MOYNI SHULMAN

MOYNI SHULMAN (1911-1994)

            He was an editor and translator, born in the town of Beremlia (Boremel'), Ukraine. In his childhood, he survived the pogroms that took place in his hometown, and they were forever engraved in his memory. The family moved to Uman, and there he grew up and spent his youthful years. After graduation from a seven-year Jewish school, he proceeded to enter the Uman technical construction school, but he did not graduate. In Kharkov he published his first notes and articles, and the editorial board of the Kharkov newspaper Yunge gvardye (Young guard) invited him in 1930 to work for it on a regular basis. He worked there until 1936 when the newspaper was closed down. From 1937 he began working for the Kiev newspaper Der shtern (The star). In 1940 the editorial board assigned him to be a special correspondent in Lviv, where the newspaper Der royte shtern (The red star) had commenced publication, and he served there as the actual editor-in-chief. In late June 1941, he published the last number of this newspaper (one day before the Germans occupied the city), returned to Kiev, and from there soon enlisted in the army. He was demobilized at the rank of lieutenant, and in July 1947 he came to work in Moscow for the newspaper Eynikeyt (Unity), for which he directed a division until the newspaper was discontinued on November 21, 1948. Concerning his work at Eynikeyt and its being shut down, he later wrote up memoirs and published them in the final issue of Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland) 11-12 (1991). From 1961 he was editor of prose for Sovetish heymland. He later edited prose volumes which were published in Moscow by Sovetski pisatel. His major work was the definitively edited publication of the great Russian-Yiddish dictionary which appeared in print in 1984: Russko-evreiskii (idish) slovarʹ, okolo 40.000 slov (Russian-Yiddish dictionary, close to 40,000 words) (Moscow: Russkyi yazik, 1984), 719 pp.

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. 379-80.