ELKHONEN KALMANSON

ELKHONEN KALMANSON (February 8, 1857-March 12, 1930)

            He was a Hebrew and Yiddish writer, born in Shklov (Szkłów).  His father Moshe was a Hebrew author.  From 1874 he was living in Kiev.  There he became an active socialist, later switching to Zionism.  He was a member of Sholem-Aleichem’s intimate circle “Montog un donershtog” (Monday and Thursday).  He was among the first Hebrew writers who strongly stood up for Yiddish, writing that “the Jewish people have, in order to protect themselves from foreign languages and foreign currents, created a new tool—the Yiddish language.”  He had a part in rallying Dovid Bergelson to write.  In 1913 he moved to the land of Israel and in 1922 settled back in Riga.  He wrote about ethics, religion, literature, socialism, and the like.  In Riga’s Frimorgn (Morning), he published important memoirs concerning Yitskhok Kaminer, Yehalel, M. A. Shatskes, Y. M. Lifshits, Mikhl Gordon, and others.  He also published books in Hebrew and Russian.  In Yiddish: Dos lebedige vort (The living word), a history and critical study (Kiev, 1910), 29 pp.  Kalmanson was, in the words of Nakhmen Mayzil, “a mixture of Enlightenment follower, revolutionary, Russian intellectual, and a Jewish folk type.”  He died in Riga.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature), vol. 2 (Merḥavya, 1967); Leben un visenshaft (Vilna) 11 (1910); M. Kitay, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) 13 (1932); Nakhmen Mayzil, Forgeyer un mittsaytler (Forerunner and contemporary) (New York, 1946), pp. 223, 327-28; Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York.

Berl Cohen