El Prezente

Journal for Sephardic Studies

Jurnal de estudios sefaradis

El Prezente, Vol. 12-13

2018-2019

Ben-Gurion University Moshe David Gaon Center

of the Negev for Ladino Culture
 El Prezente - Journal for Sephardic Studies
A peer-reviewed scientific journal, published annually by the
Moshe David Gaon Center for Ladino Culture, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Direct all editorial correspondence to: gaon@bgu.ac.il

Editors
Eliezer Papo • Tamar Alexander • Jonatan Meir

Editorial Council: David M. Bunis, Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Paloma Díaz-Mas, CSIC, Madrid; Jelena Erdeljan, Center
for the Study of Jewish Art and Culture, University of Belgrade; Mladenka Ivanković,
Institute for Recent History of Serbia, Belgrade; Nenad Makuljević, Department of History
of Art, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade; Alisa Meyuhas Ginio, Department
of History, Tel Aviv University; Devin Naar, Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, University
of Washington, Seattle; Aldina Quintana Rodriguez, Department of Spanish and Latin
American Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Shmuel Rafael, Department
of Literature of the Jewish People, Bar-Ilan University; Aron Rodrigue, Department of
History, Stanford University; Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, Department of Hebrew and
Semitic Languages, Bar-Ilan University; Edwin Seroussi, Musicology Department, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Cengiz Sisman, Department of History, University of
Houston-Clear Lake; Katja Šmid, CSIC, Madrid; Michael Studemund-Halévy, Institute
for History of the German Jews, University of Hamburg; Jagoda Večerina Tomaić,
Department of Judaic Studies, University of Zagreb.

Editorial Coordinator: Avishag Ben-Shalom

Language Editors: Dina Hurvitz (Hebrew), Shaul Vardi (English)
Graphic Design: Studio Sefi Designs
Print: BGU Print Unit
Cover photos
Hebrew side: “A picture of the awaited new Jewish king SABETHA SEBI…”
English side: “… with his accompanying Prophet”.
A Dutch broadside published in the spring of 1666. Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam.

Published with the support of

Autoridad Nasionala del Ladino
Center for Sabbatean Sephardic Culture
Mr. Jim Blum, Baltimore USA
Mr. Mishael Ben-Melech - in memory of his parents, Yitzhak & Menora Ben-Melech

ISSN 2518-9883
© All rights reserved
Moshe David Gaon Center for Ladino Culture
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Israel 2019
 Photo: Tal Levin

Dr. Tali Latowicki

1976-2019
 Photo: Yoav Pichersky

Dr. Yael Levi-Hazan

1978-2017
 Table of Contents

Preface 9

Jacob Barnai
The Image of Nathan of Gaza in Jewish Consciousness and
Historiography 17

David M. Bunis
The Language and Personal Names of Judezmo Speakers
in Eres¸ Israel during the Time of Nathan of Gaza: Clues from
Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Rabbis 31

Noam Lev El
The Epistle of Nathan of Gaza to Raphael Joseph and the Issue
of the Lurianic Prayer Intentions 73

Elliot R. Wolfson
Hypernomian Piety and the Mystical Rationale of the
Commandments in Nathan of Gaza’s Sefer Haberiya 90

Noam Lefler
A Prophet of an Absent Messiah 154

Dor Saar-Man
The Attitudes of Samuel Primo and Abraham Cardoso towards
Nathan of Gaza 177

Avinoam J. Stillman
Nathan of Gaza, Yacaqov Koppel Lifshitz, and the Varieties
of Lurianic Kabbalah 198

Jonatan Meir
Sabbatian Hagiography and Jewish Polemical Literature 228

Gordana Todorić
Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure 242
of a Prophet

Contributors 258

A Brief Guide to Preparing your Manuscript for Submission 259

Hebrew Section ‫א‬

242 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction

of the Figure of a Prophet

Gordana Todorić
Associated Researcher, Moshe David Gaon Center

Erich Kosch’s novel U potrazi za Mesijom [In Search of the Messiah] is

the only work in Serbian literature that has thematised the drama of
Shabbetai S˝evi’s Messianic movement. However, the creation, publication,
and reception of the novel were significantly influenced by the dominant
ideological-political discourse of Erich Kosch’s time (the 1970s in
Yugoslavia).
The writer’s intention to recontextualize the story of Shabbetai S˝evi
plays a formative role in the process of shaping the character of Nathan. In
Erich Kosch’s interpretation, a self-proclaimed prophet Nathan of Gaza is
the very first in the series of writers who shaped the meaning of Shabbetai
S˝evi’s thematic complex. At the same time, he is one of the protagonists of
the story in whose creation he participated.
This paper seeks to demonstrate how narrativization became an
instrument for the focalisation of particular ideas. Bearing in mind this
fact, in our work we will try to point out some of the important features of
Kosch’s process of shaping the character of Nathan of Gaza.

