Communities of Dialogue Russian and Ukrainian Émigrés in Modernist Prague

Repository | Book | Chapter

178577

History, historicity, and the alchemistry of time

Maurice Natanson

pp. 178-194

Abstract

I offer my life in the holocaust. I choose this means to be with you always. When they humiliate you, you will feel my soul suffering at your side. When hunger beats at your door, you will feel inside you the energy to fight for yourselves and your children. ... To hatred I respond with pardon. And to those who think they have defeated me I reply with victory. I was the slave of the people, and today I free myself for eternal life. But this people to which I was a slave will not longer be a slave to anyone. My sacrifice will remain forever in your soul, and my blood will be the price of your ransom. I fought against the looting of Brazil. I fought against the looting of the people. I have fought bare-breasted. The hatred, infamy and calumny did not beat down my spirit. I gave you my life. Now I offer my death. Nothing remains. Serenely I take the first step on the road to eternity, and I leave life to enter history.1

Publication details

Published in:

Natanson Maurice (1962) Literature, philosophy, and the social sciences: essays in existentialism and phenomenology. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 178-194

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-9278-1_16

Full citation:

Natanson Maurice (1962) History, historicity, and the alchemistry of time, In: Literature, philosophy, and the social sciences, Dordrecht, Springer, 178–194.