Tuesday, 20 May 2014

IZABELLA

IZABELLA (1863-1938)
Pseudonym of Beyle Fridberg, daughter of the writer A. Sh. Fridberg and the first wife of Mortkhe Spektor.  She was born in Grodno.  Living in St. Petersburg in the 1880s, she came into contact with Yiddish literary circles there and began to write herself.  His first story, “Der yosem” (The orphan), was published in Hoyz-fraynd (House friend), no. 1 (1888).  She also published: “In der fremd” (Abroad), Hoyz-fraynd, no. 1; “Nisht oysgehaltn” (Inconsistent), Yudishe biblyotek (Jewish library), no. 1; Fun glik tsum keyver, a khosn oyf oystsoln (From joy to the grave, a husband on the installment plan) (Warsaw, 1894), 28 pp.  In her stories, she tried to describe the life of a Jewish, middle-class distinct from the situation of education young women among the Jews.  In the 1890s she settled in Odessa.  She began writing in Russian, completed several dramatic pieces, but they were never published.  In 1910 she moved to Constantinople.  She died there in 1938.

Source: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1.


4 comments:

  1. Please advise if there is any more information on Beyle/Izabella Friedberg. Her brother, Lazer, was my Great Grandfather and we know very little about her offspring.

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  2. I wish I knew more, but this is a translation, and I doubt that the original author is still alive. I shall post here if I find anything.

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  3. Thank you! She is my Great, Great Aunt and some think she is the same person as Isabella Grinivskya (Bhai religion)

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    1. She is the same person. Biographical sources contradict one another (born 1853, 1854, or 1864; died 1938 or 1944.

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