Nostalgia for a Foreign Land

Roman Katsman was born in the USSR and has lived in Israel since 1990. He is a Professor in the Department of Literature of the Jewish People in Bar-Ilan University. Katsman is the author of number of books and articles about Hebrew and Russian literature, particularly about Jewish-Russian and Russian-Israeli literature and thought. He has worked on the theoretical problems of mythopoesis, chaos, nonverbal communication, sincerity, alternative history, and humor. His most recent books, Elusive Reality: A Hundred Years of Russian-Israeli Literature (1920-2020), (2020, in Russian) and Nostalgia for a Foreign Land (2016, in English), examine the Russian-language literature in Israel. Other major publication include Laughter in Heaven: Symbols of Laughter in the Works of S.Y. Agnon, in Hebrew (2018), Literature, History, Choice: The Principle of Alternative History in Literature (2013), At the Other End of Gesture. Anthropological Poetics of Gesture in Modern Hebrew Literature (2008), Poetics of Becoming: Dynamic Processes of Mythopoesis in Modern and Postmodern Hebrew and Slavic Literature (2005), The Time of Cruel Miracles: Mythopoesis in Dostoevsky and Agnon (2002) and others.Roman Katsman is Professor of Hebrew Literature at Bar-Ilan University. He is author of six books and numerous articles on Hebrew and Russian literatures, and Jewish-Russian literature and thought. His recent interests are concerned with laughter in S.Y. Agnon’s works and the contemporary Russian intellectual literature.

Dennis Sobolev, University of Haifa:
"Roman Katsman’s pioneering Nostalgia for a Foreign Land addresses one of the most impressive, unusual and intriguing literary phenomena in Russian since 1991: Russian-language prose in Israel. While aspiring to its synthetic study, the book covers a broad range of writers from an immensely popular contemporary fiction writer to a leading member of an experimental avant-garde group. This is an excellent, illuminating and cogent work; its in-depth literary analysis is rich in detail. The book makes no attempt to embellish the literary works it analyzes; their unquestionable aesthetic achievements and sometimes problematic ideologies are examined with attention and unfailing honesty. Within broader a context, this is a very significant contribution to the understanding of Jewish literature in Russian, as well as contemporary Jewish literary writing.”

Brian Horowitz, Professor of Russian and Chair of Jewish Studies, Tulane University:
"When over a million Russians came to Israel between 1990 and 2010, they brought with them brains and brawn, violins and vodka, and the Russian language. But what could be more 'Trayf' in Israel then the Russian language? Isn't Russian in Israel a kind of Golden Calf, i.e. a manifestation of the psychological sediment formed from generations educated 'Their' way? And yet the Russian Jewish writers who 'repatriated' to Israel used Russian to give life to a 'metaphysical' literature, as Roman Katsman calls it. It is a literature that rejects the surface and speaks an inner language of transcendence and alienation. It is a Jewish literature that gives voice to an ephemeral moment--the Jew who lives in Hebrew, but whose origins in Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky provide a key to home anywhere and everywhere."