Methodological Remarks
The problem of the interpretive strategies of texts, including literary texts,
cannot be fully encompassed here. This is not only because the attempt
to establish a possibly stable paradigm would confront us with the lack

242 |
 Gordana Todoric | 243

of canonical textual frames, but also because of the inevitable factor of

subjectivity, which in some strategies introduces an unpredictable surplus
value. Accordingly, the problem of textual economy is indeed conditioned
by ad hoc circumstances. We need to bear this in mind, since Erich Kosch’s
novel In Search of the Messiah (1978), which is the subject of our article, is
in many ways a complex structure. For the time in which it was written, it
constitutes an unusually extensive prose narrative. The topic it addresses—
the movement of Shabbetai S˝evi—was moreover not well known to the
Yugoslav public, and indeed religious and mystical themes were not a
focus of the Yugoslav cultural scene. True, there are sporadic texts that have
examined with the allegorical aspects of such motifs (one such example
is Borislav Pekić’s Time of Miracles from 1965); but these reflect the
postmodernist tendencies of writers from the younger generation. Some
of these writers significantly exceeded the boundaries of national literature
(such as Danilo Kish and David Albahari).
Regarding Erich Kosch, who emerged on the Yugoslav literary scene
in the 1950s, one prominent critic remarked that his artistic tendencies
manifested themselves most clearly in psychological and satirical novels.
J. Deretić explains that In Search of the Messiah is a philosophical and
historical work “written in an analytically scrupulous form, droningly,
without poetry and humour;”1 nevertheless, it “contains well-observed
phenomena of political and moral deformation in modern times”.2 At
the time of publication, the novel galvanised the political public,3 but

1 Jovan Deretić, Istorija srpske književnosti [History of Serbian Literature] 4. prošireno

izd. Prosveta, Belgrade 2004, p. 1159.
2 Ibid.
3 Erich Kosch’s novel In Search of the Messiah (1978), which introduced the story of
Shabbetai S˝evi and his movement to Serbian literature even before its appearance in
printed form, became the focus of an incident. Erich Kosch submitted his manuscript
to the publishing house Nolit, which included it in its publishing plan for 1976 before
the editor had even read the text. Kosch then received a positive review from one of
the editors (Slobodan Galogaza). Very quickly, another review by the editorial group
appeared (Slobodan Galogaz, Zoran Misic, Vasko Popa, Milos Stambolic, and Jovan
Hristic), this time negative. The novel was returned to the writer for revisions, but
244 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

the extent of this controversy remained sidelined by the fact that virtually
at the same time the largest literary and political polemic in post-war
Yugoslavia started, concerning Danilo Kiš’s collection of short stories “A
Tomb for Boris Davidovich”. Erich Kosch was at the time an academic at
the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, with a respectable biography as
a pre-war Communist and partisan fighter. Critics who attacked him for
possible allusions to the Broz couple (Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito
and his wife Jovanka) failed to find that the practice of citation, legitimate
in postmodern prose but for which Danilo Kiš was accused of plagiarism,
is also significantly present in Kosch’s novel. What distinguished these two
writers was their reception: Kosch was a representative of the ruling class,
while Kiš was a political enfant terrible.
We could truly say, briefly and generally, that the novel In Search of the
Messiah could be read as an allegory of the political situation in Yugoslavia

