Language and Literature paper by Hetényi, Zsuzsa
Parallels in Difference – A Typological Comparison of Isaac Babel and Károly Pap as Two Cases of Jewish Writing in Different Languages
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
In spite of the fact that Babel (1894–1940), a Soviet Jewish writer and Pap (1897–1945), a Hungarian Jewish one, were assimilated in the very different circumstances of Tsarist Russia and Austro-Hungarian empires, have strikingly many comparable moments in their biographies and—what is more important—in their writings that are concentrated around the possibility of a double cultural and personal identity of Jews.
They were both involved in the revolutionary movements and later disappointed in Socialist ideas; they both took distance of their Jewish background. They died nearly the same age, both a violent death, both victims of a dictatorship, of the two totalitarian regimes of the 20th century.
My paper’s aim to of outline some typological conclusions of these seeming coincidences for the impasses of the Jewish assimilation among the intellectuals of 20th century.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Zsuzsa Hetényi is Professor and PhD-program director in the Institute for Slavic Studies, ELTE University, Budapest, DSc of Academy of Sciences and a literary translator (Babel, Bulgakov, Kharms, Nabokov, Russian-Jewish prose anthology, and others). Her main works include a monographic study on Biblical and messianic motifs in Babel's Red Cavalry (1991); In the Maelstrom: The History of Russian-Jewish Literature (in Hungarian 2000, in English 2008, CEU-Press). She edited and co-authored the 2-volume History of Russian Literature (v. 1: 1997, v. 2: 2002). Her fields of interest are the Russian Prose of 20th century, bilingual authors, literature of dual identity and exile, Biblical motifs in literature and Jewish Prose. She is currently at work on the first Hungarian monograph on Vladimir Nabokov’s oeuvre.