PINYE
PLOTKIN (1919-2009)
He was born in Bobruisk, Byelorussia,
and later moved with his parents to the town of Lyubonichy. After graduating from a Jewish elementary
school and the local Byelorussian public school, he went to work in a forestry
district where his father was employed. His
middle school education was gained in the Bobruisk workers’ faculty. In 1939 he graduated from the literature and
linguistics department of the Minsk Pedagogical Institute. He lived in Minsk until WWII, and he then
served in the Soviet army on the German front.
He survived the war and lived in Bobruisk. He began writing poetry in his student years
and debuted in print in 1934 with a poet in the Minsk newspaper Der yunger arbeter (The young worker),
later going on to write for Oktyabr
(October) and Shtern (Star) in Minsk. He also contributed poems to Lider-zamlung (Poetry anthology) (Minsk,
1940), together with Khayim Gurevitsh, Itshe Borukhovitsh, and Shimen
Leltshuk. After the war he wrote for the
local Bobruisk newspaper Sovetskaia Radzima
(Soviet homeland) and worked as a teacher of Russian language and
literature. He was among the
contributors to Sovetish heymland
(Soviet homeland) from 1962, and he placed a poem in its first issue (January-February
1962). In 1992 he moved to the United
States and settled with his family in Santa Monica, California. In America he brought out two poetry
collections: Mit an ofn harts, oysgeveylte
lider (With an open heart, selected poems) (West Hollywood: Yiddish Culture
Club, 1979), 140 pp.; Vegn der tsayt un vegn
zikh (On time and myself) (West Hollywood: Yiddish Culture Club, 1999), 128
pp.
Sources:
Eynikeyt (Moscow) (May 31, 1947); Chone
Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim
babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union,
1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.
Khayim Leyb Fuks
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 431; 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. 283.]
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