Over the Moon: From the shtetl to the City of Lights, the True Colors of Marc Chagall in Eygens

An English-Language Talk by Chantal Ringuet

Tuesday, June 9, 2020, 5pm EST, on Zoom from Montreal and Toronto

In his original autobiography Eygens (1925), Marc Chagall recalls his formative years in Vitebsk, his native shtetl, all the way to his journey in Paris. In this lecture, Chantal Ringuet will discuss how Chagall's original text, while reflecting the true colors of the artist, illustrates a Yiddish paradise. This world of yesterday, that of childhood memories in Eastern Europe, is conveyed in an oneiric style that embodies numerous traditional sceneries. The French translation of Eygens, launched in 1931 - from which derive the English, Russian and Hebrew translations - raises specific issues pertaining to the artist's assimilation to the Western art.

Chantal Ringuet is a Canadian award-winning author, scholar and translator. She has been Fellow at YIVO, the Institute for Jewish Research in New York, scholar in residence at the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute and writer in residence at the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, Brandeis University. With Pierre Anctil, she has translated Eygens by Marc Chagall from Yiddish to French.

This program was sponsored by The Committee for Yiddish, UJA Federation and Toronto Workmen's Circle.