IEU'S FEATURED TOPIC RELATED TO THE LITERARY CULTURE OF UKRAINE

HOFSTEIN, DAVID, b 24 June 1889 in Korostyshiv, Kyiv gubernia, d 12 August 1952 in Moscow. Yiddish poet, writer, dramatist, and translator. Hofstein began to write poetry in Hebrew at the age of nine. Later, under the pseudonym D. Naumov, he expanded his poetic repertoire to include Russian, Ukrainian, and Yiddish. He made his Yiddish debut in print in 1917 in Kyiv. He soon became a prominent figure in Jewish literary life of the city and assumed multiple roles, including an administrator of the Kultur Lige. Between 1919 and 1922 he published six poetry collections and, together with the poets Leib Kvitko and Perets Markish, he made up the so-called Kyiv lyric triad of Yiddish poets (or Kyiv Group). Hofstein was also a prolific translator, with a particular focus on the poetry of Taras Shevchenko, Lesia Ukrainka, and Ivan Franko. In 1920 his article on Shevchenko and his translation of Shevchenko's 'Testament' were published in a Yiddish-language brochure Tsum yortsayt fun Taras Shevchenko (On the Anniversary of Taras Shevchenko's Death). A book of his Yiddish-language translations of the selected works of Lesia Ukrainka was published in Kyiv in 1931, while his translations of Ivan Franko's selected works were published in 1936. He also co-edited an anthology of Yiddish literature in Ukrainian...

KVITKO, LEIB, b 15 October 1890 in Holoskiv, Podilia gubernia, d 12 August 1952 in Moscow. Yiddish poet and novelist. In 1918, as an active member of the Kultur Lige, Kvitko published in Kyiv a book Lidelekh (Songs). Together with David Hofstein and Perets Markish, he formed the so-called Kyiv lyric triad of Yiddish poets. They displayed an affinity with the contemporaneous modernist movements among Ukrainian writers who aspired to blend European sensibilities with their own national essence, albeit with an evident impact from the Russian symbolist circles. From 1920 to 1925 Kvitko lived and published in Germany (Berlin and Hamburg), where he joined the German Communist Party and participated in the underground. Fearing arrest, in 1925 he returned to the USSR, where he worked on the editorial board of the magazine Di Royte Velt and published a series of stories about life in Hamburg. From 1926 to 1936 he lived in Kharkiv and wrote mostly children's stories and poems. He was also a member of Ukrainian literary organizations Vaplite and later Prolitfront. In September 1929, the Yiddish Section of the All-Ukrainian Association of Proletarian Writers held an extraordinary meeting to address Kvitko's perceived 'anti-communist pasquinade.' As a result, he was dismissed from his job and later persecuted...

MARKISH, PERETS, b 7 December 1895 in Polonne, Novohrad-Volynskyi county, Volhynia gubernia, d 12 August 1952 in Moscow. Soviet Yiddish poet, novelist, and playwright. In 1918-19, Markish's first poems appeared in Yiddish modernist journals published by the Kyiv-based Kultur Lige. In 1919 he published his first book of poetry Shveln (Thresholds), and he soon gained recognition as a representative of the Kyiv lyric triad of Yiddish poets (with David Hofstein and Leib Kvitko). In 1920 Markish relocated to Moscow and in 1921 he was one of the founders of the Moscow Circle of Jewish Writers and Artists. Between 1921 and 1926 he lived in Poland and France, where he was part of the expressionist literary movement. After his return to the USSR in 1926, he largely conformed to socialist realism and began writing about industrialization, collectivization, and various aspects of Soviet life. In 1942 he became a card-carrying member of the Communist Party and, throughout the war, served on the board of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Alongside David Bergelson and Isaac Fefer, Markish was one of the most widely known Yiddish writers in the USSR. However, during the postwar Stalinist purges of Jewish culture he was arrested in 1949, imprisoned, and later executed.

BERGELSON, DAVID, b 12 August 1884 in Okhrimove, Uman county, Kyiv gubernia, d 12 August 1952 in Moscow. Yiddish writer and literary figure. Born into a prosperous Hasidic family, he was forced to leave his home following the death of his mother in 1898 and reside with his older siblings in Odesa, Kyiv, and Warsaw. In 1903 he settled in Kyiv. In 1919 he was one of the founders of the Kultur Lige and worked as an editor of the literary miscellany Eygns. In 1921 Bergelson settled in Berlin, where he published the first edition of his collected works. There he also edited, together with Der Nister, the literary section of the Yiddish magazine Milgroym. In 1926 he made a significant shift in his career when he aligned himself with the New York-based pro-communist publication Frayhayt. Following this, he returned to the Soviet Union, assuming the role of a journalistic representative of Frayhayt. Between 1928 and 1934 Bergelson resided in the United States, Berlin, and Copenhagen, before returning to the Soviet Union in 1934. In 1942, he became part of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC), and during the postwar Stalinist purges of Jewish culture, he was arrested together with other JAFC members, imprisoned, subjected to torture, and later executed...

FEFER, ISAAC, b 9 October 1900 in Shpola, Kyiv gubernia, d 12 August 1952 in Moscow. Yiddish poet and Communist activist. In 1917 Fefer became a member of the Bund and a trade union activist. He then joined the Communist movement in 1919 and served in the Red Army. He began writing poetry in 1918 and gained recognition as a Yiddish poet, whose work focused primarily on political themes and romantic depictions of the revolutionary struggle. In 1927 Fefer was a founding member of the Jewish Section of the All-Ukrainian Association of Proletarian Writers and edited a number of Yiddish periodicals in Kharkiv and Kyiv in the 1930s. Between 1942 and 1945 he was one of the leaders of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC). In 1943 Fefer visited the United States, Canada, Mexico, and England to promote support for the Soviet Union. He returned to the USSR with a wider appreciation of the Jewish life outside of the Soviet Union and initiated discussions to have the JAFC join the World Jewish Congress to end the isolation of Soviet Jews. He was arrested in 1948 and charged with membership in an anti-Soviet conspiracy organized by Jews in the United States. He was later executed, together with other JAFC leaders, in the Lubianka Prison in Moscow...

DER NISTER (Yiddish: 'The Hidden One,' pseud. of Pinkhus Kahanovych), b 1 November 1885 in Berdychiv, d 4 June 1950 in the Abez GULAG labor camp, Komi ASSR, RSFSR. Yiddish writer and poet. He came from the family of Orthodox Jews with ties to the Korshev (Korostyshiv) Hasidic sect. His brother, Aaron, who became a member of the sect following the teachings of Rabbi Nakhman of Bratslav, exerted a profound influence on Der Nister's future creative work. In 1918 Der Nister settled in Kyiv, where he became part of a community that revolved around the Kultur Lige. In 1920 he moved with his family to Moscow. From there he relocated via Poland to Berlin where, in 1922 and 1923, two volumes of his Gedakht (Thought) were published. In 1926 he returned to Ukraine and settled in Kharkiv, where in 1928 he published a collection of symbolist stories, Fun mayne gitter (From My Estates). At the end of the 1920s, in the atmosphere of tightening Communist Party control over literature, the symbolist and mystical Der Nister came under harsh criticism from the Soviet authorities. For nearly a decade he lived in abject poverty. In February 1949, Der Nister was among the last of the major Yiddish writers to be arrested during the Stalinist postwar purges. He died in a Soviet prison hospital...