Jewish Autobiographical Writing. Memoirs of Moses Vasertsug (c. 1760–1832)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/APH.2023.128.11Keywords
Moses Vasertsug, turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Jewish communities, Jewish autobiographical writingAbstract
The article discusses the memoirs of Moses Vasertsug (c. 1760–1832) – an extremely interesting historical source, brilliantly demonstrating processes and phenomena in Jewish society at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Vasertsug received a traditional religious education and performed related functions in Jewish communities, first in Pomerania (Karlino, Gryfino), and later in Greater Poland (Kórnik) and Mazovia (Płock). He continued to do so in the post-partition period, but the functions he performed took on a new, quasi-official character. The memoirs show the transformation of the previous occupations performed by the Jews, as well as the new opportunities for settlement and economic activity that opened up for them during the post-partition period. The memoirs also show that Jewish autobiographical writing is not necessarily the result of acculturation and departure from Jewish tradition.
References
Draaisma Douwe, Dlaczego życie płynie szybciej, gdy się starzejemy. O pamięci autobiograficznej (Warszawa, 2006).
Draaisma Douwe, Fabryka nostalgii. O fenomenie pamięci wieku dojrzałego (Wołowiec, 2010).
Goldberg Jakub, ‘18th Century Memoirs of Polish Jews. Memoirs of Mojżesz Wasercug from Great Poland’, Acta Poloniae Historica, 76 (1997), 19–29.
Greyerz von Kaspar, ‘Ego-Documents: The Last Word?’, German History, xxviii, 3 (2010), 273–82.
Greyerz von Kaspar, ‘Observations on the Historiographical Status of Research on Self-Writing’, in Claudia Ulbrich, Kaspar von Greyerz, and Lorenz Heiligensetzer (eds), Mapping the ‘I’. Research on Self-Narratives in Germany and Switzerland (Leiden–Boston, 2015), 34–57.
Gusdorf Georges, ‘Warunki i ograniczenia autobiografii’, in Małgorzata Czermińska (ed.), Autobiografia (Gdańsk, 2009), 19–46.
Jancke Gabriele, Autobiographie als soziale Praxis. Beziehungskonzepte in Selbstzeugnissen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts im deutschsprachigen Raum (Köln–Weimar–Wien, 2002).
Lisek Joanna, ‘W lustrze pamięci – problemy żydowskiej literatury autobiograficznej’, Autobiografia. Literatura, Kultura, Media, i, 8 (2017), 7–21.
Maruszewski Tomasz, Pamięć autobiograficzna (Gdańsk, 2005).
Mintz Alan, “Banished From Theit Father’s Table”. Loss of Faith and Hebrew Autobiography (Bloomington–Indianapolis, 1989).
Mojżesz Wasercug (ok. 1760–1832) i jego pamiętnik, ed. by Anna Michałowska-Mycielska, transl. Aleksandra Czarnecka (Warszawa, 2022).
Moseley Marcus, Being for Myself Alone. Origins of Jewish Autobiography (Stanford, 2006).
Oniszczuk Aleksandra, Pod presją nowoczesności. Władze Księstwa Warszawskiego wobec Żydów (Warszawa, 2021).
Stanislawski Michael, Autobiographical Jews. Essays in Jewish Self-Fashioning (Seattle–London, 2004).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Title, logo and layout of journal are reserved trademarks of APH.Stats
Number of views and downloads: 69
Number of citations: 0