The Representation of Jewishness in the Work of Viktor Fischl

This contribution presents the author’s representation of Jewishness as it was formed from the beginnings of his artistic output, first of all in his early poetry from the 1930s and subsequently after the Second World War, when he elaborated upon the theme of Jewishness in his prose texts. His poetic texts reveal how the historical events of the second half of the 1930s affected his as yet unstabilised poetics, inclining towards the depiction of a timid and tender subject, and shifted his work towards the construction of a suprapersonal Jewish identity (Hebrejské melodie — Hebrew Melodies, Kniha nocí — The Book of Nights, Sonáta z konce tisíciletí — Sonata from the End of the Millennium, Když — When, Variace na téma z Kiplinga — Variations on a Theme from Kipling). At the same time it is necessary to state that his work also accentuates images referring generally to the oppressive existential or marginal situation of humanity (Kniha nocí, Litanie k času — Litany to Time). In his postwar prose output Fischl first of all thematised the search for an obliterated Jewish identity (Píseň o lítosti — Song of Pity), and in later texts (Jeruzalémský triptych — Jerusalem Triptych) he then focused on a presentation of the Holocaust as a memento of the Jews, which was intended to refer not only to Jewish victims, but rather to impel us all to search for the traditional values of humanity. This theme corresponds with his post-war conception of humanising the world, in which literature is to play an important role in restoring order in the world.