Referenz, Inter-Referenz, Interferenz: Jiddisch bei Babel

This article analyzes the Russian prose of Isaac Babel (1894–1940) as an example of Yiddish linguistic interference that introduces variant readings into the subtext. Such interference was characteristic of the Russian Jewish cultural polysystem and was particularly versatile in the Soviet period in referring to repressed or erased Jewish identity. The article discusses the implications of Yiddish linguistic interference for cultural identity and concludes that studying the dynamics of intercultural referentiality can teach us much about intertextuality in Soviet Jewish writing.