The Poetry of Ilana Shmueli within the Cultural Context of Chernivtsi and Bukovina
The Poetry of Ilana Shmueli within the Cultural Context of Chernivtsi and Bukovina

Summary/Abstract: This study focuses on presenting the specific Central European region of Bukovina, in its day the last crown land of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, which today is divided between Ukraine and Romania. A specific national-cultural situation formed in its capital of Chernivtsi at the beginning of the twentieth century: the Jewish minority, using standard German as its language of communication and sensing the approach of its annihilation, clung to literary creativity, consisting primarily in intensive poetry writing. After the Second World War, the literary work of these authors was published in the diaspora. In addition to the name of Rose Ausländer, the poet Paul Celan especially gained renown, and it was from his late work, written towards the end of his life, that the Israeli poet Ilana Shmueli, originally from Chernivtsi, took inspiration. The work of both these authors is directed towards hermeticism and cipher, but this is in no way detrimental to the intensity of the poetic communication of the tragedy of the Shoah.

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