Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

306 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:305
about Simonini is not his Jew hating or bigotry in general, but his skills in
his behind-the-scenes Machiavellian endeavors.
There have been many literary reviews of the The Prague Cemetery.
This is not a literary review but a psychological and social inquiry. I am
interested specifically in what Eco’s tale tells us about successful racism,
hatemongering, and antisemitism.
By successful racism, or in this case antisemitism, I mean having a
strong influence in damaging the Jewish people, negatively prejudicing
large numbers of people and organizations against them over an extended
length of time, and overcoming truth with hateful lies.
All of that Simonini has accomplished, most notably with The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion—a work any student of antisemitic studies is
familiar with. The successful antisemite can be distinguished from the-runof-the
mill hater by his special motivations and skills. First, quick money
and political popularity are motivators. The ordinary antisemites, who are
the followers, may hate just for the hope of a better life in the future or to
blame their misery on someone else, particularly someone vulnerable.
Then, writing and/or public speaking skills have to target the Jew. The successful
hater has these communication skills in abundance; the followers
need no special skill.
Eco’s creation of Simonini give us an ability to get to know what
makes a character like this tick and how he finds his opportunities in
society.
Because the actual author of the plagiarized compilation called The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion is unknown, Eco fills in the story with colorful
contemporary intrigue and characters and writings that are known to be
connected to The Protocols. Simonini is the fictional wild card Eco has
invented.
The novel is a story of the making of stories. It is a tale of conspiracies
to spread conspiratorial myths. It is told mostly through the eyes of
Simonini, a man who says that hates just about everyone but himself.
Although he declares this, however, he is a mentally diseased man who
does not know who he is. Today he would be diagnosed as suffering from a
severe case of dissociative disorder, of the type previously called multiple
personality disorder. He enters fugue states and has blackout spells and has
a subpersonality, a Catholic priest who dresses in robes.
Multiple personality disorder, along with the new psychiatric diagnois
of hysteria, was an up-and-coming diagnosis in the late nineteenth century
at the birth of modern psychology, the period in which the novel takes
place.