{"product_id":"galicia-as-a-literary-idea-jewish-eastern-europe-in-the-writings-of-joseph-roth-and-soma-morgenstern-9781487528898","title":"Galicia as a Literary Idea: Jewish Eastern Europe in the Writings of Joseph Roth and Soma Morgenstern","description":"In the decades following the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the former province of Galicia inspired the literary imagination of two German-language natives of this region, Joseph Roth and Soma Morgenstern. \u003cem\u003eGalicia as a Literary Idea\u003c\/em\u003e explores what their engagement with Galicia means for modern Jewish culture, history, and memory.\u003cbr\u003eFor Roth and Morgenstern, Galicia encapsulates the rich interplay between contemporary developments - including urbanization, secularization, embourgeoisement, political self-determination, and new technologies - and traditional Jewish life in Eastern European villages and shtetls, characterized by tight-knit families and communities, religious observance and ritual, Yiddish language and culture, and Hasidic belief systems. Despite the tensions between these elements, this book presents them as a complex network rather than a battle between old and new, east and west, or tradition and modernity. German and Jewish studies scholar Kata Gellen also traces the shifting attachments of Galician Jews to German, a language that symbolized emancipation, culture, empire, and, ultimately, disillusionment and persecution. \u003cbr\u003eThrough original readings of well-known and neglected works by Roth and Morgenstern, Gellen shows how the literary idea of Galicia is shaped by continuous struggle and emergent hope, whether as earthly possibility or redemptive promise. This book thereby uncovers the complex relationship between center and periphery in Jewish modernity and reanimates a dimension of modern Jewish literary history that has been obscured by the dark shadow of the Holocaust.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Kata Gellen\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Toronto Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/31\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e German and European Studies\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 348\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.15lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.14h x 5.92w x 1.11d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781487528898","brand":"University of Toronto Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46761344893065,"sku":"9781487528898","price":95.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_7c567c91-e1d7-484b-be2b-54f3c2e4fabe.jpg?v=1779166318","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/galicia-as-a-literary-idea-jewish-eastern-europe-in-the-writings-of-joseph-roth-and-soma-morgenstern-9781487528898","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}