SHLOYME BILOV (1898-1949)
Born in Brisk (Brześć)
in Lithuania, his difficult childhood years led him to the socialist
movement. In 1905 he joined the
Bund. In 1907 he emigrated to the United
States where he worked by day and studied by night. In 1912 he graduated from high school and
entered Kingston College (Rhode Island) where he studied languages, literature,
and philosophy. Following the February
Revolution in Russia (1917), he returned to Russia. En route, though, he was stuck for one year
in Norway where he studied Scandinavian languages and literature. In 1918 he arrived back in Russia and became
a manager of a Jewish night school and leader in the Bundist organization. In 1919, he became the manager of the Jewish
wing of Rovno Commissariat for popular education. He was arrested by the Polish authorities the
next year, 1920, and after being freed he traveled to Kovel where he switched
to the Jewish Communist Labor Bund (Kombund).
When the Red Army withdrew from the city, he moved on to Kiev and from
there to Homel and Novozibkov, where he switched (together with the local
organization of the Kombund) to the Communist Party. From his return to Russia until the
liquidation of the cultural work in Yiddish in Soviet Russia, Bilov was active
as a school manager, lecturer, and teacher—mainly in the Yiddish language and
literature. Over the years 1920-1924, he
was a teacher in the pedagogical institutes in Novozibkov and Homel where he
also undertook research on historical materialism in the Homel Jewish Party
School. 1924-1926, he held the chair in
Yiddish language and culture at the Odessa Institute for Popular Education. In 1930 he held a similar position in
Kiev. From 1932, he was a professor in
an institute named for Linetski and a contributor to the section on literary
research in the Kiev Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture. Bilov also wrote in English.
He began writing (in English) in 1914 in the socialist weekly
newspaper Labor Advocate (in Providence, Rhode Island). In 1923 he contributed to the Homel Komsomol
weekly, Nabat molodyozhi (Alarm for youth) in Russian and to the Yiddish
magazine, Der komunistisher veg (The Communist way). In 1924 he edited a pioneering weekly newspaper
Iskry ilyicha (Ilyich’s sparks) and was a contributor to the magazine
(later, a newspaper) Der odeser arbeter (The Odessa laborer). Bilov was a member of the association of
proletarian writers (1928-1930), secretary of the Jewish division the writers’
association in Odessa, and a councilman of the Odessa city council (1929). From his large body of work was published:
“Kegn mekhanizm in der lit. forshung” (Against mechanism in literary research),
in Far leninishn etop in der literatur-kritik (Toward the Leninist stage
in literary criticism) (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932), pp. 125-42; Literatur-frages ba
marksn un engelsn, etyudn (Literary questions in Marx and Engels, studies)
(Kiev, 1934), 34 pp.; “Fefer in shpigl fun der kritik” (Fefer in light of
criticism), in the collection for Itzig Fefer (Kiev, 1934); “Edelshtats
dikhterisher veg” (Edelshtat’s poetic way), in Dovid edelshtats geklibene
verk (Dovid Edelshtat’s selected writings), vol. 2, compiled by K. Marmor
(Moscow, 1935), pp. 7-60; introduction and notes to Moyshe Nadir selected
writings (Kiev-Kharkov, 1937), 404 pp.; Sholem-aleykhem (with Irme
Druker) (Kiev, 1939), 183 pp., which also appeared in Russian; Avrom Goldfadn, Geklibene
dramatishe verk (Selected dramatical writings), introduced by Bilov and A.
Velednitski (Kiev, 1940), 328 pp.; “Sholem-aleykhem,” Sovetishe literatur
(Soviet literature) 6 (1938), pp. 142-58.
Information concerning Bilov has dried up since 1948. [N.b. He died of a stroke in Kiev.]
Sources:
The Fefer collection appeared in Literatur un revolutsye 1-2 (Kiev,
1934), see pp. 142, 144, 149, 151; launch session of the section on literature
and criticism, Odeser arbeter (April 28, 1934); Dr. Y. Shatzky, review of
Bilov’s Goldfadn book, in Yivo-bleter no. 20, pp. 109-12; “A groyser oyftu in
antviklen di yidishe kultur un visnshaft” (A great feat in developing Jewish
culture and science), Eynikeyt (Moscow) (April 2, 1946); “Dray
disertatsyes” (Three dissertations), Eynikeyt (February 18, 1947); H. Vaynraykh, Blut af der zun (Blood on the sun) (Brooklyn, 1950), p. 48); Aleksander Pomerants,
“Edelshtat un der yidish-sovetisher literatur-kritik” (Edelshtat and Soviet
Jewish literary criticism), in Dovid
edelshtat gedenk-bukh (Dovid
Edelshtat memorial volume) (New York, 1952), pp. 530, 549, 553, 554.
Aleksander
Pomerants and Leyzer Ran