Prof. Dr. Roland Gruschka

Current Third-Party Funded Projects

Mendel Lefin Satanower's Yiddish translation of the book Ijov: Edition of an important testimony of the Eastern European Haskala in the early 19th century.

Funded by the DFG.

Vita

Full Professor of Jewish Literatures at the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studiessince 2016

2010-2016 Junior Professor of Jewish Literatures at the Heidelberg University of Jewish Studies

2001-2010 Assistant at the Chair of Yiddish Culture, Language and Literature, Institute for Jewish Studies at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

2005 Doctorate in Yiddish Studies, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

Until 2001 Research assistant in the DFG project "Reb Henoch, oder: Woß tut me damit? A Jewish Comedy of the Age of Enlightenment"

2000 MA in Yiddish Studies, SOAS, University of London
Studied Philosophy, Eastern European History and Yiddish Studies in Düsseldorf and London

Teaching and research stays abroad (e.g. 2008: Vivian Lefsky Hort Memorial Fellow, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York)

Publications (selection)

Monographs

• Yiddish. History and Culture of a World Language. 2., revised ed. Munich 2023, 1st ed. Munich 2010 (Beck'sche Reihe, 1621). With Marion Aptroot.
• Translation Studies Aspects of Mendel Lefin Satanower's Bible Translations. Hamburg 2007 (yidische schtudies, 14).

Editions

• Isaak Euchel: Reb Henoch, or: Woß tut me damit. A Jewish comedy of the Age of Enlightenment. Text edition by Marion Aptroot and Roland Gruschka, with introductory contributions by Marion Aptroot, Delphine Bechtel, Shmuel Feiner and Roland Gruschka. Hamburg 2004 (yidische schtudies, 11).

Collected volumes and special issues

• Linguistic homelands and border crossings. Festschrift for Anat Feinberg. Edited by Johannes Becke and Roland Gruschka. Heidelberg 2021 (Schriften der Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, 23).
• Ed., Focus on "Yiddish Culture in the Soviet Union", Ashkenaz: Journal of Jewish History and Culture 24/1 (2014).
• Leket: Yidishe shtudyes haynt. Yiddish Studies Today. Yiddish Studies Today. Edited by Marion Aptroot, Efrat Gal-Ed, Roland Gruschka and Simon Neuberg. Düsseldorf 2012 (Yiddish Studies: Edition & Research, 1).

Co-editorship of academic series

• Yiddish Studies: Edition & Research / Yidish: oysgabes un forshung / Yiddish: Editions & Research. Düsseldorf: düsseldorf university press.

