Reading Bialik in Tehran: Translation and Literary Distinctiveness in the Postwar Iranian Jewish Periodical 'Alam-e Yahud
The end of the Second World War and the Allied occupation of Iran came with a relaxation of censorship laws in the country. This in turn permitted the revival of an active Jewish press after a lull of almost two decades. One of the main publications of this period, ‘Alam-e Yahud (The Jewish world),...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
The Jewish quarterly review
Year: 2024, Volume: 114, Issue: 3, Pages: 375-403 |
| Further subjects: | B
Hebrew literature
B Bialik B Translation B minority nationalism B Zionism B Iranian Jews B Persian poetry B Jewish History |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The end of the Second World War and the Allied occupation of Iran came with a relaxation of censorship laws in the country. This in turn permitted the revival of an active Jewish press after a lull of almost two decades. One of the main publications of this period, ‘Alam-e Yahud (The Jewish world), frequently translated prose and literary texts for the benefit of its readers, including a great deal of Hebrew poetry. Translations were designed to encourage a global Jewish, literary, and political modernity (on both a Zionist and domestic Iranian plane) and to promote a participation within these projects by the periodical’s readers., This essay analyses these literary translations and adaptations, demonstrating Iranian Jewish writers’ active engagement with Hebrew literary works, shifting and molding them for their own context and ideals. It begins with an examination of the periodical’s wider translation project and its function as a political and cultural bridge during a period of change. It moves on to examine the “foreignness” of authors including Haim Nahman Bialik, and Bialik’s normative cachet as an Ashkenazi/European and later Palestine-based writer. The essay proceeds to analyze other Hebrew-language contemporaries as spurs for linguistic and national renewal in both Hebrew and Persian, and concludes by reading original popular and belletristic poetry in Persian by Iranian Jews published in the periodical as a signifier of distinctiveness away from these sometimes-Eurocentric translated models. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-0604 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Jewish quarterly review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/jqr.2024.a936354 |