the editorial team remained unsatisfied with the result. Kosch responded to the Nolit
Program Committee, rejecting insinuations that the novel was politically problematic.
He sent a copy of his letter, along with the accompanying comment, to the Executive
Committee of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of the Republic
of Serbia. Next, a letter of support for Kosch was submitted to the same Executive
Committee, on April 19, 1976, and signed by Meša Selimovic, Branko Ćopic, Skender
Kulenovic, Desanka Maksimovic, Dobrica Ćosic, Antonije Isaković, Vojislav Djurić,
Tanasije Mladenović, and Mihailo Lalić—all eminent writers. On April 13, 1976,
in a private letter, Erich Kosch informed Mihailo Lalić about the difficulties that his
manuscript was encountering. Later, in 1977, the author transferred the manuscript
of the novel to the publishing house Prosveta, where a positive review was written by
Svetlana Velmar Janković, Vidosav Stevanović, Momčilo Milankov, editor-in-chief of
OOUR Publishing Nikola Tomičić, and Petar Džadžić as editor-in-chief of Prosveta.
Nevertheless, in September 1977, the director of Prosveta Božidar Perković received
an anonymous letter from a “group of cultural and public workers” in which they
questioned not only the sufficiency of the positive reviews, but also the decision to
accept a book with a (previous) “negative ideological and political assessment”, noting
that a copy of that letter had been sent to “some political forums and individuals, as
well as some Prosvete officials”. Prosveta eventually published In Search of the Messiah in
1978.” Gordana Todorić, Verski pokret Šabataja Cvija i jedna književna afera, tri stotine
godina kasnije, Religija i tolerancija, br. 24, 2015, pp. 301-308, p.305. In: http://www.
ceir.co.rs/ojs/index.php/religija/article/view/200 (retrieved: 20 April 2019)
 Gordana Todoric | 245

in the 1980s. In other words, it was a politically subversive work, and the
awareness of this presumably explains the two-year delay in its publication.
In order to understand this, however, we must examine why the story
caused a controversial reception and what elements in the text create the
allegory to which we have alluded.

Parody as a Narrative Strategy

The novel In Search of the Messiah is a extensive prose work (over eight
hundred pages) in which Miša Hercen, a political dissident in post-war
Yugoslavia,4 traces the grave of Shabbetai S˝evi in Ulcinj. This is the frame
story. During the search, Hercen relates in detail the story of Shabbetai and
his movement to his host Bogdan Zirojević, also a political dissident, thus
creating a tale within the tale. These two narrative levels connect a topical
link, and influence each other in many ways. From a formal narratological
perspective, Hercen is a heterodiegetic narrator, since he does not tell his
own story (about Shabbetai S˝evi); but he is also an intradiegetic one, as he
is a character in the frame story that he does not narrate. Yet the scope of
the inner story points to a possible problem of hierarchical relations.
The title of the novel is the first hint at the instability of discursive
frameworks. Namely, if we pose the question as to who in the novel
genuinely and unequivocally looks for the messiah, the answer—as far as
the inner story of Shabbetai and his movement is concerned—is Nathan of
Gaza, who seeks confirmation of his mystical/epileptic visions, and Sara,
who claims to have preserved her chastity for the messiah she was looking
for (although, in all likelihood, she was actually a woman who changed
partners in an attempt to secure a stable and peaceful place to live). The

4 In a censored version clearly identified as a supporter of Stalin in the 1948 struggle

between Soviet and Yugoslav Communists.
5 Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi. The Mystical Messiah, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
London 1973.
246 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

conflation of the biographical data of these two characters suggests a parodic,

if not a satirical approach (and this is confirmed by the comments on the
biographical data of these two characters given by Hercen and some of the
characters), which, in its detailed reinterpretation, primarily of Scholem’s
sources5, is applied by the narrator, the political dissident Miša Hercen.
Hercen appears to apply a specific close reading technique to Scholem’s
book on Shabbetai S˝evi. If, as Moshe Idel suggests, the Kabbalistic text
characteristically invites divergent readings of its meaning, 6 we may suggest
that Kosch’s novel leaves the reader is in a similar situation. Following the
narrator Miša Hercen, he floats in the plethora of semantic possibilities.
The narrator’s (Hercen’s) search for Shabbetai’s grave in Ulcinj, if we look
at it from the perspective of the topos of travelling,7 is also ambiguous, but
in any cases contrasts with the attempted (and perhaps successful) attempts
of Shabbetai and Nathan of Gaza to frame their searches in metaphysical
terms. Erich Kosch’s parodic story is manifested in the fact that Hercen
frames his quest for the Messiah’s grave as an attempt to create a tourist
attraction in Ulcinj. This is a classic Bakhtian act of lowering—one of
the key forms of parody. In the gaps of such conceived life stories there

