ARN VOLOBRINSKI

ARN VOLOBRINSKI (1900-1937)

            He was sociologist and teacher, born in Minsk, Byelorussia, into a working-class family.  For a time he worked as a private Hebrew teacher, later a teacher in the Jewish schools and in the Minsk Pedagogical Technicum. Until the Bolshevik Revolution, he was among the left Labor Zionists, and he began writing in publications of its movement in Russia, and from 1922 he was publishing articles on labor issues, anti-religious pamphlets, and treatises on literature and language in: Yungvald (Young forest) and Emes (Truth) in Moscow. His articles appeared very frequently in the Yiddish press. He also translated from Russian into Yiddish: Grigori Zinoviev, Di geshikhte fun der ruslender komunistisher partey (The history of the Russian Communist Party) (Minsk, 1924), 192 pp. With Herts Mayzl, he also translated Shloyme Eynzaft, Di zubatovishe un gaponishe bavegungen (The movements of Zubatov and Gapon [original: Zubatovshchina i Gaponovshchina]) (Minsk: Byelorussian Central Committee of Trade Unions, 1926), 127 pp. From 1924 he and several men of letters—Izi Kharik, Shmuel Agurski, Elye Osherovitsh, and Khatskl Dunets—served as members of the editorial board of the Minsk monthly journal Shtern (Star). In 1934 when the Yiddish language conference was in preparation, Volobrinski wrote about it, initially, in Oktyabr (October) in Minsk; and later in Lingvistishe zamlung (Linguistic collection) 2 (Minsk, 1934) with an essay on “Class War in the Yiddish Language.” He later published an article entitled “Di shprakh-baratung in ukrayine un ir badaytung” (The language conference in Ukraine and its significance), in which he summed up the discussion there. In particular, he emphasized the danger of pseudo-folkishness, with which a number of linguists and cultural leaders had become captivated. He pointed out that those people were wrong who proposed to write, for example, aleynkritik (instead of zelbstkritik) for “self-criticism,” aleynshtendik (instead of zelbshtendik) for “independent,” and kuk-pintl (instead of shtandpunkt) for “standpoint” based on the justification of fighting against Germanisms, because Hitler then held authority in German. Over the course of his short life, he published in book form only one popular study: Di historishe lere fun karl marks (The historical teachings of Karl Marx) (Minsk: Byelorussian Academy of Sciences, 1934), 82 pp. Another book bore his name, though only as editor (with Hilel Aleksandrov): Yidn in vssr (Jews in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic) (Minsk, 1929), 152 pp., a work published by the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture at the Byelorussian Academy of Sciences. His work also appeared in such serials and anthologies as: Fashizirter yidishizm un zayn visnshaft (Fascist Yiddishism and its scholarship) (Minsk: Byelorussian Academy of Sciences, 1930); Afn visnshaftlekhn front (On the scientific front) (Minsk: Byelorussian Academy of Sciences, 1934); and Afn shprakhfront (On the language front) (Kiev: Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, 1935). After 1937 his fate remains unknown.

Sources: Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; M. Gitlits, in Afn visnshaftlekhn front (Minsk) 5-6 (1934); M. Levitan, in Afn shprakhfront (Kiev) 3-4 (1935); L. Vilenkin, in Shtern (Kharkov-Kiev) 54 (1935); N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetn-farband in 1934 (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union in 1934) (Minsk, 1936), pp. 11, 116.

Khayim Leyb Fuks 

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 227; 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), p. 129.]