Essayistic Writing as an Everyday Art

Lea Goldberg´s Debate with Russian Culture

Abstract

This article offers an aesthetical and political interpretation of Lea Goldberg’s seminal concept of “The courage for the profane”, developed in her programmatic essay from 1938. It focuses on two interrelated, yet unexplored, aspects of Goldberg’s essayistic attempt to define the responsibility of intellectuals towards the society in times of political atrocities. By revealing the intertextual layer of the essay, namely, Goldberg’s dialogue with two keyfigures of Russian Modernism – Alexander Blok and Roman Jacobson, the article suggests an understanding of the concept “courage for profane” as Goldberg’s hidden critique of the sacralisation of everyday life in Soviet and Zionist discourse. Secondly, basing itself upon a theoretical discussion of the essay as a diasporic form, it understands “courage for the profane” as Goldberg’s meta-poetic statement about her essayistic writing.