in which myths and symbols are used to represent urban spaces.
The First International Baltic Seminar of Young Philologist, 10 – 11 November 2022 Riga, 2022
This paper attempts to show the mythological and mythopoetic discourse of the "Journey into the l... more This paper attempts to show the mythological and mythopoetic discourse of the "Journey into the land of the Zeks and back" by Julius Margolin, hidden by its author behind a documentary description of the cruel and unbearable life in the Stalinist Gulag. Turning to myth as the literary basis of the "Journey" helps to find and identify those spiritual and intellectual discoveries made by Margolin in the camp, which helped him survive, return home and write about his experience.
Lecture presented at the 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies, 2022
It is not easy to imagine contemporary literature without an urban text. Cities have long ceased ... more It is not easy to imagine contemporary literature without an urban text. Cities have long ceased to be a background for a plot and have themselves become a plot - a metaphysical, cultural, mythical space in which knowledge about the secrets of life is revealed (or hidden). In Russian-Israeli literature, the topos of the city occupies a pivotal position since semantic themes and elements that excite Russian-Israeli writers are manifested through urban mythopoetics. Jerusalem, on this map of the convergence of the mythical and the real, as it should be, takes center stage. At the same time, because several Russian-Israeli authors are natives of Leningrad or closely connected with this northern city (D. Sobolev, L. Levinzon), Jerusalem in their texts loses its usual architecture, landscape, geography, and history in order to appear as an urban androgyne. This super-city unites the features of St. Petersburg and Jerusalem, creating a joint territory of the impossible. The kabbalistic combination of the discourses of the two cities, their alchemical marriage, forms a particular system of signs, which mixes fairy tale and reality, myth and history, past and present, everywhere and nowhere. Jerusalem-Peterburg is a labyrinth city, a network city. Russian-Israeli writers send their characters to this city to search of something unthinkable, marvelous, elusive, impossible. Through this search, they find an understanding of the essence of being, reality, freedom. In this lecture, we will try to understand and reveal the sources of the Jerusalem-Petersburg topos, define its symbolism, and name its main functions in Russian-Israeli literature using examples from the works of Dennis Sobolev and a number of other authors.
This essay is part of the book "Studies In The History Of Russian-Israeli Literature" (ed. by Rom... more This essay is part of the book "Studies In The History Of Russian-Israeli Literature" (ed. by Roman Katsman and Maxim D. Shrayer, Boston, 2023). Focusing on the literary production in the Russian language in Israel during the 1970s and 1980s, this paper endeavors to provide a survey of the works authored by Russian-Israeli writers of the period while also offering an analysis of the poetics that underlie their prose.
For Russian-Israeli literature, the city of Jerusalem is a “medium” of multiple realities and mea... more For Russian-Israeli literature, the city of Jerusalem is a “medium” of multiple realities and mean-ings. Some authors view it as an eternal city immersed in biblical stories, while others see it as a multidimen-sional universe of mythical and real, historical and legendary. Nekod Singer, in his novel "Drafts of Jerusalem" (Черновики Иерусалима, 2013), created his own Jerusalem — a city-universe of world literature, a city of “an infinite book of culture that encompasses all texts.” It may seem that by constructing a model of the universe reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges’ "The Library of Babel", Singer is participating in a postmodernist game, the goal of which is to show that “statement as such is an empty process” (Barthes), that cultural texts have long been written. All that remains is to ironize over the impossibility of breaking through to the “transcendental signi-fied” (Derrida) and to engage in endless interpretations of one text through another. This paper aims to demon-strate the fallacy of such a judgment. By pretending to be a postmodernist, Singer is actively arguing against it, as well as against Borges’ “Library of Babel,” by constructing his own concept of the Draft as a mythopoetic generator of meanings and ideas, demonstrating the possibility of overcoming the crisis of culture.
This paper was presented during the 12th EAJS congress in Frankfurt on July 16th - 20th, 2023. It... more This paper was presented during the 12th EAJS congress in Frankfurt on July 16th - 20th, 2023. It focuses on the urban mythology and mythopoetics utilized by Russian-Israeli writers in their work. Specifically, it examines three novels about three Israeli cities: Haifa, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Through these examples, the paper analyzes the various mythological devices and strategies employed by the authors to create new, symbolic images of these cities. This exploration aims to provide a deeper understanding of the ways in which mythology contributes to the creation of literary works in Russian-Israeli literature and the ways in which myths and symbols are used to represent urban spaces.
The First International Baltic Seminar of Young Philologist, 10 – 11 November 2022 Riga, 2022
This paper attempts to show the mythological and mythopoetic discourse of the "Journey into the l... more This paper attempts to show the mythological and mythopoetic discourse of the "Journey into the land of the Zeks and back" by Julius Margolin, hidden by its author behind a documentary description of the cruel and unbearable life in the Stalinist Gulag. Turning to myth as the literary basis of the "Journey" helps to find and identify those spiritual and intellectual discoveries made by Margolin in the camp, which helped him survive, return home and write about his experience.
Lecture presented at the 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies, 2022
It is not easy to imagine contemporary literature without an urban text. Cities have long ceased ... more It is not easy to imagine contemporary literature without an urban text. Cities have long ceased to be a background for a plot and have themselves become a plot - a metaphysical, cultural, mythical space in which knowledge about the secrets of life is revealed (or hidden). In Russian-Israeli literature, the topos of the city occupies a pivotal position since semantic themes and elements that excite Russian-Israeli writers are manifested through urban mythopoetics. Jerusalem, on this map of the convergence of the mythical and the real, as it should be, takes center stage. At the same time, because several Russian-Israeli authors are natives of Leningrad or closely connected with this northern city (D. Sobolev, L. Levinzon), Jerusalem in their texts loses its usual architecture, landscape, geography, and history in order to appear as an urban androgyne. This super-city unites the features of St. Petersburg and Jerusalem, creating a joint territory of the impossible. The kabbalistic combination of the discourses of the two cities, their alchemical marriage, forms a particular system of signs, which mixes fairy tale and reality, myth and history, past and present, everywhere and nowhere. Jerusalem-Peterburg is a labyrinth city, a network city. Russian-Israeli writers send their characters to this city to search of something unthinkable, marvelous, elusive, impossible. Through this search, they find an understanding of the essence of being, reality, freedom. In this lecture, we will try to understand and reveal the sources of the Jerusalem-Petersburg topos, define its symbolism, and name its main functions in Russian-Israeli literature using examples from the works of Dennis Sobolev and a number of other authors.
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In this lecture, we will try to understand and reveal the sources of the Jerusalem-Petersburg topos, define its symbolism, and name its main functions in Russian-Israeli literature using examples from the works of Dennis Sobolev and a number of other authors.
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In this lecture, we will try to understand and reveal the sources of the Jerusalem-Petersburg topos, define its symbolism, and name its main functions in Russian-Israeli literature using examples from the works of Dennis Sobolev and a number of other authors.