ROKHL (RACHEL) KORN

ROKHL (RACHEL) KORN (January 15, 1898-September 8, 1982)

            She was a poetess and storyteller, born in the village of Sucha Góra, near Podliski, Galicia.  She was orphaned at age thirteen on her father’s side.  She studied in public school in the nearby town of Moshtshisk (Mostyska)—and privately for Polish subject matter.  During WWI she turned up in Vienna, returning to her village in 1918.  Later, until 1939, she lived in Premisle (Peremyšl), Galicia.  In June 1941 she fled to Soviet Russia and lived in Kiev, Ufa, Tashkent, and Fergana.  After the war, in 1946, she came to Lodz, later moving to Stockholm, and in 1948 she emigrated to Montreal, Canada.  She debuted in print in 1918 with a story in the Polish Jewish Nowy dziennik (New daily), later publishing the story “Der fidler” (The fiddler) in Głos Przemyski (Voice of Przemyśl).  Because of the persecution of Jews in Poland, she switched entirely into Yiddish.  From that point on, she published poems, stories, and literary critical articles in Dos yudishe vort (The Yiddish word), Lemberger togblat (Lemberg daily newspaper), Anselm Kleynman’s Yidisher literarisher kalender (Jewish literary calendar) (1922-1924), Tsushteyer (Contribution), and Oyfgang (Arise), among other Yiddish serials in Galicia.  From 1924 she was placing work as well in: Varshever almanakh (Warsaw almanac), Varshever shriftn (Warsaw writings), Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Foroys (Onward), Globus (Globe), Vokhnshrift far literatur (Weekly writing for literature), Naye folkstsaytung (New people’s newspaper), and Dos vort (The word)—in Warsaw; and Di yudishe velt (The Jewish world) in Vilna; among others.  While in Soviet Russia, she wrote for: Heymland (Homeland) and Eynikeyt (Unity) in Moscow; and from 1946 in Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings), Dos naye lebn (The new life), and Arbeter vort (Workers’ word)—in Lodz; Tsukunft (Future), In zikh (Introspective), Afn shvel (At the threshold), Zayn (To be), Svive (Environs), and Zamlungen (Collections)—in New York; Di goldene keyt (The golden chain), Heymish (Familiar), and Letste nayes (Latest news), among others—in Israel; Keneder odler (Canadian eagle), Montreoler heftn (Montreal notebooks), and other Yiddish publications in Canada.  Even before publishing her poetry in book form, she had assumed an important place in Yiddish poetry.  Her work also appears in a series of anthologies and collections: Mortkhe Yofe, Erets-yisroel in der yidisher literatur (Israel in Yiddish literature), anthology (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1961); Kadia Molodovski, Lider fun khurbn, t”sh-tsh”h (Poetry from the Holocaust, 1939-1945) (Tel Aviv, 1962); Yitskhok Paner and Leyzer Frenkel, Antologye fun der nayer yidisher dikhtung (Anthology of modern Yiddish poetry) (Iași, 1945); Tsum zig (To victory) (Moscow, 1944); Yitskhok Papyernikov, Yerusholaim in yidishn lid, antologye (Jerusalem in Yiddish poetry, anthology) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1973); Shmuel Rozhanski, Kanadish (Canadish) (Buenos Aires, 1974); Charles Dobzynski, Anthologie de la poésie Yiddish, le miroir d’un people (Anthology of Yiddish poetry, the mirror of a people) (Paris: Gallimard, 1971); Hubert Witt, Der Fiedler vom Getto: Jiddische Dichtung aus Polen (The fiddler of the ghetto, Yiddish poetry from Poland) (Leipzig, 1966, 1978); and Joseph Leftwich, The Golden Peacock (New York, 1961); among others.  Korn received numerous prizes—named for H. Leivick, Itsik Manger, Lamed, and others.  Her works include: Dorf (Village), poems (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1928), 73 pp.; Erd, dertseylungen (Earth, stories) (Warsaw: Literarishe bleter, 1935), 259 pp.; Royter mon (Red poppies), poems (Warsaw: Yidisher PEN-klub, 1937), 75 pp.; Heym un heymlozikeyt, lider (Home and homelessness, poetry) (Buenos Aires: Association of Polish Jews in Argentina, 1948), 245 pp.; Bashertkeyt, lider (Predestination, poems) (Montreal, 1949), 111 pp.; Dertseylungen (Stories) (Montreal, 1957), 328 pp.; Fun yener zayt lid (From the far side of a poem) (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1962), 124 pp.; Lider un erd—Shirim veadama (Poems and earth), with parallel Hebrew translation (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1966), 103 pp.; Di gnod fun vort (The favor of a word), poetry (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1968), 94 pp.; Af der sharf fun a rege (On the edge of a moment), poetry (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1972), 111 pp.; Farbitene vor (Bitter reality), poetry (Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1977), 92 pp.; and she had a volume of poems, entitled Shnit (Harvest), typeset for publication in Kiev, and the manuscript of her village novel, Mentsh fun makrun (Man from Makrun) both destroyed in fires caused by German bombs.  “She is so condensed in image and expression,” noted Arn Tsaytlin, “so poignant, essential—and I should add: matter-of-fact—that being in essence a prose writer, she has no will to be lyrical.”  “With a love for nature,” wrote Shloyme Bikl, “all her visions are both simple and refined, such that she is captivated by the thin and extraordinary nature of her images.”  “Rokhl Korn loves silence,” noted Yankev Glatshteyn: “All of her poems are spun from silence….  At first the poetess comes to an understanding, and it’s wise to pay attention to how heavy they need not be….  She is one of those significant poets who do not hurl their poems at the reader’s face with a racket, but she sings them with a rare modesty.”  “The basis of her poetic economy,” stated M. Gros-Tsimerman, “is her organic friendship with nature.  In Rokhl Korn’s poetry, nature is in the home.  The story—imagistic realism which bears in mind the lonely and disgraced people of the world.”  As Shmuel Niger put it: “Village, earth, rootedness in nature is—together with the sentiment of love for all God’s creatures—the spirit, not only the matter, the intimate atmosphere, not only the surroundings of Rokhl Korn’s creative work.  This is the breath of her soul, the essence of her poetry….  Uprooted from the village in which she was raised, in which she grew up from childhood, she was displaced and homeless as a poetess….  No longer the rough rural dialect, there was as well no longer the soul’s healthfulness of the past….  Nostalgia for the mundane familiarity, for roots and rootedness, fills the poems that she has composed over the last ten years [1939-1949], but dreaming about a home is a dream, not a home: Her new poems are poems of homelessness, and just as her earlier epic lyricism was home and earth lyrics,…[this] homelessness…gives expression within to the fact that Rokhl Korn’s poetry no longer has the earlier determination, completeness, surety.”  She died in Montreal.

