Abstract

The period of U. Z. Greenberg's service in the First World War was the most traumatic of his life. He began writing about it while still serving with the Imperial army in the trenches of the Eastern Front, first in Yiddish and then in a number of works in Hebrew. He left a testament to his army service in poetry whose power and strangeness have never been equalled in Hebrew literature. He was still recalling his First World War service in his poetry of the 1940s and 1950s. This paper explores the reasons for Greenberg's constant return to the subject of his war service, focusing in particular on "Min sefer hamilhamot bagoyim," written during the 1940s. This epic poem reiterates many of the preoccupations, if not obsessions, of his earlier war poetry, and concludes with political comments relating to the Second World War.

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