Thursday 19 March 2015

PAVEL BERMAN

PAVEL BERMAN (January 30, 1873-February 3, 1922)
He was born in the Ponevezh (Panevezys) region.  His father Dmitri was a rich, assimilated innkeeper.  Berman was raised by his grandmother in Ponevezh.  He studied in the local senior high school.  The Bundist leader Tsemakh Kopelzon attracted him to the Bund, and Berman played an important role in the Bundist movement in Vilna and Minsk.  Together with Boris Frumkin, he published Dos arbayter bletl (The worker’s leaf), illegally produced by hectography, from March through August 1897.  This was the first effort to publish in Russia itself an illegal, regularly-appearing newspaper.  In 1898, he assisted as well with the publication of the manifesto of the newly founded social democratic party.  He died in a tramway catastrophe in Petrograd (en route to Narva, Estonia).

Sources: “Di yidishe sotsyalistishe bavegung biz der grindung fun bund” (The Jewish socialist movement until the founding of the Bund), in Historishe shriftn, vol. 3 (Vilna-Paris: YIVO, 1939); John Mill, Pyonern un boyer (Pioneers and builders) (New York, 1946); Sh. Levin, Untererdishe kemfer (Underground fighters) (New York, 1946); F. Kurski, Gezamlte shriftn (Collected writings) (New York, 1952).


1 comment:

  1. Hi, my name is Herbert Bayersdorf from Darmstadt, Germany. I am working for a book about the jewish students at the tecnical university of Darmstadt (Technische Hochschule Darmstadt). In 1901 studied a Pavel Berman here. He was a member of the Bund Mithilfsgrupn. This group must have organized a big demonstration in Darmstadt an other cities arround after the killing of Hirsh Lekerts. Is it possible, that is the same Pavel Berman?
    I would be happy for an answer
    Herbert Bayersdorf

    ReplyDelete