MOYSHE (MOISHE) BRODERZON

MOYSHE (MOISHE) BRODERZON (November 23, 1890-August 17, 1956)

He was a poet and playwright, born in Moscow into a commercial family, and for many years of his life and work, he was tied to this city and generally to Russia. This fact deserves consideration in attributing to him the majority of his work in Soviet Yiddish literature. After the expulsion of Jews from Moscow, his father settled in Lodz, Poland, in the early 1890s, and the children were raised by a grandfather in Nieswiez (Nyasvizh), Byelorussia.  Moyshe studied in religious primary school, before coming to Lodz where he attended a business school.  He spent the years of WWI and the Russian Revolution in Moscow.  His writing and personal fate was from this beginning closely tied to Yiddish literature. His first published writings were a collection of poems entitled Shvartse fliterlekh (Black spangles), published in the Polish city of Petrikov (Pietrykaŭ) in 1913, 48 pp., though subsequent work largely appeared in Moscow. He published several cycles of poetry there in three issues of the first post-Revolutionary Yiddish journal, Kultur un bildung (Culture and education) 3-4, 9-10, 13-14 (1918).

During WWI, Broderzon was one of the founders of the artistic circle known as “Shamir” or Krayz far yidisher natsyonaler estetik (Circle for a Jewish national aesthetic) in Moscow.  In 1918 he returned to Lodz, and there over the course of more than twenty years until the start of WWII he led a new and productive life as a poet, an actor, a newspaperman, and the builder of a cabaret theater.  A virtuoso of rhyme and rhythm, a master of versification and of artistic language combinations, he created in this period brilliant children’s poetry, and he was the first in the history of Yiddish theatrical art to found a puppet theater. He wrote plays for them and staged them himself. In 1922 in Lodz, together with Yekhezkl-Moyshe Nayman, the artist Yitskhok Broyner, and the musician Henekh Kon, he founded the first Jewish puppet theater “Khad-gadye” (An only kid) which gave performances in Warsaw and Vienna as well.  His scripts had great successes with the biblical opera Dovid un basheve (David and Bathsheba) in 1924, music by Henekh Kon and staged in Warsaw. In 1925 he also attempted to create in Lodz a Yiddish variety theater, called “Shor habor” (Wild beast).  In 1926 he founded the Jewish cabaret theater “Ararat” [acronym in Yiddish for: Artistic Revolutionary Revue-Theater] which grew to maturity under the subsequently famous artists Dzhigan and Shumakher.  Staged in this theater were Broderzon’s own short creations.  He also composed a libretto for the opera Monish to accompany Y. L. Peretz’s ballad.  He translated Aleksandr Blok’s poem Dvenadtsatʹ (Twelve) as “Tsvelf,” as well as poems by Byron, Pushkin, and contemporary Soviet Russian poets. He also translated a number of European operettas, such as Emmerich Kálmán’s Bayadera (The little dancer [original: Die Bajadere]), Dos holendishe meydl (The Dutch girl [original: Das Hollandweibchen]), and “Meri” (“A little slow fox with Mary” [original: “Ein kleiner slow fox mit Mary”]).  He wrote verses to Goldfaden’s Tsentn gebot (Tenth commandment), which was staged by Zigmunt Turkov in Warsaw in 1926.

Broderzon was the main contributor and later one of the editors of Nayer lodzher folks-blat (New Lodz people’s newspaper), for which he daily wrote current events and literary articles, feature pieces, and humorous poetry.  In 1936 and 1937, he published the short sarcastic, dramatic works Shaylok lakht (Shylock laughs), Oyto da fe (Auto-da-fé), and “Haynrikh un loreley” (Heinrich and Lorelei), in which he laid out the savagery of the Nazis. In 1939 he composed a poem entitled “Yud”—on the same theme. In September of that year, he set off on a lengthy wandering route to Białystok, Novo-Uzensk (Saratov region, Russia), Karakalpakiya (Uzbekistan), until he arrived in Moscow. Irrespective of the great hardships he endured, he continued working the entire time, and he contributed to the collections Heymland (Homeland) and Tsum zig (To victory) which were published in Moscow under the editorship of Perets Markish. WWII brought him once again onto Soviet terrain.  In 1944 he wrote in distant Tortkul (Karakalpakiya) a dramatic poem entitled “Gerekhtikeyt” (Justice), based on the materials from the courtroom cases from Munich, Germany, in 1529 and that called to mind the events of WWII. His drama Erev yontef (Holiday eve) was staged in 1947 by the Yiddish State Theater in Moscow, staged by B. Zuskin. In 1948, when Soviet Yiddish cultural institutions were liquidated, fate spared him and he survived.  In April 1951 he was arrested and sent to a slave-labor camp in Siberia; freed in September 1955, he returned to Poland where he soon died suddenly of a heart attack.

