Lasik Roitschwantz

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Lasik Roitschwantz is a literary figure, the title character of the satirical novel by Ilya Grigorjewitsch Ehrenburg (1891–1967) "The eventful life of Lasik Roitschwantz" ( Russian Бурная жизнь Лазика Ройтшванецschwа , literally: "The life of Las Roitschwantz"). The novel was written in 1927 while the author was in Paris . It was first published in Russian in 1928 by the Petropolis publishing house in Berlin; the German translation was published by Rhein-Verlag in 1929. In the Soviet Union, however, it could only be published in 1989.

Lasik Roitschwantz, the Jewish “tailor for men” from the city of Homel in the southeast of Belarus tries to adapt to the conditions in the Soviet Union during the New Economic Policy of the 1920s, and yet he is jailed several times. He tried his luck in Tula as a rabbit breeder, as a revolutionary literary critic in Moscow , came to Warsaw , Posen , Königsberg in Prussia , Berlin , Magdeburg , Stuttgart , Mainz , Frankfurt am Main , Paris . London and finally to Palestine , where he dies next to Rachel's grave , Laban's daughter and Jacob 's wife .

In Tula he was employed in the government administration as a consultant for rabbit breeding . Unfortunately, the first pair of rabbits was bitten to death by stray dogs. Since Roitschwantz's superiors only expected success reports from him, he reported ever larger herds of non-existent rabbits. Lasik was celebrated as a film actor in Berlin. As a rabbi in Frankfurt, he allowed the Jews there to eat non-kosher food. In Paris he met Russian artists and soon he was celebrated as an avant-garde painter. In London he was accused of espionage.

The story of Roitschwantz's adventure is often interrupted by Hasidic legends and parables from the Jewish religion about the benevolent Yahweh , who helps the poor Jews out of their hopeless situation.

literature