Asz o (bez)sensie ofiary w historii. Rekonesans
Asch on the nonsense of sacrifice in history (a preliminary study)

Author(s): Andrzej Fabianowski
Subject(s): Polish Literature, Philology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Summary/Abstract: In the works of Sholem Asch, which have been written almost exclusively in Yiddish, we can observe numerous literary and cultural examples of the influence coming from the Western European and Polish tradition, the assimilation of Romantic and realist discourse, as well as Parnassianism and the cult of beauty, characteristic of modernism. In the historical narratives (Kiddush Hashem, The Witch of Castile, The Man from Nazareth), Asch reflects on the meaning of history and its cruelty in the perspective of the theological meaning of sacrifice. He asks whether the sacrifice made by an individual or a nation has real redemptive potential, whether it restores the lost bond between man and God. The writer answers this question in the negative. Only beauty has the power to save the divine element on earth. Beauty as a human product sanctifies God, the other way round.

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