Moyshe Kulbak
Moyshe Kulbak (Yiddish: משה קולבאַק; 1896, Smarhoń – 1937, near Minsk) was a Yiddish-language writer.
Overview
Born in Smarhon (present-day Belarus, then a town of Russian empire) to a Jewish family, Kulbak studied at the Volozhin Yeshiva in Belarus (then Russian empire). In 1914 he moved to the city of Minsk; in 1919, after the Soviet Revolution, to Wilna; in 1920 to Berlin; and in 1923 came back to Wilna (then a city in Poland), a center of Yiddish literary culture. In 1928 he returned to Minsk, capital of the Soviet Belarus.
His first poem "Shterndl" (Little star) was published in 1916. Kulbak wrote poems, fantastical or "mystical" novels, and, after moving to the Soviet Union, what are described by one source as "Soviet" satires. His novel The Zelmenyaners depicted with some realism the absurdities of Soviet life.
His mystical novella The Messiah of the House of Ephraim (1924) draws together many strands of Jewish folklore and apocalyptic belief, presenting them from a perspective that owes much to German expressionist cinema. It principally concerns the poor man Benye, who may or may not be a Messiah, and whose destiny is intertwined with the Lamed-Vavniks. (In Jewish mysticism, the Lamed-Vavniks are a group of 36 holy Jews on whose goodness the whole of humanity depends.) Benye, and the many other characters, undergo experiences the strangeness of which approaches incomprehensibility, to themselves as well as the reader. Legendary figures such as Lilith and Simkhe Plakhte are characters in the novel.
In September 1937, during the Stalinist purges, Moyshe Kulbak was arrested, and executed a month later.[1]
Works
- Lider (Poems), 1922.
- Disner Childe Harold, 1933.
- The Messiah of the House of Ephraim. English translation in: Yenne Velt, ed. and trans. Joachim Neugroschel (1976; repr. New York: Wallaby, 1978).
- "The Wind Who Lost His Temper", in Yenne Velt (above).
- The Zelmenyaners
Bibliography
- "Raysn" (Poemas), 1922.
- "Yankev Frank (Drama),1922.
- "Meshiekh ben Efrayine" (Novela), 1924.
- "Vilné" (Poema), 1926.
- "Lunes" (Novela), 1926. Editado por el Círculo d´Escritores, 2014.
- "Bunye un Bere afn shliakh" (Novela), 1927.
- "Zelminianer" (Novela), 1931; "Зельманцы" (Belarusian version), Minsk, 1960 (2nd edition - 2015); "Los Zelmenianos" (Spanish version), Xordica editorial, Zaragoza, 2016.
References
- ↑ Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota: Z Wilna do Ziemi Izraela. Midrasz (Warsaw), October 2007. p. 48. The article makes clear that Moyshe Kulbak was arrested in September 1937 and executed one month later. Even so, in many encyclopedia articles (similarly to the case of Isaac Babel) 1940 is given as the date of his death.
- Yenne Velt, ed. Neugroschel (see above)
- Scan of 1933 Frontispiece to Kulbak's Disner Childe Harold
- Charles Dobzynski, Le monde yiddish, ed. L¨Harmattan, París, 1998. Historia de la literatura yidis.
- Henri Minczeles, Les Litvaks, ed. La Découverte, París, 2008. Rachel Ertel Acerca de los poetas de la joven Vilna.
- Yves Plasseraud, Lituanie juive 1918-1940, ed. Autrement, París, 1996. Moshe Kulbak et Zalman Shnéour.
