Moyshe Kulbak ( yi, משה קולבאַק; be, Майсей (Мойша) Кульбак; 1896 1937) was a

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

ian

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

writer who wrote in

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...

Biography

Born in Smarhon (present-day

, then in the Russian Empire) to a

family, Kulbak studied at the famous

Volozhin Yeshiva Yeshivas Etz Ḥayyim (), commonly called the Volozhin Yeshiva (), was a prestigious Lithuanian ''yeshiva'' located in the town of Volozhin, Russian Empire (now Valozhyn, Belarus). It was founded around 1803 by Rabbi Ḥayyim Volozhiner, a stude ...

. During the

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he lived in Kovno (today, Kaunas, Lithuania), where he began to write poetry in Hebrew, before switching to Yiddish.Novershtern, Avraham (August 19, 2010).
Kulbak, Moyshe
" ''YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe''. yivoencyclopedia.org. Retrieved 2016-12-25. He made his publishing debut in Yiddish in 1916, with the poem "Shterndl" (Little star). In 1918 he moved to the city of

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

; in 1919, after the Soviet Revolution, to Vilna (today

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

, Lithuania); and in 1920 to

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. In 1923 he came back to Vilna, which after the war had become part of newly independent

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, and was a center of Yiddish literary culture. In Vilna he taught modern Yiddish literature at the Real-Gymnasium (a Yiddish-speaking high school), as well as at the Yiddish teachers' seminary. By 1928 he became disappointed with the literary atmosphere in Poland, and decided to return to Minsk (capital of the Soviet Belarus), where much of his family lived, and where there was a lively Yiddish literary scene. In Minsk, Kulbak worked for several media organizations and for the Jewish section of the

Academy of Sciences of Belarus The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus (NASB) ( be, Нацыянальная акадэмія навук Беларусі, russian: Национальная академия наук Беларуси, НАН Беларуси, НАНБ) is ...

. Kulbak wrote poems, fantastical or "mystical" novels, and, after moving to the

Soviet Union 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, ...

, 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 In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach ...

, 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 Lilith ( ; he, לִילִית, Līlīṯ) is a female figure in Mesopotamian and Judaic mythology, alternatively the first wife of Adam and supposedly the primordial she-demon. Lilith is cited as having been "banished" from the Garden of Ed ...

and Simkhe Plakhte are characters in the novel. In September 1937, Moyshe Kulbak was arrested during a wave of Stalinist purges. He was accused of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

and executed a month later together with several dozens of other Belarusian writers, intellectuals and administrators. In 1956, after the death of

Joseph 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 ...

, he was officially rehabilitated by the Soviet authorities. Moshe Kulbak

Bibliography

* ''Shirim'' (Poems), 1920. * ''Die Shtot'' (The Village) (Romantic poem), 1920. * ''Raysn'' ("Belarus") (Poems), 1922. * ''Lider'' (Poems), 1922. * ''Yankev Frank'' (Drama),1922. * ''Meshiekh ben Efrayine'' (Novel), 1924. ** ''The Messiah of the House of Ephraim'' - English translation in ''Yenne Velt'', ed. and trans.

Joachim Neugroschel Joachim Neugroschel (13 January 1938—23 May 2011) was a Multilingualism, multilingual Translation#Literary translation, literary translator of French language, French, German language, German, Italian language, Italian, Russian language, Russi ...

(1976; repr. New York: Wallaby, 1978). * ''Vilné'' (Poem), 1926. * ''Montag'' (Monday) (Novel), 1926. ** ''Lunes'' - Editado por el Círculo d´Escritores, 2014. * ''Bunye un Bere afn shliakh'' (Novel), 1927. * ''Zelminianer'' (Novela), 1931; ** (Russian edition translated by

Rachel Boymvol Rachel Boymvol, sometimes spelled Baumwoll (russian: Рахиль Львовна Баумволь, yi, רחל בױמװאָל, he, רחל בוימוול, March 4, 1914, Odessa - June 16, 2000, Jerusalem) was a Soviet Union, Soviet poet, children' ...

), 1960 ** The Zelmenyaners: a family saga (English translation, 2013) ** Зельманцы (Belarusian version), Minsk, 1960 (2nd edition - 2015); **''Los Zelmenianos'' (Spanish version), Xordica editorial, Zaragoza, 2016. * ''Disner Childe Harold'' (Child Harold from Disna) (Satiric poem), 1933. * ''The Wind Who Lost His Temper'', ** English translation in ''Yenne Velt''. * ''Boitre'' (Dramatic poem), 1936. * ''Beniomine Maguidov'' (Play), 1937.

References

External links

Moyshe Kulbak books
in the

Yiddish Book Center The Yiddish Book Center (formerly the National Yiddish Book Center), located on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States, is a cultural institution dedicated to the preservation of books in the Yiddish language, a ...

digital library (in Yiddish)
Lectures on Moyshe Kulbak's works
by Marc Caplan from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

and

University of Wroclaw A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kulbak, Moyshe 1896 births 1937 deaths People from Smarhon’ People from Oshmyansky Uyezd Jews from the Russian Empire Belarusian Jews Yiddish-language poets Jewish poets Soviet poets Belarusian male poets Soviet male writers 20th-century male writers Yiddish-language playwrights 20th-century dramatists and playwrights Polish emigrants to the Soviet Union Jews executed by the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Belarus