AVROM MALYEVITSH (ABRAHAM MALAVICH)

AVROM MALYEVITSH (ABRAHAM MALAVICH) (b. 1832)

            He was born in Oshmene (Oszmiana), Vilna district, Lithuania.  For many years he was a private tutor of Hebrew and Russian in Vilna and Kovno.  In 1870 he settled in Zhitomir.  He published “lovely stories” in Kol mevaser (Herald) in Odessa and Yudishes folksblat (Jewish people’s newspaper) in St. Petersburg, and in Hebrew in Hamelits (The spectator) and Hamagid (The preacher) under the pen name “Avrom Ish Oshmina.”  He published in book form: Asheyne istorye fun eyngilshn general-adyutant georg (A lovely story of the English Adjutant-General George), “how he was married to the queen Countess of Brandenburg” (Zhitomir, 1874), 3 parts, altogether 172 pp.; Asheyne istorye fun ivan marbe der getman (hoyptman) fun malorusye (A lovely story of Hetman Ivan Marba, head man, of Little Russia) (Zhitomir, 1876), 4 parts, 216 pp.; Dem kapitans tokhter (The Captain’s daughter [original: Kapitanskaya dochka]), “translated from Russian into Yiddish and adapted folllwing A. S. Pushkin” (Zhitomir, 1879), 78 pp.  All of these books were initially published in 48-page booklets.

Sources: Malyevitsh’s books in the libraries of Harvard University, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and the surviving books from the Strashun Library in Vilna in YIVO (New York).

Khayim Leyb Fuks