6 Moshe Idel, Secrets and Mysteries in Kabbalah and Modern Scholarship: https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=zisxTlbJ08Y (45:13)
7 “Shabbetai’s path as a proto-text in this novel is questioned by specific, critical
reinterpretation and, it is important to mention – by silencing. Herzen narrates,
and Ulcinj’s family Redžepagić (who are the guardians of Shabbetai’s grave) – avoids
giving the meaning of the story. Fully different paths of intertextuality, through the
time and space shown in this novel, point to the deconstructive tendencies in Kosch’s
manuscript. There is no way to assign a stable sign to the signified. Kosch`s slipping
through various, of the presented discursive plane, in the novel generates a kind
of hypertext, which forms the shape of the circle, and returns us to the mysticism
by which Shabbetai began his journey.” Gordana Todorić, Кретање као принцип
(де)конструкције идентитета у роману “У потрази за месијом” Ериха Коша. [The
motion as a principle of (de) construction of identity in the Erich Kosch`s novel In
Search of the Messiah] Сборник с доклади от ХІІ международни славистични четения,Т.
2. Литературознание и фолклористика. Софийски университет “Св. Климент
Охридски” Факултет по славянски филологии, Катедра по славянски литератури-
Катедра по славянско езикознание, Sofia 2014, pp. 258-263, p. 263.
 Gordana Todoric | 247

appears a motive of mystery. In structural terms, the inner story and its
multi-layeredness are subordinated to the framework story of the search
for Shabbetai’s grave. And if symbolism approaches mysticism (Idel), then
Kosch’s narrative strategy is truly comparable both with the Kabbalah and
with Derida’s description of deconstruction.

Political Context
In his essay “The Seven Veils of Fantasy”, Slavoj Zizek writes:
The standard notion of the way fantasy works within ideology is that of
a fantasy-scenario that obfuscates the true horror of a situation: instead
of a full rendering of the antagonisms which traverse our society, we
indulge in the notion of society as an organic whole, kept together by
forces of solidarity and co-operation ...8
Starting from these theoretical premises, from the problematic idea of
society as a homogeneous whole, we will consider the status of Nathan of
Gaza as the protagonist of Kosch’s novel.
Kosch devotes considerable space to Nathan in his work, but the context
in which he introduces him requires comment. Shabbetai and his followers
are presented exclusively as a political movement. Describing how Shabbetai
was excluded from the Jewish community of Izmir and expelled from the
city, Hercen’s host Zirojević uses words drawn from the modern political
lexicon: “Otišao je. U emigraciju” [He is gone. In emigration]9. Even
Nathan’s two mystical visions, which the writer mentions, are conveyed in
the context of our time, and thus deprived of their metaphysical meaning.
When Nathan announced that Shabbetai was the messiah, on 25 Elul 5625
(at the end of 1665) in Gaza, the narrator Hercen reports that Nathan
chose to be in the lobby of the temple on Saturday morning, and that he

8 Slavoj Žižek, The Plague of Fantasies, Verso, London-New York 2008, p. 5.

9 Erich Kosch, U potrazi za mesijom 1 [In search of a messiah 1], Prosveta, Belgrade
1983, p. 196 (all translations from the novel are mine).
248 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

decided to proclaim it in the name of Adonay, as a supreme authority. This

act, for the narrator, is a struggle for prestige in the movement, because
…to što je upravo njemu, Natanu Gazatiju, palo u deo da saopštava
narodu božije reči, očigledno dokazuje da je nebo odlučilo da i on bude
jedan od odabranika i da je njemu dodeljena uloga proroka Mesijinog
the fact that it was to him, Nathan of Gaza, that the task fell of passing
God’s word to the people obviously proves that heaven decided that he
was one of the chosen, and that he was assigned the role of prophets
of the Messiah10.
During Shabbetai’s stay in Abydos, Natan writes epistles. These are
certainly propaganda material, but one can not overlook the fact that their
composition was motivated by Nathan’s authentic faith in the ideas of the
movement. A comment by Hercen offers is a rare opportunity to focus on
the horizon of expectation attributed to the followers of the movement in
a novel, though this was much more comprehensive than is implied:
Ispod njegovog pera, kao iz njegovih usta, za vreme prvih meseci bolesti,
izlazila su sve neka nejasna, sumpornim parama i ognjenim velovima
obavijena predskazanja koja su u mutnim , nesigurnim vremenima koja
su opet nastajala, baš zbog tih svojih svojstava više bila cenjena i duže i
pomnije tumačena. Jer, verovalo se, ono što je razumljivo samim tim je
opšte i obično, a ono što je istinski nadahnuto uvek je teško shvatljivo
jer u sebi nosi još nesagledana i nerazjašnjena tajanstva vanzemaljskih
božanskih otkrovenja.
Below his quill, as if from his mouth, during the first months of the
illness, unclear predictions were engulfed in sulphur steam and fire
veils. In the foggy, insecure times that were arising again, precisely
because of these properties, such predictions were more appreciated
and longer and more clearly interpreted. Because, it is believed,
what is understandable to one is common and ordinary, and what is

