NEKHEMYE VOLPYANSKI

NEKHEMYE VOLPYANSKI (1871-June 10, 1937)

            He was born in a town near Druzgenik, Vilna district.  From time to time he published feature pieces and poems in Idishe shtime (Jewish voice), Folksblat (People’s newspaper), and other Kovno newspapers.  He published chess publications in Idishe shtime and chess magazines.  He wrote a book about a new theory in music.  He prepared an anthology entitled Mesholim un pisgomim fun tanakh, talmud un andere makoyrim (Tales and proverbs from the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and other sources), freely translated into verse.  All of his writings were lost, aside from a portion of the Mesholim (through the letter khes) which came out in a photographed form of his manuscript with a preface including Kh. N. Bialik’s Ben nahar prat venahar ḥidekel (Between the River Euphrates and the River Tigris) and several chess publications (Jerusalem), 48 pp.  [Published in 1981 in Israel with a preface by Dov Sadan—JAF].  He also used such pen names as: Vofsi, N. Volski, and Link.  He died in Virbaln, Lithuania.

Source: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 228.

Ruvn Goldberg