Literary Theory and Polish Jewish Cultural Transfer: The Case of Nachman Blumenthal

Nachman Blumenthal is first and foremost known as a Holocaust historian. In the paper, however, I would like to look more closely at Nachman Blumenthal’s prewar writings, both academic and journalists work, in Yiddish and Polish, especially his so called Metaphorologies. By recontructing Blumenthal’s university training and intellectual environment, and moving between Yiddish and Polish, I would like to trace the mechanisms of Polish Yiddish cultural transfer (in Espagne’s and Werner’s sense) and place Blumenthal`s work in the broader context of East Central European modernist literary studies. The Warsaw University, where Blumenthal studied, with its Koło Polonistów, was one of the most important intellectual sites where the new Polish literary theory and linguistics were being created. In the paper, I would thus like to look at the different point of contact and opposition between this milieu and Blumenthal’s work, and see how his training in Polish studies influenced his understanding of Yiddish literature and folklore, and his comparative approach, to what extent it helped form the theoretical framework of his works. In the final part, I would also like to ask the question, to which extent his prewar intellectual formation had an impact on his post-Holocaust studies, most notably his Słowa niewinne, Verter un vertlekh fun der khurbm-tkufe, as well as Shumues vein der yidisher literatur unter der daytsher okupatsye.