SUMMARY OF "REPRESSED HERITAGE. OLD TESTAMENT RENARRATIONS IN LITERATURE" CONFERENCE

On October 14-15, the Faculty of Humanities hosted a scientific conference entitled "Repressed Heritage. Old Testament Renarrations in Literature", which brought together a dozen or so researchers from Polish and foreign centres: London, Genoa, Pisa and Vienna. The aim of the meeting was to raise the extremely important issue of the presence of hidden Jewish themes in Polish culture, as well as the biblical tradition in the works of Polish Jews: assimilated or denying their identity, as well as Marans, moving between cultures and identities.

The theme of the conference, although considered in the context of Jews, touched on a broad phenomenon, which is the attitude of denial resulting from escaping suffering, which can be defined as persecution or social ostracism. Its effect was the process of conscious or unconscious cutting off from the native tradition. This phenomenon is close to people who shaped attitudes on the border of cultures, identities, at the junction of religions, customs and beliefs. 

The main aim of the meeting was an attempt to build a scholarly reflection around the presence of a hidden narrative, immersed in a literary text, having biblical, Old Testament, Midrashic and Talmudic provenance, referring to biblical figures, rituals and rites of Jewish holidays. The richness of tropes, all kinds of Judaica, loci theologici in literature, identity and Maran stories turns out to be truly extraordinary. Behind this story, there is a rather unpleasant realisation that it was our monolithic culture that pushed the presence of Jewish culture out of consciousness.

The conference was organised as part of the Festival of European Knowledge and Culture.