BLUME (BLYUME) KOTIK

BLUME (BLYUME) KOTIK (1909-April 15, 1968)

            She was a translator and editor, born in Vilna into a family of writers and community leaders. Her grandfather was Yekhezkl Kotik, author of Mayne zikhroynes (My memoirs) which expressed great warmth for Sholem-Aleichem, and her father Avrom-Hersh Kotik was a writer, editor, and community leader, as well as the author of popular scientific writings. She primarily did translations from Russian, Polish, German, and English, and editorial work for “Emes” (Truth) publishers in Moscow and in the 1960s served on the editorial board of Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland). She anonymously edited a series of Yiddish books in the Soviet Union. Her book-length translations include: N. Glebov, Di yapanishe agresorn (The Japanese aggressors [original: Yapanskie agressory v Kitae (Japanese aggressors in China)]) (Moscow: Emes, 1938), 45 pp.; Aleksandr Fadeev, Mikhail vasilyevitsh frunze (Mikhail Vasilevich Frunze) (Moscow, 1940), 45 pp; M. Kalinin, Tsum zekhtsistn geburtstog funem khaver stalin (On the sixtieth birthday of Comrade Stalin [original: K shestidesia︡tiletiiu︡ so dni︠a︡ rozhdeniia tovarishcha Stalina]) (Moscow: Emes, 1941), 88 pp.; Vasilii Grossman, Treblinker genem (Treblinka inferno [original: Treblinskii ad]) (Moscow: Emes, 1945), 88 pp.; Jankiel Wiernik, A yor in treblinke (A year in Treblinka [original: Rok w Treblince]), with Vasilii Grossman’s Treblinker genem (Buenos Aires: Dis poylishe yidntum, 1946), 124 pp.

Source: Sovetish heymland (Moscow) 5 (1968).

Berl Cohen

[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), pp. 313-14.]