10 Kosch 1, p. 405.
 Gordana Todoric | 249

truly inspired is always difficult to understand because it carries yet

unforeseeable and unexplained mysteries of divine revelations.11
The fact that Nathan’s mystical visions, on the one hand, are associated with
epilepsy, and hence with illness, and on the other hand are characterised
as a matter of choice, and something that people once upon a time
believed, suggests that the writers decided to subsume these phenomena
to the utilitarian propaganda aims of the movement. However, the body
and illness as motifs here point to a crack in that utilitarianism. From the
point of view of the time in which the novel was created—the 1980s in
Yugoslavia—political discourse and its idiom are broadly understandable.
Finally, the author of the prototext, Gershom Scholem, is also understood
as a homo politicus.12 At that time, we should add, such an encoded
communicative mode derives from a Communist ideological matrix that
assumes revolutionism as a method and instrument to reach a better and
fairer world.
Nathan of Gaza appears only around the middle of the text. He is
introduced as a young but already famous Kabbalist, married to a woman
who had a physical disability but a great dowry. Guaranteed financial

11 Erich Kosch, U potrazi za mesijom 2 [In search of a messiah 2], Prosveta, Belgrade
1983, p. 207 (my translation).
12 “Scholem developed a penchant for revolutionary and utopian political theory
that was to have a considerable influence on Benjamin, carving the contours of an
intellectual exchange that spanned their entire friendship”. Eric Jacobson, Metaphysics
of the Profane. The Political Theology of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem,
Columbia University Press, New York 2003, p. 2.
“Cataclysmic tendencies in Jewish messianism are understood by Scholem to be
anarchic forces that yield new historical forms through their destructive activities.
Drawing on this notion, we are able to see how Scholem begins to evaluate radical
changes in religious law and observance as anarchic elements within Judaism. His use
of anarchism as a critical category gives rise to a notion of Judaism beyond worldly
confines, inexhaustible and constantly reinventing itself in the face of new traditions
and historical constraints. Finally, in his later years, Scholem turns to a critical form
of religious anarchism, claiming that anarchism is the only position that makes
religious sense”. Ibid., p. 8.
250 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

security, from a kind and pre-eminent young man, he turned into an

nervous and passionate scholar.
U času velikog zanosa i izuzetne vidovitosti našao se, kako se njemu
činilo, i na pragu značajnog kabalističkog otkrića. Bio mu je potreban
samo još neki korak da ga se dočepa i novi talas nadahnuća da bi ga
poneo ka cilju, ali, kad god bi mu se primakao, tako reći na dohvat
ruke, nešto bi ga prenulo iz zanosa.
At the moment of great enthusiasm and exceptional clairvoyance, he
found himself at the doorstep of a remarkable Kabbalistic discovery.
He needed only a few more steps to receive a new wave of inspiration
to bring him to the goal, but whenever this would get close to him,
so to say at his fingertips, something seemed to carry him away in
rapture.13
He recognized the ideas of Shabbetai’s movement as being related to exactly
what he was looking for. According to the narrator Hercen, the reason why
he joined Shabbetai was a failure in self-realization:
Sticajem nesrećnih okolnosti, a ne svojom nesposobnošću, opet je samo
polovično uspeo.Zakasnio je, pretekli su ga drugi i sad je ostajala samo
jedna mogućnost da se i pred sobom potvrdi – da što pre uhvati sa
zaverenicima vezu i, u društvu i trci sa njima ispolji svoje sposobnosti,
primeni svoja znanja i saznanja, i dokaže svoju vrednost.
By coming out of unfortunate circumstances, and not by his inability,
he only half succeeded. He is late, the others have passed him, and now
there was only one possibility to prove to himself—to catch up with
the conspirators as soon as possible, and racing with them, express in
society his abilities his skills, apply his knowledge, and prove his value.14
If we compare this passage with Scholem’s source, we will be able to see
a shift, evident throughout the novel, through which Kosch imposes a

13 Kosch 1, p. 336.
14 Kosch 1, p. 337.
 Gordana Todoric | 251

reinterpretation: “It was rumoured that at times he held himself to be the

messiah-elect, and the rumour would arouse ridicule with some and pity
with others”.15 Regardless of the classical genre divisions, and alongside
considerable similarities, we can conclude that the textual differences
between Scholem and Kosch derive from the status of their narrator.
Scholem shapes a narrative from the position of the omniscient invisible
third person, while Kosch, through the figure of Miša Hercen, actively
engages in the story and abandons objective distance.

