Between Two Worlds: Internalized Anti-Semitism in Isaac Babel's Short Fiction

Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Schatz, David

Keywords

Russia, Anti-Semitism, Babel, Isaac, Jewish Identity, Internalized Oppression, Russian Literature

Area of Concentration

Russian Language and Literature

Abstract

This thesis sets out to examine the seemingly paradoxical dynamics of Jewish, Russian, and Communist identity in Isaac Babel's short fiction. How can a Jewish narrator write admiringly and enviously of Cossack soldiers as they insult and abuse him and commit violence against other Jews? How, at other times, can this same narrator speak lyrically and warmly about the Jewish world in which he was raised and feels at home? I argue that looking at Babel's short stories through the lens of internalized anti-Semitism can aid us in answering the aforementioned questions and in better understanding how his fiction works. In this thesis, I apply cultural criticism, cultural history, and literary criticism to analyze internalized anti-Semitism in three of Isaac Babel's short stories: "My First Goose," "Story of My Dovecote," and "The Awakening." Though the stories differ in their content and approaches, the narrators of all three employ popular anti-Semitic perceptions of the differences between Jewish and Russian bodies and minds when writing of others and/ or themselves. I seek to explore how Babel's narrators attempt to reconcile contradictory images and ideals of Jewish and Russian identity and masculinity coming both from dominant, Russian society and from within their own Jewish communities.

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