Abstract

"The contribution outlines a particular dimension of the internment experience, that “remnant of spiritual freedom, of the free attitude of the ego towards the world – as Viktor Frankl explains – even in that state, only apparently of absolute compulsion”. Furthermore, it aims to present two cases in which this “remnant of humanity” is embodied in a literary memory which thus becomes a memory of authentic life, capable of brightening and shattering the nonsense of the forced labour camp. This is the experience that Primo Levi recounts in Chapter XI of Se questo è un uomo, in which the memory and the existential re-actualization of Dante’s Ulysses overcome the professed desperation of Levi’s title. This is the same experience as Georgij Aleksandrovič Lesskis did in 1939, when, in the horror of the Soviet correctional labour camp, was rescued, according to his own testimony, by the “fair, bright and warm world of Tolstoy’s War and Peace”."

Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.