Poutníci a vyprávění.
Pilgrims and Narratives:

Adaptation of a Hasidic Legend in the Works of Ivan Olbracht, Jiří Mordechaj Langer, and Egon Hostovský

Summary/Abstract: This study aims to compare three prose adaptations of a Hasidic legend published in 1937: Devět bran (‘The nine gates’) by Jiří Langer, Golet v údolí (‘Golet in the valley’) by Ivan Olbracht, and Dům bez pána (‘The house without a master’) by Egon Hostovský. The first part focuses on characterising the genre of Hasidic narration, with descriptions of its earliest Czech-language realisations on the pages of Czech periodicals. These investigations demonstrate that the acceptance of Hasidic narrativity by the authors in question is based not only on direct experience of the Hasidic environment, but also on the tradition of literary fiction in translation, which had been prevalent in the Czech context for several decades. The second section deals with specific ways the Hasidic legend and its semantic implications are integrated in the primary texts. The conclusions show, among other things, that the Hasidic stories allow Ivan Olbracht to follow the individual characters in interaction with the narrative as a social act. In Egon Hostovský’s novel, meanwhile, the Hasidic short story becomes part of a world of hidden meanings; the narrator of Devět bran integrates legends into the context of Hasidic everyday life, thus giving specific form to the community of anonymous narrators and listeners.

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