The Prorhet
Formally, Nathan is the second prophet in the line, since Abraham Jakini
has already proclaimed Shabbetai the Messiah. The fact that the primary
position of prophet in Shabbetai’s movement went to Nathan is explained
by the fact Nathan is a true believer, and as such the best propagator of the
ideas of movement:
To je borba bez počinka, a oni koji se tim poslom bave stalni su bojovnici
i nije slučajno najborbenijim hrišćanskim i muslimanskim svešteničkim
redovima stavljeno u zadatak da se bave propagandom vere.
It is a struggle without rest, and those who are engaged in this work
are permanent combatants; and it is by no means coincidental that the
most militant Christian and Muslim clerical cadres are assigned to the
task of propagating the faith.16
So, the prophet is not someone chosen by God, but rather a party activist.
As the leader of the movement, Shabbetai is afraid of a fanatical young
Kabbalist who could potentially become a rival and pretender. Nathan
is like a younger version of himself. Through Hercen’s interpretation of
the relationship between Shabbetai and Nathan, Kosch discusses another

15 Scholem, Sabbatai S˝evi. The Mystical Messiah, p. 202.

16 Kosch 1, p. 341.
252 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

principle of political discourse: the principle of power and the struggle

for power. Moreover, this entire novel about the history of Shabbetai
S˝evi’s movement devotes only negligible attention to mysticism and the
ideas of tiqqun. The narrator Hercen focuses instead on the mechanisms
and strategies used by individual members of the movement in order to
establish political influence and gain power, both as a movement and as
individuals. In this sense, the only consistent believer is Nathan.
In narrative terms, Nathan’s function is to serve as one side in a binary
structure whose other side is, of course, Shabbetai himself. Through
Nathan’s reflection we see, perhaps most clearly, the dilemmas that agonize
Shabbetai. Such a form of representation leads to deconstruction of the
cult of personality. Part of this procedure also included the figure of the
prophet Nathan of Gaza. However, by casting Nathan as the only believer
in the leadership of the movement, Kosch also embarks on a consideration
of dogma and canons. Kosch’s point of view belongs to the discourse of the
believer. From this perspective he is critical of Shabbetai, not forgiving him
for abandoning the revolution he initiated. In other words, the novel can
also be seen as a presentation of the drama of the attempted reform from
the perspective of the reformer rather than the reformers. The ideological
aspect of the narrative could then be overcome in the name of the mystical
ideals of God.
In the novel, the relationship between Shabbetai and Nathan fluctuates
along the margins of the conventional relationship between prophet and
messiah. This may be best illustrated by their conversation prior to their
departure from Izmir and the final decision to go to Istanbul to take power
from the Sultan. For the writer, the biographical fact of Shabbetai’s bipolar
personality led to his depiction in this stage of his mission as a defector
who withdrew from the movement that had originated around him. On
the temporal level, then, Kosch condenses the period of depression into a
single point, shaping a motive of falling and abandonment. The conflict
between Nathan and Shabbetai is based on Shabbetai’s increasingly strong
belief that the individual has an advantage over the collective. He, at this
stage, doubts his victory. Nathan responds to a personal prayer in which,
among other things, he says:
 Gordana Todoric | 253