  

        

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon), vol. 1 (Montreal, 1945); Arn Tsaytlin, in Di yudishe velt (Vilna) (September 1928); H. Leivick, in Tsukunft (New York) 10 (1949); Y. Y. Trunk, Di yidishe proze in poyln in der tekufe tsvishn beyde ṿelt milkhomes (Yiddish prose in Poland in the era of the two world wars) (New York, 1949), pp. 102-7; Y. Bashevis, in Forverts (New York) (April 3, 1949); Y. Paner, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 10 (1951); Yankev Glatshteyn, In tokh genumen (In essence) (New York, 1956); Glatshteyn, in Morgn-zhurnal (New York) (May 27, 1962); A. Mukdoni, in Tsukunft 4 (1958); Rokhl Oyerbakh, in Di goldene keyt 33 (1959); Shloyme Bikl, Shrayber fun mayn dor (Writers of my generation), vol. 2 (New York: Matones, 1965); A. Shomri, in Di goldene keyt 54 (1966); Y. Ziper, in Di goldene keyt 66 (1969); Y. Yanasovitsh, Penemer un nemen (Faces and names), vol. 1 (Buenos Aires, 1971), pp. 306-11; Yitskhok Kahan, Afn tsesheydveg, literatur-kritik, eseyen, impresyes (At the crossroads, literary criticism, essays, impressions) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1971); M. Gros-Tsimerman, Intimer videranand (Intimate contrasts) (Buenos Aires, 1972), pp. 217, 226; Rivke Kope, Intim mitn bukh, mekhabrim, bikher, meynungen (Intimate with a book, authors, books, opinions), essays (Paris, 1973); Shmuel Niger, Yidishe shrayber fun tsvantsikstn yorhundert (Yiddish writers of the twentieth century), vol. 2 (New York, 1973), pp. 229-40; Gitl Mayzil, Eseyen (Essays) (Tel Aviv, 1974), pp. 185-87; Froym Oyerbakh, Af der vogshol, esey (In the balance, essay), vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1975), pp. 293-301.

Khayim Leyb Fuks