Broderzon’s poetry appeared in book form under such titles as: Toy (Dew), one hundred poems in the Japanese tanka format (Moscow: Leben, 1919); Perl afn bruk (Pearls on the cobblestone) (Lodz: Yung-yidish, 1920), 77 pp.; Shvarts-shabes (Black Sabbath), with drawings by Yankev Adler (Lodz: Yung-yidish, 1921), 30 pp.; Bagaysterung (Enthusiasm) (Lodz, 1922), 192 pp.; Ibergang (Passage), contemporary poems with woodcuts by Mark Shvarts (Lodz: L. Kahan, 1921), 46 pp.  In 1919 he and a group of poets and artists founded in Lodz the circle of Yung-yidish (Young Yiddish).  The group produced six anthologies under the title Yung-yidish and a number of expressionist, short dramatic pieces (dubbed “dramolets”) by Broderzon, such as: A khasnke (Nuptials) (Lodz, 1920), 16 pp.; Shney-tants (Snow dance) (Lodz, 1921), 31 pp.; Tsungerlungen (Tongues-lungs), a puppet play (Lodz, 1921), 32 pp.; Di malke shvo (The Queen of Sheba), a dramatic poem (Lodz, 1921), 32 pp.; Tkhiyes hameysim (The resurrection of the dead), a mystery (Lodz, 1921), 31 pp.; and Der royter rayter (The red horseman) (Warsaw, 1921), 27 pp.  Aside from his published work Mandragorn (Mandrakes), a play taken from Genesis (which appeared in the anthology Ringen [Rings], nos. 7-9), he also wrote: the short play (dramolet) Yudele moser (Yudele the informer), in Lodzher folks-blat (June 16, 1939); fragments of a poem entitled Yud (the tenth letter of the Jewish alphabet), in Undzer shtime (Our voice) 744 (Paris, 1949).  A collection of poems entitled Zalbefert (All four) was published in Moscow in 1918, in which he was joined by Gershon Broyde, Menashe Halperin, and Daniel Tsharni.  Broderzon was also a master of Yiddish children’s poetry and stories.  Among such books of his: Sikhes-khulin (Small talk), a legend from Prague with drawings by the artist Eliezer Lissitsky (Moscow: Leben, 1917), 15 pp.; Temerl, aq bobe-maysele (Little Tamar, a fairy tale), with drawings by the artist Yoysef Tshaykov (Moscow: Khaver, 1917), 18 pp.; Aldos-guts (All the best), stories for children, illustrated by the artist Artur Shik (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1922), 91 pp.; Lebedik un freylekh (Alive and well); Khay-gelebt (It’s a wonderful life), 12 pp.; Gots bruimlekh (God’s little creatures); Hop-tshik-tshak (Hop-and-skip dance).  These last three booklets were all published by Levin-Epshteyn Publishers in Warsaw in 1924.  In 1928 his Tsapl-mentshelekh (Wincing little people) (Vilna: Nay yidishe folks-shul), 24 pp., was published; in 1936, Forshtelungen (Performances) (Lodz), 132 pp.; and in 1939, 50 lider (Fifty poems), with a photo-montage by Yehuda Levin and Pinkhes Shvarts (Lodz), 50 pp.  Henekh Kon and Yankev Sheyfer wrote music to accompany a portion of Broderzon’s poems—in the collection Brand un fayer (Conflagration and fire) (New York: Jewish Musicians Union, 1929), 15 pp.  Posthumously: Sikhes-khulin, eyne fun di geshikhten (Small talk, one of the stories) (Tel Aviv, 1957), 15 pp.; Oysgeklibene shriftn (Selected writings) (Buenos Aires: Lifshits-fond, 1959), 268 pp.; Dos letste lid (The last poem) (Tel Aviv: Peretz Publ., 1974), 272 pp. 

His work was included in Mut (Courage) (Moscow, 1920); Tsum zig (To victory) (Moscow, 1944); and In fayerdikn doyer, zamlung fun revolutsyonere lirik, in di nayer yidisher dikhtung (In fiery duration, a collection of revolutionary lyrics in the new Yiddish poetry) (Kiev: State Publ., 1921). On his years in Poland, see: Gilles Rozier, Moyshe Broderzon, un écrivain yiddish d’avant-garde (Saint-Denis: Presses universitaires de Vincennes, 1999), 280 pp.

Broderzon is considered one of the most successful poets of form, as a language virtuoso who enriched Yiddish with original notions and new linguistic connections.  In a series of poems he brought with great power to expression the momentum of the first years of the Russian Revolution.  Among his pseudonyms: Der Rebe R. Elimeylekh, R. Zanvele, Omen, Shitl-shmelke, Broder-zinger.  He died in Warsaw.  On December 11, 1970 he was buried in Haifa.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Z. Zilbertsvayg, Teater-leksikon, vol. 1; Literarishe bleter 2 (1934), dedicated to Broderzon; Mikhl Vaykhert, Teater un drame (Theater and drama) (Warsaw, 1922), vols. 1 and 2; Shmuel Niger, Lezer, dikhter, kritiker (Reader, poet, and critic) (New York, 1928), pp. 259-70; Melekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945); Perets Markish, in Shtern (Minsk, 1927); A. Abtshuk, Shtrikhn un materyaln (Features and materials) (Kharkov, 1943); Y. Bronshteyn, in Prolet (March-April 1930); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft (November 1919 and August 1920); Y. Botoshanski, Portretn fun yidishe shrayber (Portraits of Yiddish writers) (Warsaw, 1933); Y. Y. Trunk, in Poyln, vol. 6-7; Avrom Reyzen, Di prese (The press) (New York, 1937); Shmuel Niger, Yidishe shrayber in sovet-rusland (Yiddish writers in Soviet Russia) (New York, 1958), pp. 262-81; Sh. Rozhanski, Moyshe broderzon (Moyshe Broderzon) (Buenos Aires, 1959), 21 pp.; Sheyne-Miriam Broderzon, Mayn laydnsveg mit moyshe broderzon (My suffering path with Moyshe Broderzon) (Buenos Aires, 1960), 182 pp.

Menakhem Flakser

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 115; and Chaim Beider, Leksikon fun yidishe shrayber in ratn-farband (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union), ed. Boris Sandler and Gennady Estraikh (New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011), pp. 55-56.]