Shlomo Dykman’s Aeneid: A Journey from Holocaust to Revival

The chapter focuses on Shlomo Dykman (b. Warsaw 1917–d. Jerusalem 1965) an influential and prolific Hebrew translator of Greek and Latin poetry. The chapter presents Dykman’s formative education in Warsaw until 1939 at the Tarbut Hebrew Gymnasium, the Institute of Jewish Studies, and Warsaw University. It considers Dykman’s vocation as a multilingual translator from Yiddish to Hebrew, from Hebrew to Polish, and from Greek and Latin to Hebrew. Dykman’s Hebrew translation of Virgil’s Aeneid is inseparable from his experience as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland to Russia, and as a prisoner of the Vorkuta Gulag labour camp. The chapter examines the unique characteristics of Dykman’s translation of the Aeneid together with other Hebrew translations preceding Dykman’s translation. In using Holocaust imagery, Dykman not only Judaized the Trojan survivors but also united Roman and Zionist ideologies.