The crux in the Russian short story and its evolution in Hebrew literature

In studies of the short story, relatively little attention has been devoted to the role therein of the crux, even though it is one of the critical elements in its fashioning. In the present study I have noted for the first time that, on the basis of the location of the crux within the overall complex of composition of the short story, we are able to draw a distinction among four sub-genres of the short story which differ from one another in their composition, general atmosphere, and meaning. The unique formulations of the crux were accepted in Russian literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and are particularly discernible in the work of Chekhov, who exerted great influence upon the Hebrew short story. These means of formulations found their way from Russian literature into Hebrew literature, as is particularly striking in the works of those authors who grew up and were educated in the Russian milieu and culture and began to write in that language even before they began to write in Hebrew.