Anyone Can Be a Narrator: Possibilities of Hasidic Storytelling in the Work of Jiří Mordechaj Langer

This study aims to characterise the ways in which Hasidic storytelling is adapted in Jiří Langer’s prose work Devět bran (Nine Gates). The main emphasis is on his manner of creating an illusion of ‘skaz’, which the author, in agreement with Hana Kosáková’s and Boris Eikhenbaum’s work, understands as a narrative form, imitating spontaneous verbal utterance. The following interpretation shows two major principles of Jiří Langer’s narrative strategy of anonymising the narrator, and of illusive speech: Firstly, the conscious usage of verbal material as if with artlessness and ease, using hidden rhythmisation, language deformation and playfulness. Secondly, he employs storytelling in everyday Hasidic life, convincing the reader of the narrator’s own insignificance.