“Io sono a scacchi”. L’identità ebraica nell’opera letteraria e teatrale di Janusz Korczak

Abstract

This paper focuses on the problem of ethnic coexistence as presented in some of Korczak’s literary and dramatic works, from his earlier humorous short stories to the play The Senate of Madmen. Like many Polish writers, Korczak perceived literature as a space of freedom, but, unlike other Jews writing in Polish, he always stressed his Jewishness and his firm belief in an equal and double identity (Jewish and Polish). In his long literary career Korczak never practiced ethnic agnosticism: on the contrary, he brought the tradition of Ashkenazi humor and Yiddish literary topics (szmonces, schlemiel and nudnik, the shtetl) into Polish culture, converting these symbols of Jewish identity into universal cultural elements.