Between Memory and Forgetfulness: The Janus Face of Michah Yosef Berdichevsky

This chapter examines the literary writings of Michah Yosef Berdichevsky dealing with memory and forgetfulness. Berdichevsky's ocuvre presented here appears to be generated by a nucleus of paradoxes or polarities-"binary oppositions" in latter-day structuralese-that manifest themselves in the very earliest strata of his writings, and to which is constantly driven back in a quasi-Nietzschean pattern of "eternal return": the individual versus the collective; Jews versus Judaism; fragmentation versus wholeness; intellect versus instinct. It is argued that each of these paradoxes may be viewed from the aspect of the primary paradox of memory versus forgetfulness, the impossible dual imperative: "Remember, do not remember" that lay upon Berdichevsky from the onset as a curse, albeit one that would spur him to extraordinary creativity.