Voyage into Savage Europe : : A Declining Civilization / / Avigdor Hameiri.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Academic Studies Press Complete eBook-Package 2020
• VerfasserIn: Hameiri, Avigdor,
• MitwirkendeR: Appelbaum, Peter C.,
• Place / Publishing House: Boston, MA : : Academic Studies Press, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (254 p.)

In this unique memoir, now in English for the first time, Israel’s first Poet Laureate Avigdor Hameiri details a trip to Europe in 1930 from the perspective of a Hungarian Jew who had served in the Habsburg Army. Upon visiting Austria, Hungary, Romania (including parts of ceded Hungarian Transylvania), and Czechoslovakia (including his Carpatho-Ruthenian homeland), he sees Europe in flux on the brink of an unknown disaster. Austria and Hungary are full of youth whose philosophy is “eat, drink and be merry; tomorrow we die.” There is fear of Bolshevism from without, but the unfelt danger is German Fascism. Jews (especially in Hungary) are assimilated but cannot escape from their Jewishness: some are Zionists. Romania is corrupt and antisemitic. In Carpatho-Ruthenia, Hameiri has two premonitions warning him to return to Israel, a prediction of the destruction soon to befall Europe. Hameiri also gives accounts of the artistic and cultural scenes of 1930s Europe, as well as the world of Carpatho-Ruthenian Hasidism, which was soon to be destroyed by the Holocaust. From the growing danger and confusion surrounding inter-war Europe, in prose at once compassionate and bitingly sarcastic, comes a sweeping account of Jewish life in 1930 from one of Israel’s prolific writers.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Map -- Introduction -- Translator’s Introduction -- Prologue -- Publisher’s Introduction -- Chapter 1. Drama -- Chapter 2. A Scattering of Exiles -- Chapter 3. A Telegram on Credit -- Chapter 4. The Dawn of Europe -- Chapter 5. The Viennese Smile -- Chapter 6. The Eye and the Ear -- Chapter 7. The Prisoner -- Chapter 8. Our Two Faces -- Chapter 9. With the Almighty’s Help -- Chapter 10. The Dust of Criticism -- Chapter 11. Sicarii -- Chapter 12. Journey to Ruin -- Chapter 13. Blond is Beautiful -- Chapter 14. The Costume Party -- Chapter 15. A Hebrew Novel -- Chapter 16. Frozen in Time -- Chapter 17. The Baptists -- Chapter 18. Mosaic -- Chapter 19. My Two Souls -- Chapter 20. The Living Scarecrow -- Chapter 21. The Messiah’s Entreaty -- Chapter 22. My Birthplace’s Agony -- Chapter 23. The Holy Operetta -- Chapter 24. The Canaanite Servant -- Chapter 25. Spain the Healer -- Chapter 26. Charoset -- Chapter 27. The Legend of Alliance -- Chapter 28. The Rear Echelon -- Chapter 29. The Beacon of Light -- Chapter 30. The Intoxicating Darkness -- Chapter 31. Conscience -- Chapter 32. Homeward Bound -- Notes