Lectures of Solomon Yakovlevich Lur’e in the Russian Palestinian Society

Abstract

The article deals with the lectures of a well-known Classicist S.Y. Lur’e at the meetings of the Russian Palestinian Society in 1923. Their texts are lost but they were published in the USSR and Germany as articles and a part of a book; besides they are mentioned in an article by Lur’e’s opponent V.V. Struve; there is a manuscript of Struve’s response to one of these papers; and the discussion on the other one is preserved in the minutes of the Palestinian Society (they are published in this article). Its interest towards Lur’e’s work was caused by his book Antisemitism in Antiquity (1922): he presented a paper The Stay of the Hebrews in Egypt according to the Hebrew Sources on 9 and 16 March 1923 and a paper on the problem of the so-called social revolution in Egypt probably in June 1923, shortly before the Society was closed. In Lur’e’s idea, in both cases one deals with literary fictions instigated by the Egyptian mythological motif of the country’s seizure by the evil god Seth and gradual reversal of normal order; hence doubts concerning the historicity of both Egyptian and Hebrew relevant narratives. Lur’e’s method was based on the concepts of J.G. Frazer and F.F. Zelinskiy, and his ideas were strongly doubted not only by Struve but also by other members of the Society. This might have led to a partial revision of his position and eventual withdrawal from these problems.

Keywords:

S.Y. Lur’e, V.V. Struve, Russian Palestinian Society, Egypt, Old Testament, polemics