The Column Para noče de šabat as a Local Strategy of Memory of the Judeo-Spanish Tradition

Abstract

The article elaborates on the attempts of the editors of the Jewish weekly Jevrejski glas (published in Sarajevo in 1928–1941) to support fostering of the Sephardi tradition and Judeo-Spanish language during the period in which an inevitable process of language shift took place among the Sephardi citizens of Bosnia. The column Para noce de sabat, created with the help of the weekly’s readers, was one of the means serving that purpose. In the majority of the texts the main characters were Sephardi women, especially of the older generation, the women called tijas (aunts). For that reason, the paper presents how the authors showed female characters in the context of memory of “the true Sephardi spirit and tradition.” Additionally, we provide basic information on the gathered texts: linguistics and sociolinguistics of the language of the prose (its condition, lexis and local features), as well as the characteristics of narration.