Molitva Gospodu da njemu, Mesiji, i vođi pokreta, vrati opet veru u

njegov poziv [...] Da shvati, pošto mu se rasvetli pamet, da je on sam
po sebi, pa ma bio i izabranik božiji, niko i ništa izvan pokreta i ako se
ne kreće njegovim putevima.
Prayer to the Lord that he, the Messiah, and the leader of the movement,
regains the faith in his mission again [...]To understand, as his mind
illuminates, that if he was by himself, even if he was a chosen one of
God, he was no one, and nothing outside the movement, and if he did
not move in its paths.17
The words that Nathan declares, refusing Shabbetai’s wish to talk intimately
and differently than they do in public discourse, reveals dogmatism in
Nathan’s character. If we compare the passage at the beginning of the novel,
when Shabbetai, as a young h˝axam, reads manuscripts of rare non-canonical
Kabbalistic texts, with Nathan’s hyperproduction of the declaration that
he writes, prints, and sends across the territory in which the movement
spreads, we can see that this man of words had truly assumed the role
Shabbetai assigned to him on their first encounter. Nathan owned the
word and utilized the technological innovations of his time to make this
word available to all. In the context of the novel, however, the narrator, the
apostate who reconstructs the story, is the one who rules the words. The
political idiom we mentioned earlier, makes such a procedure comparable
to the Yugoslav experience of AGITPROP, with of Kosch, as a partisan and
Communist, must have had experience. We can then see that the word
is separated from the truth that it seeks to actualize. Instead of spreading
God-inspired truth, Nathan prophesies a gap between what he has decided
to believe in and reality.
In this sense, the search for the Messiah (God-breathed voice) in Kosch’s
novel, however antinomian it may have sounded in the case of Shabbetai
S˝evi, is a search for the canon and for a stable truth. Or is it nostalgia for a
(mythical) time of order? In either case, it is a symptom of faith and hope
of a better future. The osseous personality type (and not character) of the

17 Kosch 2, p. 105.
254 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

prophet (Nathan) creates a model image of a believer. He is, therefore, a

reflection of inherited patterns. Set opposite Shabbetai, he is in a weak
position in the novel. By representing the word and the text, regardless of
whether they produce reality or what reality this might be, the narrative
remains closed in its own solipsist framework.
The works of Nathan of Gaza, that radical paradox was canonized
as the basis of Sabbatian theology. Contradiction became a lasting
characteristic of the movement: following upon the initial paradox of
an apostate Messiah, paradox engendered paradox’.18
In the interpretation given through the narrator, Nathan actually opposes
Shabbetai’s response to the dilemma he faces—one that would lead to the
abandonment of his messianic pretensions. In other words, Nathan and
Shabbetai differ ideologically. What was the basis of the movement—the
right to transgress against the Law, Nathan would now deny to Shabbetai
himself. In the above-mentioned intimate conversation, when it is clear
that Shabbetai has already left the role allotted to him in the movement,
Nathan tries to prevent him from retreating:
Bitno je drugo: da mi nismo obični ljudi i da to, makar to i poželeli da
budemo, ni na koji način više biti ne možemo. Sve što se desilo imalo
je svoje posledice, a sve što ima posledice deo je vremena, koje, kao
što je poznato, teče samo u jednom pravcu i nikad se ne vraća. [...]
Mi smo ono što jesmo i možemo da govorimo samo u skladu sa našim
položajem, našim ulogama i odgovornostima koje imamo u pokretu.
Something else is important: that we are not ordinary people and that,
even if we want to be, we cannot be any more. Everything that happened
had its consequences, and all that has consequences is part of the time,
which, as is well known, runs only in one direction and never returns.
[...] We are what we are, and we can speak only in accordance with our
position, our roles, and responsibilities that we have in the movement.19

18 Jacobson, Metaphysics of the Profane, p. 70.

19 Kosch 2, p. 98.
 Gordana Todoric | 255

In Kosch’s interpretation, Shabbetai in this conversation unconsciously

announces his apostasy, explaining it through his crisis of identity. But,
in an ideological sense, using the instrument of apostasy, the writer
introduces a motif of polyphonic thinking in a totalitarian ideology that is
comparable to European thought on messianism. The novel does not fully
develop this motif, but we can discern the writer’s scepticism regarding the
immanent self-destructive features of the great ideological story:
Ja sam osnivač pokreta, njegov vođa i Mesija; u meni samome je
opravdanje i potvrda moje vere, pa ne moram ni da se stalno pitam
da li su svi moji postupci u potpunome skladu sa osnovama naših
učenja i objavljenim načelima. Sabetajanizam to sam ja, Sabetaj Cevi,
mesijanstvo to sam ja, Mesija, pa će se i osnovna shvatanja i ciljevi
pokreta oblikovati prema meni i mojim postupcima. Ono što se ja
pitam to je: ko sam ja? I to je osnovno u šta sumnjam. Jesam li istinski
mesija i da li sam kadar da promenim svet, skinem sa prestola sultana,
a zatim i sve ostale careve redom.
I am the founder of the movement, its leader and the Messiah; in me
alone is the justification and confirmation of my faith, so I do not have
to constantly ask myself if all of my actions are in full accordance with
the basics of our teachings and announced principles. Sabbatianism
is me, Shabbetai S˝evi, Messiah is me; so the basic understanding and
goals of the movement will be shaped toward me and my actions. What
I’m asking is: Who am I? And that’s basically what I doubt. Whether
I am a true Messiah, and whether I am a able to change the world,
remove the sultan from the throne, and then all the other emperors.20
We must note that the development of Sabbatianism was precisely as
Shabbetai claims here.21 In Kosch’s novel, however, political defeat acquires

