Shmuel Yosef Agnon

Samuel Joseph Agnon (Hebrew שמואל יוסף עגנון Schemu'el Josef Agnon, Shai Agnon also, actually Samuel Joseph Czaczkes; born July 17, 1888 in Buczacz, Galicia, now Ukraine, † February 17, 1970 in Rehovot, near Tel Aviv) applies as one of the most important Hebrew writers of the 20th century. His works reflect a deeply rooted in the religious and spiritual traditions of the Hasidim and the everyday life of Eastern Jewry and are in their representation of fear and vulnerability in the work of Kafka comparable. In 1966 he received together with Nelly Sachs was the first Hebrew writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his profound characteristic narrative art with motifs from the Jewish people. "

Life and work

Agnon grew up in a wealthy Jewish merchants and scholars font family in Galicia, which belonged to Austria - Hungary at the time. His father was Mordechai Czaczkes fur traders and Hasidic rabbi and the son received by him and the Talmud school, the classic Jewish scholar training; about his mother Esther, an educated woman, he learned the German literature know. First poems, written in Yiddish and Hebrew, Agnon published with 15 years in local newspapers. He visited a temporary teacher training college and worked 18 years at a newspaper in Lviv. Early on he had joined the Zionist movement and moved with intermediate stops in Krakow and Vienna as a participant of the second Jewish wave of immigration ( aliyah ) to Palestine, where he settled in May 1908.

First, in Jaffa, Agnon lived and worked as a secretary at various organizations, including an association for mutual legal assistance and the Jewish Council. His first story Agunot (1908, " abandoned woman " ) which he, under the pseudonym Agnon first time - " the prisoner " - published met with a positive response. His pseudonym took the writer in 1924 as an official last name.

1913 Agnon traveled via Vienna to Germany, where he was initially prevented by the outbreak of World War I on the trip home; he then lived but until 1921 in Berlin and to 1924 in Bad Homburg, before he returned to Jerusalem. In Berlin, he met the wealthy Jewish businessman Salman Schocken know, the later editor of the newspaper Haaretz, which aided him financially and moved his work. Agnon lived free from material concerns as a writer and editor and has written numerous short stories. He advised the Jewish publishing house in Berlin, supported the establishment of the journal The Jew and collected old Hebrew books. In Bad Homburg, he belonged to the circle around Martin Buber, to whom he was acquainted. In 1920 he married Esther Marx, with whom he had two children, a daughter and a son.

As Agnon's house in Bad Homburg was destroyed along with its existing from 4000 Hebrew books library and numerous manuscripts by fire on June 5, 1924 the family returned to Jerusalem. There, once again destroyed his property and his books in 1929, this time in looting by Arabs.

Agnon was since his return to Palestine as one of the most important representatives of modern Hebrew literature. An important milestone of his work was the novel published in 1931 Hachnasat Kalla, ( German The groom search in 1934, English The Bridal Canopy ), which tells a kind of " Hasidic picaresque " of Jewish life in Galicia of the 19th century; the subtitle reads:

" The Wonders of Rabbi Yudel Hasid from Brody and his three daughters chastise, as well as the size of our brethren the children of Israel, In the Realm of the raised [ Habsburg ] Emperor. "

A trip to its subscribed by pogroms and poverty Galician homeland in 1930 formed the basis for the novel published in 1939 Ore'ach Nata Lalun (English Only A Guest for the Night, 1964), in the memories of the old days of the Jewish shtetl and foreboding about the Jewish fate were incorporated.

Agnon's publisher Salman Schocken made ​​at the beginning of the 1930s for the dissemination of his work in German language. When the Schocken Verlag was closed by the Nazis, he emigrated in 1934, first to Tel Aviv, where he again opened his publishing house, and in 1940 to New York, where he made accessible to the English- reading public Agnon's works.

More novels and stories of Agnon played in Palestine itself is considered as the most important Temol Schilschom (1945, dt Yesterday, the day before yesterday, 1969), which has the failure of a Galician immigrant in Palestine 1907-1913 on the topic, but also the Holocaust and its end is affected.

In addition to his novels Agnon published every year several stories and essays, mostly in the newspaper Haaretz.

Numerous awards reflect Agnon's literary reputation resist: in 1934 he was awarded the first ever Bialik Prize, the main Israeli literary prize, one more time 1950 Several honorary doctorates from international universities, as well as an honorary citizen of Jerusalem ( 1962) followed.. 1954 and 1958 he was awarded the Israel Prize. His image is displayed on the 50 - shekel bill.

On February 17, 1970, four years after the award of the Nobel Prize, died Agnon and was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. His daughter was posthumously still out numerous unpublished works to Agnon's lifetime.

Works

• WeHaja heAkow leMischor amendment in 1912 (Eng. And the crooked is straight, 1919)
• The Book of the Polish Jews in 1916 ( ed. by Agnon and Ahron Eliasberg )
• HaNidach, amendment 1923 (Eng. The Outcast, 1923)
• The story of the scribe 1923
• Hachnasat Kalla, Roman 1929/30 (Eng. groom search, 1934)
• In the communion of saints stories 1935
• Sippur Paschut novel in 1935 (Eng. A simple story, 1967)
• Ore'ach Nata Lalun novel 1939 ( German Only A Guest for the Night, 1964)
• Sefer haMa'asim collection of stories in 1942 (Eng. The book of deeds 1995, 1998 )
• Tmol Schilschom novel in 1945 (Eng. Yesterday, the day before yesterday, 1969)
• Schneider Talmidei Chachams Schehaju beIreinu, narration 1951 ( German Two scholars who lived in our town, 1966)
• Tehilla, narration 1952 (German Tilli, 1960)
• The Pledge of Allegiance story 1965
• In the heart of the seas, inter alia, stories in 1966
• Love and separation stories 1996
• Mr. Lublin store novel, in 1974, German in 1993
• Shira, Roman 1998 ( German translation of Tuvia Rübner )