Yulia Dubasova

Summary Statement of Research Interests

My research examines the evolution of the blood libel theme in modernist literature of the Russian Empire, focusing on authors who subvert rather than reinforce antisemitic tropes. After tracing the pragmatic, literal use of the motif in 19th-century literature (Dal’, Dostoevsky, Leskov), I turn to Eastern European Jewish and non-Jewish modernist writers who complicate or deconstruct it through intertextuality, subtext, and narrative strategies. By situating these works within shifting aesthetic, philosophical, and cultural contexts — including the Haskalah, Nietzschean relativism, and modernism’s overall interest in ambiguity — my study demonstrates how these authors challenge simplistic, prejudiced representations of Jews and rethink the ideological function of the blood libel in literature.

Research Keywords

19th Century Russian Literature, Russian Realism, Russian Modernism, Jewish Studies, Jewish History, Jewish Literature, Yiddish Literature, Dostoevsky, Comparative Literature, Intertextuality, Literary Heredity, Literary Topoi