LIEV OSTROVYER

LIEV OSTROVYER (b. 1889)

Adopted name of Leybush Ostrover.  He was born in Plotsk (Płock), Poland, and graduated from high school there.  He went on to study in Cracow and Berlin.  During WWI, he was living in Germany and in Switzerland, later in Russia.  He experienced the tumult of the Kerensky period as a doctor.  While living in Odessa, he became close with Kh. N. Bialik.  He was later in Kiev and Moscow.  He published sketches in Yiddish and Russian-Jewish publications.  Prior to WWI, his booklet Farvos (Why) (Cracow, 1911), 60 pp. appeared in print.  He was later to become a well-known Soviet Russian novelist (many of his works dealt with Jewish themes).  A number of his novels appeared in Soviet Russia in Yiddish translations as well.

Sources: Plotsk, bletlekh geshikhte fun yidishn lebn in alter heym (Plotsk, pages from the history of Jewish life in the old country) (Buenos Aires, 1945); A. Reyzen, “Milkhome-yorn” (War years), Tsukunft (New York) (September 1930).