FAYVL
SITO (October 10, 1909-September 21, 1945)
He was born in Rovno, Volhynia. He was left an orphan in his youth. Over the years 1917-1919, during the civil
war in Ukraine, he wandered across the country with other abandoned children
and lived off stealing, as was the way of the camp of “street urchins.” In late 1919 he was taken into an educational
institution for homeless Jewish children.
He later studied at the Odessa pedagogical technicum. For a time he also studied music at the
Kharkov Conservatory. He debuted in
print with a story in Kharkov’s Der
shtern (The star), later publishing stories, poems, and feature pieces in: Yunge gvardye (Young guard), Yunger boy-klang (Young sound of
reconstruction), Sovetishe literatur
(Soviet literature), Farmest
(Challenge), Prolit (Proletarian
literature), Shlakhtn (Battles), Litkomyug (Literary Communist youth), Almanakh fun yidishe sovetishe shrayber
(Almanac of Soviet Jewish writers), and Komsomolye
(Communist youth) in Kiev-Kharkov; Far
der bine (For the stage), Komyug
(Communist youth), Literarish-kritishe
etyudn (Literary critical studies), Heymland
(Homeland), Tsum zig (Toward
victory), and Eynikeyt (Unity) in
Moscow. He also translated into Yiddish
from Ukrainian and Russian poetry and prose.
The main theme of his first writings was the lives of neglected,
abandoned children. In book form he
brought out: Kinder-hoyz numer fertsik,
dertseylungen (Children’s home number 40, stories) (Kharkov, 1929), 122 pp.,
a special favorite among school children and youngsters; Dertseylungen (Stories) (Kharkov: Ukrainian State Publ., 1930), 198
pp., second improved edition (Kharkov: Literatur un kunst, 1934), 181 pp.; Ot dos zaynen mir, roman (These are us,
a novel) (Kharkov: Ukrainian state
publishers for national minorities, 1932), 179 pp., second improved
edition (Kiev, 1940), 176 pp.; Parodyes
(Parodies) (Minsk, 1934), 64 pp. and (Moscow: Emes, 1938), 50 pp., parodies of
Soviet Yiddish writers; Vos iz geshen,
dertseylung (What happened, a story) (Kiev: State Literary Publ., 1935),
130 pp.; A hun mit eyn fus, an azerbaydzhaner
folks mayse (A chicken with one foot, an Azerbaijani folktale) (Kiev,
1936), 15 pp.; Geburt, nakht, der got fun
di geter, dramatishe poemes (Birth, night, the God of gods, dramatic
poems), with Moyshe Khashtshevatski (Kharkov-Kiev, 1936), 80 pp.; Artikl tsvey, komedye in eyn akt
(Article 2, a comedy in one act), with Benyomen Gutyanski (Kiev, 1937), 20 pp.;
Shike der zaike, a freylikhe shpil far a
lyalke-teater (Shike the stutterer, a happy play for the puppet theater) (Kiev:
State publishers for national minorities of the USSR, 1938), 56 pp.; Zumer, dertseylungen (Summer, stories) (Kiev:
State publishers for national minorities of the USSR, 1939), 268 pp.; In a nayer mishpokhe, fragmentn (In a
new family, fragments) (Kiev: State publishers for national minorities of the
USSR, 1939), 32 pp.; Kantonistn, tragedye
in dray aktn (Cantonists, a tragedy in three acts), with Nekhemye Shmain (Kiev:
State publishers for national minorities of the USSR, 1940), 95 pp., staged by
the Kiev Yiddish children’s theater. He
also translated: Valentin Kataev, Es
flatert an eynzamer zegl (A lonely sail flutters [original: Beleyet parus odinoky (A white sail gleams)])
(Kiev, 1938), 98 pp. Sito lived in the
1930s in Kiev. Over the years 1939-1941,
he edited the journal Zay greyt (Get
ready) in Kiev. During WWII he served in
the Red Army in Ufa, Bashkiria, where he edited a military newspaper in the
Russian language. He was later active in
the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and on the editorial board of Eynikeyt, both in Moscow. He left behind an unpublished, unfinished
novel, entitled Der soyne bay di toyern
(The enemy at the gates) and other manuscripts, which later appeared in various
publications in Russian. He translated
from Russian and adapted for the stage A. Glebov’s A veg in lebn (A path in life), a comedy in three acts. His writings were republished in Yiddish newspapers
and journals outside Soviet Russia. His
work also appeared in the almanac, Af
naye vegn (On new roads) (New York, 1949), and in the anthology Amerike in yidishn vort (America in the
Yiddish word) (New York, 1955). In
Russian a volume of his stories, entitled Nachinalas’
zhizn’ (Life begins) (Moscow, 1958), 249 pp., was published. He died in Moscow.
Sources:
Y. Lit, in Yunger boy-klang (Kharkov)
6 (1928); Shmuel Niger, “In der Sovetish-yidisher literatur” (In Soviet Yiddish
literature), Di tsukunft (New York)
(February 1930); Sh. Epshteyn, in Di
royte velt (Kharkov) (March 1930); L. D., in Shtern (Minsk) (February 1931); Dovid Bergelson, in Morgn-frayhayt (New York) (April 11,
1932); Bergelson, “Leksik-problemen in der yidisher literatur” (Lexical issues
in Yiddish literature), Forpost
(Birobidzhan) 2 (1937); B. Dunets, in Shtern
(May-June 1932); A. Kahan, in Der shtern
(Kharkov) (October 18, 1933); M. Kashtshevatski, in Farmest (Kharkov) (October 1934); Y. Serebryani, in Shtern (November 1934); Serebryani, in Folks-shtime (Warsaw) (September 17,
1960); A. Druker, in Farmest (May
1937); M. Mizheritski, in Sovetishe
literatur (Kharkov) (August 1939); I. Fefer, “Alo, es redt kuibishev” (Hello,
Kuibyshev speaking), Eynikeyt
(Moscow) (November 1943); A, Kushnirov, “Di yidishe literatur in rusland”
(Yiddish literature in Russia), Naye
prese (Paris) (July 27, 1945); N. Y. Gotlib, Sovetishe literatur (Soviet literature) (Montreal, 1945), pp.
93-97; B. Mark, “Grunt-shtrikhn fun der yidish-sovetisher literatur” (Basic
features of Soviet Yiddish literature), Folks-shtime
(Lodz) 40 (1947); A. Gontar, in Dos naye
lebn (Lodz) 93 (1948); H. Vaynraykh, Blut
af der zun (Blood on the sun) (New York, 1950), p. 51; Y. Tsang, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (November
8, 1959); Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim
yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet
Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.
Benyomen Elis
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 405; 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. 263-64.]
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