Essays

• „Heines »Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen« in zwei jiddischen Übersetzungen.“ In: Efrat Gal-Ed/Daria Vakhrushova, Hrsg., Mame-loshn – velt-literatur: yidish un iberzetsung /Kleine Sprache – Weltliteratur:Jiddisch und Übersetzung/ Minority Language – World Literature: Yiddish and Translation. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2024, S. 191–252.
• "Fun vayte lender: Peretz Hirschbein's 1914 debut as a travel writer in the Yiddish newspaper 'Der Tog'." In: Johannes Becke/Roland Gruschka, eds: Sprachheimaten und Grenzgänge. Festschrift for Anat Feinberg. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021, pp. 97-119.
• "The Sacrality of the Yeshiva 'Chachmej-Lublin' in Testimonies of the Yiddish Press and in the Religious Literary Discourse of the 'Youth Agudah'." In: Johannes Heil/Frederek Musall, eds., Sacred Spaces in Judaism. Festschrift for Salomon Korn. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2020, pp. 97-117.
• "The Marxist Theory of Primeval Matriarchy in Yiddish Intellectual Discourse: Gender between Anti-Religious Radicalism, Orthodox Judaism and a New Metaphysics of Yidishkayt" In: Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge and Mikhail Krutikov, eds, Women, Men and Books: Issues of Gender in Yiddish Discourse. Oxford: Legenda, 2019 (Studies in Yiddish, 16), pp. 19-35.
• "Symbolist Quest and Grotesque Masks: 'The Family Mashber' as Parable and Confession." In: Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge and Mikhail Krutikov, eds, Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister. Oxford: Legenda, 2014 (Studies in Yiddish, 12), pp. 145-160.
• "'Verdeutschung' or 'tajtsch'? Buber's 'Schrift' and the Yiddish Bible translation tradition." In: Daniel Krochmalnik, ed., 50 Years of the Martin Buber Bible. Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2014 (Old Testament and Modernity, 25), pp. 231-258.
• "Westjiddisch an Rhein und Main und im übrigen Europa: Eine kurze Darstellung der historischen Sprache der Juden im westlichen Aschkenas." In: Monika Grübel and Peter Honnen, eds, Yiddish in the Rhineland. Essen: Klartext, 2014, pp. 15-40.
• "'A tog in Regensburg' and 'Elye Bokher': Opatoshu's 1933 Vision of Early Yiddish and Medieval Ashkenazi Culture, His Scholarly-Yiddishist Models and Means of Representation." In: Joseph Opatoshu. A Yiddish Writer Between Europe and America. Edited by Gennady Estraikh, Sabine Koller and Mikhail Krutikov. Oxford 2013 (Studies in Yiddish, 11), pp. 112-126.
• "Osher Shvartsman and Soviet Yiddish Literary Criticism: A Mythopoetic Discourse." In: Yiddish Poets and the Soviet Union, 1917-1948. ed. by Daniela Mantovan. Heidelberg 2012 (Schriften der Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg, 17), pp. 23-38.
• "From Petach Tikva via Jaffa to Meknès: A Yiddish postcard from 1902 as a linguistic-historical source." In: Leket: Yiddish studies today. Edited by Marion Aptroot, Efrat Gal-Ed, Roland Gruschka and Simon Neuberg. Düsseldorf 2012, pp. 369-391.
• "'Du host zikh a denkmol af eybik geshtelt': The Sovietization and Heroization of Sholem Aleichem in the 1939 Jubilee Poems." In: Translating Sholem Aleichem: History, Politics, and Art. Edited by Gennady Estraikh, Jordan Finkin, Kerstin Hoge and Mikhail Krutikov. Oxford 2012 (Studies in Yiddish, 10), pp. 83-97.
• "A New Babylon. The City in Sholem Asch's Novel 'Petersburg'." In: From the Shtetl to the Metropolis. Edited by Shlomo Berger. Amsterdam 2012 (Amsterdam Yiddish Symposium, 6), pp. 51-71.
• "'Ss' harz in benken gejt mir ojß': Heine motifs in the work of the Yiddish poet Oscher Schwarzman." In: Heine-Jahrbuch 50 (2011), pp. 108-128.
• "The progressive heritage of the Haskalah in the service of the 'Yiddish proletariat': Dowid Hofschtejn's Soviet-Yiddish translation of Isaac Euchel's comedy Reb Henoch." In: Isaac Euchel. The Cultural Revolutionary of the Jewish Enlightenment. Edited by Marion Aptroot, Andreas Kennecke and Christoph Schulte. Hanover 2010 (Enlightenment and Modernity, 15), pp. 319-339.
• "'E Dichter, aber dennoch e sehr gescheidter Mann': Heinrich Heine in 'Jewish dialect'." In: Heine-Jahrbuch 48 (2009), pp. 194-207. with Regina Grundmann.
• "Tuvia Schalit's Di spetsyele relativitets-teorye of 1927 and Other Introductions to the Theory of Relativity in Yiddish." In: Science in Context 20/2 (2007), pp. 317-339.
• "Mendel Lefin's Yiddish Bible Translations: Innovation and Conflicting Principles of Translation under the Influence of Moses Mendelssohn." In: Iggud: Selected Essays in Jewish Studies, vol. 3: Literatures, Languages, Arts. Edited by Tamar Alexander et al. Jerusalem 2007, pp. 15*-22*.
• "The linguistic cosmos in Isaak Euchel's comedy Reb Henoch and the linguistic relations of the Berlin Haskala." In: Isaak Euchel, Reb Henoch, or: Woß tut me damit. Hamburg 2004, pp. 45-66.
• "Some Observations on the Grammar in the Yiddish of Mendel Lefin Satanower's Bible Translations." In: Jiddistik-Mitteilungen 32 (2004), pp. 1-26.
• "Yiddish and Jewish Identity in Berlin around 1800: The Linguistic Cosmos in Isaak Euchel's Enlightenment Comedy Reb Henoch." In: Language and Languages in Berlin around 1800. ed. by Ute Tintemann and Jürgen Trabant. Hanover 2004 (Berliner Klassik, 3), pp. 89-113.
• "On parodies of German poetry, the afterlife of Isaak Euchel's 'Reb Henoch' and other reading material of Berlin Jews: The colportage series 'Gedichte und Scherze in jüdischer Mundart'." In: Ashkenaz 13/2 (2003), pp. 485-499.
• "On Marrism and Soviet Yiddish Linguistics." In: Slavic Almanach, Vol. 7/No. 10 (2001), pp. 165-190.

Articles in lexicons, encyclopedias and handbooks

• "Soviet Yiddish Literature." In: Oxford Bibliographies in Jewish Studies, ed. Naomi Seidman. New York: Oxford University Press, October 26, 2023, DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199840731-0237
• "Opatoschu, Joseph: A tog in Regensburg." In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold, ed. Kindlers Literatur Lexikon (KLL). Stuttgart 2023.
• "The view of 'Eastern Jewry': German translations of Yiddish literature 1897-1933." In: Hans Otto Horch, ed., Handbook of German-Jewish Literature. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015, pp. 375-388.
• "Reb Henokh." In: Dan Diner, ed., Encyclopaedia of Jewish History and Culture, vol. 5. Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B. Metzler, 2014, pp. 110-116.