The Memory Trace of Jewishness in the Memoir Literature of Authors of the Late 19th Century
The Memory Trace of Jewishness in the Memoir Literature of Authors of the Late 19th Century

Summary/Abstract: This study focuses on the phenomenon of Jewishness and its representation in memoir literature. The author concentrates both on memoirs in the true sense of the word (recorded recollections) and on variations of the genre — e.g. memoir travelogues. However, she also takes into account texts in which distinctly fictionalised elements are discernible, and which can be classified within the genre of memoirs rather than that of the short story or novella only thanks to the author’s statement (usually presented in the introduction) that the described event belongs to his or her own personal recollections. The analysed texts demonstrate various degrees of playing upon national stereotypes, but it would nevertheless be inaccurate to term them anti-Semitic. However, in the concluding part of the study attention is drawn to Jaroslava Procházková’s pamphlet Český lid a český Žid (The Czech People and the Czech Jew), in which manifestly anti-Semitic propositions are put forth, intentionally accenting the stereotype of the Jew as a dishonest trader. The communication strategy in Procházková’s writing lacks literary ambitions, and the childhood recollection presented therein is entirely subordinated to the ideology of anti-Semitism.

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