NOSN ROZOVSKI

NOSN ROZOVSKI (1878-May 2, 1969)

            He was a playwright, actor, and cultural leader, born in Smorgon (Smorhon'), Byelorussia. He was a leader in theatrical circles in which Moyshe Kulbak and the singer Moyshe Kusevitski took part. He was well-known as an orator who read aloud works of the Yiddish classics and acted in plays of wandering troupes. In the first years of the Soviet regime, he and his wife, Roze Rozanove, worked in Jewish children’s homes, and from that time he began his Yiddish literary efforts as a playwright and prose writer. His plays were performed by both professional and amateur theaters. He published over the course of many years humorous pieces, sketches, impressions, and notes. He died in Kharkov where he lived his last years. He contributed to the almanac Onheyb (Beginning) (Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1940). In book form: Der shlekhter kineg (The bad king) (Poltava: Idbyuro, 1922), 16 pp.; Friling-gang, a shpil far kinder in eyn akt (En route to spring, a play for children in one act) (Poltava: State Publishers, 1923), 15 pp.; and A bagegenish, pyese (An encounter, a play) (Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1938), 32 pp.

Source: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

Khayim Maltinski

[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. 348.]