MIKHL LEVITAN (1882-1938)
He was a current
events writer, editor, and community leader, born in the Jewish colony of
Nadezhnaya (Nadiyne), Ukraine, into a family of farmers. He received a traditional
Jewish education, and later (in Berdyansk [Berdyans'k], southern Russia [now, Ukraine])
he passed the examination to become a teacher in a senior technical high school.
In his early youth he joined the revolutionary movement and was a leader of the
Labor Zionists (known by the name “Comrade Dovid”). He was one of
theoretician-justifiers of “Vozrozhdenie” (Renaissance), and he participated in
the Ekaterinoslav conference of this group (September 1905), which later
founded the Jewish Socialist Labor Party (known as “Seymovtses” or “Sejmists”
[implying those supporting a Jewish national assembly]). In 1908, after the
Vitebsk conference of the Seymovtses, he was arrested together with a number of
other participants. After the Czernowitz Language Conference in 1908, he became
one of the most important fighters for Yiddish schools. Together with Leyb
Brovarnik, Borekh Shvartsman, and Shimoni Dobin, in 1911 he founded the first Jewish
school, with Yiddish as the language of instruction for all subjects, in
Demyevka (a suburb of Kiev), and he served as one of the teachers there. Also with
Leyb Brovarnik, he compiled the first arithmetic textbook for the Yiddish
school: Arifmetishe oygabn, farn ershtn lern-yor (Arithmetic problems,
for the first school year), part one for students, part two for teachers
(Vilna: B. A. Kletskin, 1914), 94 pp., with a number of subsequent reissues. After
the Russian Revolution of 1917, he was a prominent leader of the “Fareynikte”
(United socialist party), of the Jewish Democratic Teachers’ Union, as well as
in the Jewish Ministry of Ukraine. In 1917 he contributed to Naye tsayt (New times) in Kiev. The next
year, he compiled another textbook, Arifmetishe oygabn, farn tsveytn un
dritn lern-yor (Arithmetic problems, for the second and third school years)
(Kiev, 1918), 92 pp., and he edited the translations of a series of other
textbooks. Together with Z. Kalmanovitsh, he edited Y. Blaykher’s translation
of Y. Shalit’s Onshoyungs-geometrye
(Conceptual geometry [?]). At the time of the split in the “Fareynikte,” he underwent
a transition from the leftist group within the Fareynikte to the Communists, and
together with Moyshe Kats, Yoysef Leshtshinski, and Yude Novakovski, he was
coopted by the head committee of the “United Jewish Communist Labor Party” into
the editorial board of Naye tsayt in
Kiev, later (1919) onto Di komunistishe
fon (The Communist banner). When the White Army attacked Kiev, he joined
the Red Army and worked in editing a front newspaper. After demobilization he
moved to Moscow, and he began playing a major role in the Jewish section of the
Communist Party, and in 1920 he signed on to a circular (dated December 28,
1920) of the central Jewish educational division of the People’s Commissariat
of Education concerning liquidation of the religious elementary schools and
yeshivas in Russia. He also organized Jewish schools and took part in the
artistic council of the Moscow Yiddish State Theater. From June 1920 until
August 1921, he was a member of the Central Jewish Bureau of the Central
Committee of the Russian Communist Party, later going to work in Byelorussia. He
was the administrator (1920-1925) of the central Jewish division of the
“People’s Committee for Popular Education” in Moscow. Over the years 1925-1928,
he was the representative of the Education Commissariat for National Minorities
in Ukraine, mainly in Kharkov and Kiev, where he was one of the principal
leaders of the Jewish section of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the
Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture. Under his leadership, the number of
students in Jewish schools in Ukraine in the school year 1925-1926 approached
75,000. In that slice of time, in conjunction with his work in the educational
and cultural realms, he wrote many articles for Emes (Truth) in Moscow and Der
shtern (The star) in Kharkov. He was appointed editor of the fifth
volume—entitled “Fun 1914 biz 1917. Di milkhome, di tsefalung fun 2tn
internatsyonal un di ershte trit tsum komintern” (From 1914 to 1917. The war,
the disintegration of the Second International, and the first steps toward the
Comintern)—of the eight-volume edition of Lenin’s works.[1] He also edited the
pedagogical monthly Af di vegn tsu der
naye shul (En route to the new school), in which in 1924 he published a
series of five articles entitled “6 yor sovetishe kultur-arbet in der yidisher
svive” (Six years of cultural work in the Yiddish realm). He was (1925-1929)
editor-in-chief of the literary-artistic monthly magazine Di royte velt (The red world). Together with Nokhum Oyslender, Dovid
Volkenshteyn, Noyekh Lurye, and Ezra Finenberg, he compiled the textbook: Idishe literatur,
khrestomatye fun literatur un kritik (Yiddish literature, a reader of literature and
criticism), “part one, under the editorship of M. Levitan” (Kiev: Kultur-lige,
1928), 374 pp.
Over the years 1928-1932, he was editor of Der shtern (Kharkov-Kiev). In 1929 he
contributor to Prolit (Proletarian
literature)—“literary-artistic, critical-bibliographic monthly of the Ukrainian
Association of Proletarian Writers”—in Kharkov. He published a great deal,
1931-1933, in Emes in Moscow. He
edited a number of books by Yiddish writers, and for many of them he penned the
preface. Together with Shmuel Agurski, Kalmen Marmor, and Max Erik, he edited
the series “Di eltere revolutsyonere literatur—di geklibene verk in zeks bend
fun moris vintshevski, dovid edelshtat un y. bovshover” (The older
revolutionary literature, selected writings in six volumes by Morris
Winchevsky, Dovid Edelshtat, and Y. Bovshover); and together with Marmor and Erik,
he prepared for publication Edelshtat’s works in three volumes, of which only
two appeared in print (Moscow: Emes, 1935). He also wrote for the quarterly Visnshaft un revolutsye (Science and
revolution); and served as editor (1934-1935) of the monthly educational periodical
Ratnbildung (Soviet education)
(Kharkov-Kiev). In 1935 he—together with Litvakov, Altshuler, and others—was
appointed editor of the work that the Jewish section of the Nationalities
Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Jewish
Proletarian Culture in Kiev prepared for publication: “Tsvantsik yor
proletarishe diktatur un yidishe masn” (Twenty years of the proletarian
dictatorship and the Jewish masses). It was supposed to have been published in
1937 but never appeared in print.
From the early
1930s, Levitan’s star began to decline. He was openly accused of
“deviationism,” “nationalism,” and “forced Judaizing,” and for these sins he
had to yield his editorial-in-chief position for Di royte velt which Shakhne Epshteyn took over. And, although he
remained a member of the editorial board, accusatory articles against him
exposed fissures in the journal. In early 1936, he, Max Erik, and other writers
from the Institute were arrested, and the Institute was closed down. After his arrest in 1936, he died in a camp.
Later works
include: Khrestomatye far literatur farn 8tn lernyor fun der politekhnisher
shul (Reader in literature for the eighth school year in the politchnical
school) (Kharkov-Kiev, 1933); Lernbukh af literatur farn 7tn klas (Textbook
for literature in the seventh class), “under the editorship of M. Levitan”
(Kharkov-Kiev, 1934).
[1] Translator’s note. WorldCat lists this as volume six
of Lenin’s Oysgevelte verk (Selected
works) (Moscow: Emes, 1925-1932). (JAF)
Zaynvl Diamant
[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 344; 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. 212-13.]
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