AVROM-HERSH KOTIK

AVROM-HERSH KOTIK (September 3, 1867 or 1868-June 3, 1933)

            He was a journalist and teacher, the son of Yekhezkl Kotik, he was born in Kamenetz-Litovsk, Grodno district [now, Kamenets, Belarus]. He moved with his parents to Kiev, where he attended religious elementary school, and in 1881 he entered a Russian high school, but he was expelled in 1886 for revolutionary activities. From his youth he had been active in the socialist movement, campaigning in Russian and Yiddish. He lived in Białystok (from 1892), Minsk (from 1904—where he established a Yiddishist circle with Dovid Kasel, Sore and Zalmen Reyzen, and others), and Vilna (1923). After the Revolution, he settled in Yaroslavl, where he worked as administrator of the publishing division of a cooperative association. He returned to Poland in 1920 and took up journalism. He spent two years in the United States. He left for Moscow in 1926, where he took up a high position in the Commissariat of Education. From 1931 he was living in Kharkov. He later still moved back to Moscow where he ended his days. He worked on behalf of Yiddish publishers by bringing out (with Alter Bresler) a series in Warsaw from 1894: Visenshaftlikhe folks-bikher (Science books for the people); after an interruption of several years, he renewed his publishing activities with “Folks-bildung” (People’s education) publishers, founded in 1900 in Białystok—Avrom Reyzen and I. Kh. Brener worked there as secretaries; and he published or edited: Abayter-kalendar (Labor calendar) (Warsaw, 1906, which his father published); Der idisher biblyograf (The Jewish librarian) (1 issue, 1910); Der hoyzdoktor (The house doctor), the weekly supplement to Haynt (Today); the illustrated weekly Handel un melokhe (Business and craft) (Warsaw, 2 issues, 1913); Folks-gezunt (People’s health) (Vilna), which he founded in 1923, and was edited by Tsemekh Shabad. He wrote popular scientific and journalistic articles, as well as on bibliography, library work, schools, economics, and hygiene in: Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper), Fraynd (Friend), Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), Morgnblat (Morning newspaper), Arbayter-shtime (Workers’ voice), Vokhenblat (Weekly newspaper) in St. Petersburg (1912), Dos naye leben (The new life) in Białystok, Vilner tog (Vilna day), Morgn-zhurnal (Morning journal) in New York, and Der shtern (The star) in Kharkov, among others. In book form: Di ershte yedies fun natur-visenshaft (The first information from natural science) (Warsaw: Yehudiya, 1900), 135 pp.; Natur-geshikhte (Natural history) (Warsaw, 1913; second edition, Moscow, 1918), 71 pp.; Geografye (Geography) (Warsaw: Yehudiya, 1913), 2 vols. (76 pp. and 98 pp.); Di natsyonale minderheytn un idn in poyln (National minorities and Jews in Poland) (Warsaw: Di tsayt, 1922), 86 pp. Kotik’s most important work was Dos lebn fun a idishn inteligent (The life of a Jewish intellectual) (New York: H. Toybenshlag, 1925), 259 pp.—in which he describes his life with the background of the environment and the epoch until 1888. He translated (with Alter Bresler) Pavlovich’s Vi hoben menshen gelebt mit eynige toyzent yohr tsurik (How people lived several thousand years ago) (Warsaw: Progres, 1898), 63 pp.; Vilde menshen in oystralyen (Wild men in Australia) (New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., n. d.), 18 pp.; Di velt arum undz (The world around us) (Moscow-Kharkov: Central Publishers, 1931), 166 pp. He also edited the Zhurnal (Journal) of the Central Medical Organization of Białystok (1922).

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Bikher-velt (Warsaw) (1922), p. 178; Y. Shatski, Geshikhte fun yidn in varshe (History of Jewish in Warsaw), vol. 3 (New York, 1953), p. 238.

Yekhezkl Lifshits

[Additional information from: 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. 313.]