20 Kosch 2, p. 101.
21 “For the Sabbatian anarchists immanent revolution meant complete destruction.
Theirs was a release from messianic expectation that had evolved not only from their
own agitation but from generations of expectation whose hopes were dashed by the
terrible irony of a Messiah whose greatest redemptive act consisted of converting to
256 | Political Discourse as a Field of Deconstruction of the Figure of Prophet

a metaphysical dimension. The narrator Miša Hercen disappears at the

end. The police search for him, and financial scams and sexual delicts are
attributed to him, as is customary in the world of political struggles. It is
suggested that he might have drowned while attempting to flee to Albania,
which at the time the novel was written did not have good diplomatic
relations with Yugoslavia. Kosch, however, ends his novel with the
following words:
Nestao je u nekom tamnom moru! Svejedno da li u onom istinskom,
na koje se one noći navezao, ili u moru ljudi i vremena po kome je
tako sumanuto brodio, a koje se ne manja od onog pravog komešalo i
penilo, gutajući i daveći sve što nije umelo dobro da pliva i da se drži
površine.
He disappeared in some dark sea! Whether in the true one, to which
he sailed that night, or in the sea of people and time by which he
sailed so madly, which is no less churned and foamy than the real one,
swallowing and choking all that do not know how to swim well and to
keep to the surface.22
This allegorical picture confirms that, at the time of the writing of the
novel, Kosch deeply doubts simple answers and homogeneous concepts.
This primarily reflects his deductions from his own biography as a pre-war
Communist and partisan fighter. However, the allegory of meaning of this
extensive novel, the deconstruction of big stories or grand narratives, and
the problematization of canonical frames all point to a new. postmodern
poetic sensibility, which at this time also included the Yugoslav literary
scene too. In other words, through the characters of Nathan and Shabbetai,
Erich Kosch announces the occurrence of a paradox by which transgression
of the Law will become the norm.

another religion. But rather than resignation the apostasy, conversion, and ‘descent’
of the Messiah gave a whole new dimension to the messianic idea, which, instead of
provoking a retreat into disarray, was greeted with a doctrine and, later, the practice
of ‘contradictory acts’”. Jacobson, Metaphysics of the Profane, p. 72.
22 Kosch 2, p. 408.
 Gordana Todoric | 257

Conclusion
Starting from our assumption that the novel U potrazi za Mesijom [In
Search of the Messiah] may be read as an allegory of the political situation
in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, we have shown how it was possible to produce
this allegorical meaning, and why the story met with a controversial
reception.
The assumption of the allegorical is a rhetoric that existed in Yugoslav
public discourse. On the one hand, motifs of political struggle, prestige,
power, dogma, and personality cult are actualized through the narrator’s
interpretation of the story of Shabbetai S˝evi, and thus became comparable
to the current political reality. On the other, the inner story of a false
Messiah is significantly more extensive than the frame story, so the
problem within S˝evi’s movement becomes more important than the story
of Hercen’s search for his grave. In this way, by deconstructing elements of
the cult, the writer creates a framework for the subversion of totalitarian
ideology per se. Subversion consists in pointing to the incoherence of
ideology and its leader. This is precisely why the figure of the prophet
Nathan, although secondary, is actually very important. Thanks to him,
a narrative was developed around Shabbetai S˝evi and he was proclaimed
the Messiah. Nathan thus becomes a conduit for exploring fundamental
questions about the movement. We meet Nathan through the story of
Miša Hercen—a story marked by secrets during the search for Shabbetai’s
grave and by the disappearance at the end of the novel. Thus, the Prophet,
whose self-realisation depends on the success of the movement, is largely
dissected, but the added value that a secret carries leaves us the possibility
of questioning the degree of self-reflexivity the author embedded in the
text of his novel.