The influence of Hasidism in the poetic oeuvre of Szilárd Borbély

Abstract

AbstractThe paper examines the influence of the literature of Hasidism on the oeuvre of contemporary Hungarian poet Szilárd Borbély (1963–1914). It analyzes the workings of regional cultural memory and the memory of the exterminated rural Jewish population, as well as of the former representatives of Hasidism in Hungary in Borbély's works. It also examines the poetics of his collection of poems Funereal Splendour and, more specifically, the fusion of Christian and Jewish elements, in which the principle of bricolage prevails, creating a specific, culturally hybrid poetic language. The most important example of this hybridization is the appearance of the messianic motif in the oeuvre, to which this study devotes special attention. Finally, the use of a Hasidic story-type in two of Borbély's works is also discussed.