Boris Slutsky (russian: Бори́с Абра́мович Слу́цкий; 7 May 1919 in
Slovyansk
Sloviansk ( uk, Слов'янськ, Sloviansk ; russian: Славянск, Slavyansk or ; prior to 1784 – Tor) is a city in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the administrative center of the Slovyansk urban commun ...
, Ukraine – 23 February 1986 in
Tula
Tula may refer to:
Geography
Antarctica
*Tula Mountains
*Tula Point
India
*Tulā, a solar month in the traditional Indian calendar
Iran
* Tula, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province
Italy
* Tula, Sardinia, municipality (''comune'') in the pr ...
) was a
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
poet.
Biography
Slutsky was born in
Sloviansk
Sloviansk ( uk, Слов'янськ, Sloviansk ; russian: Славянск, Slavyansk or ; prior to 1784 – Tor) is a city in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the administrative center of the Slovyansk urban commun ...
in 1919.
He grew up in
Kharkov
Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine. . He first attended a ''lito'' (literary studio) at the Kharkov
Pioneers Palace
Young Pioneer Palaces or Palaces of Young Pioneers and Schoolchildren were youth centers designated for the creative work, sport training and extracurricular activities of Young Pioneer
A pioneer movement is an organization for children op ...
but left due to pressure from his father, who dismissed Russian poetry as a career. In 1937, he entered the Law Institute of Moscow,
and also studied at the
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute
The Maxim Gorky Literature Institute (russian: Литературный институт им. А. М. Горького) is an institution of higher education in Moscow. It is located at 25 Tverskoy Boulevard in central Moscow.
History
The insti ...
from 1939 till 1941. He joined a group of young poets including M. Kulchitzki,
Pavel Kogan, S. Narovchatov,
David Samoilov
David Samoylov (russian: Давид Самойлов), pseudonym of David Samuilovich Kaufman (russian: Давид Самуилович Кауфман; 1 June 1920 — 23 February 1990) was one of the most notable representatives of the War genera ...
and others who became acquainted in autumn 1939 at the seminary of
Ilya Selvinsky at the State Literary Publishing House, Goslitizdat and called themselves "the Generation of 1940". Slutsky, however, was not exposed to the
Shoah
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
poems Selvinsky and his peers was known for until the
Khrushchev's Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw ( rus, хрущёвская о́ттепель, r=khrushchovskaya ottepel, p=xrʊˈɕːɵfskəjə ˈotʲ:ɪpʲɪlʲ or simply ''ottepel'')William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, London: Free Press, 2004 is the period ...
of the late 1950s. This is attributed to way Shoah poets in the 1940s deferred publishing their works until safer times. Slutsky would become the only Russian poet who made the Holocaust a central focus of his writing.
Between 1941–1945 he served in the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
as a
politruk of an infantry
platoon
A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two or more squads, sections, or patrols. Platoon organization varies depending on the country and the branch, but a platoon can be composed of 50 people, although specific platoons may range ...
. His war experiences are reflected much in his poetry. After the war, he had the rank of major. By 1946, he was living off a small disability pension and started working for radio station, then as an editor, and translator.
In 1956
Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (russian: link=no, Илья́ Григо́рьевич Эренбу́рг, ; – August 31, 1967) was a Soviet writer, revolutionary, journalist and historian.
Ehrenburg was among the most prolific and notable autho ...
created a sensation with an article quoting a number of hitherto unpublished poems by Slutsky, and in 1957 Slutsky's first book of poetry, ''Memory'', containing many poems written much earlier, was published. Together with
David Samoylov
David Samoylov (russian: Давид Самойлов), pseudonym of David Samuilovich Kaufman (russian: Давид Самуилович Кауфман; 1 June 1920 — 23 February 1990) was one of the most notable representatives of the War gener ...
, Slutsky was probably the most important representative of the
War generation of Russian poets and, because of the nature of his verse, a crucial figure in the post-
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
literary revival. His poetry is deliberately coarse and jagged, prosaic and conversational. There is a dry, polemic quality about it that reflects perhaps the poet's early training as a lawyer. Slutsky's search was evidently for a language stripped of poeticisms and ornamentation; he represented the opposite tendency to that of such neo-romantic or neo-futuristic poets as
Andrey Voznesensky
Andrei Andreyevich Voznesensky (russian: link=no, Андре́й Андре́евич Вознесе́нский, 12 May 1933 – 1 June 2010) was a Soviet and Russian poet and writer who had been referred to by Robert Lowell as "one of th ...
.
As early as in 1953–1954, prior to the
20th Congress of CPSU, verses condemning the
Stalinist
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...
regime were attributed to Slutsky. These were circulated in "
Samizdat
Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...
" in the 1950s and in 1961 were published in an anthology in the West (in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
). He did not confirm nor deny their authorship.
In his works Slutsky also approached Jewish themes, including material from the Jewish tradition, about
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
(including in Soviet society), the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, etc.
He translated to Russian from the
Yiddish poetry
Yiddish literature encompasses all those belles-lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Euro ...
, e.g., from works of
Leib Kvitko
Leyb Moiseyevich Kvitko (russian: Лев Моисе́евич Кви́тко, yi, לייב קוויטקאָ) (October 15, 1890 – August 12, 1952) was a prominent Yiddish poet, an author of well-known children's poems and a member of the Je ...
,
Aron Vergelis
Aron Vergelis (Yiddish: אהרן װערגעליס; Russian: Аро́н А́лтерович Верге́лис; 7 May 1918, in Liubar (now in Zhitomyr Oblast) – 7 April 1999, in Moscow) was a Soviet poet and Jewish journalist who wrote in Yiddish ...
,
Shmuel Galkin, Asher Shvartsman, and
Yakov Sternberg.
He edited ''The Poets of Israel,'' a landmark publication considered the first anthology of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i poetry. It was published in 1963.
One of his cousins was the Israeli general
Meir Amit
Meir Amit ( he, מאיר עמית, 17 March 1921 – 17 July 2009) was an Israeli politician and cabinet minister. He served as the Chief Director and the head of global operations for Mossad from 1963 to 1968, before entering into politics an ...
.
Slutsky died 23 February 1986 in
Tula
Tula may refer to:
Geography
Antarctica
*Tula Mountains
*Tula Point
India
*Tulā, a solar month in the traditional Indian calendar
Iran
* Tula, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province
Italy
* Tula, Sardinia, municipality (''comune'') in the pr ...
, Russia.
References
External links
Boris Slutsky. PoemsSlutsky, Boris. Jewish Electronic Encyclopedia in Russian
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slutsky, Boris
1919 births
1986 deaths
Soviet poets
Jewish poets
Soviet Jews in the military
Ukrainian Jews
Soviet Jews
People from Sloviansk
Maxim Gorky Literature Institute alumni