HIRSH BERYOZKIN

HIRSH BERYOZKIN (1918-1982)

A literary critic and researcher, he was born in Molev (Mogilev), Byelorussia, into the family of an office employee.  He studied in the literature department of the Minsk Pedagogical Institute.  He wrote in both Yiddish and Byelorussian. His first article—on the creative work of the Yiddish poets Ezra Fininberg and Henekh Shverdik—appeared in the late 1930s in the Minsk journal Shtern (Star) and in the newspaper Oktyabr (October). From 1938, he was the manager of the criticism division of the Byelorussian journal Polymya revolyutsii (Flame of revolution) and of the newspaper Litaratura i mastatstvo (Literature and art), both in Minsk, and later he worked as a consultant in the “Office of Young Authors” of the Writers’ Union. He was purged in 1940 as a “Jewish and Byelorussian nationalist” and thrown into prison in Minsk. Freed in late June 1941, he volunteered to serve in the army. Following demobilization, he returned to Minsk, brought out a collection of critical articles in Byelorussian on the works of Byelorussian writers, while at the same time writing on works of Yiddish writers—Itzik Fefer, E. Fininberg, Motl Hartsman, Motl Grubyan, Ayzik Platner, and others—which he published in Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland) in Moscow. His writings include: Dray dikhter, literatur-kritishe ophandlungen (Three poets, literary-critical treatises) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1981), 61 pp.

Source: Sovetish heymland, Materyaln far a leksikon fun der yidisher sovetisher literatur (Materials for a handbook of Soviet Jewish literature) (September 1975).

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 107; 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. 52-53.