ELI SHEKHTMAN (September 8, 1908-January 1, 1996)[1]
The
author of stories and novels, he was born in the town of Voskovichi, Polesia
(Ukraine). He was the eighth
child in a large family and spent his entire childhood in poverty. He received a traditional Jewish education. In 1921 he was a pupil in the Zhytomyr
yeshiva. Over the years 1929-1933, he
studied in the Jewish literature faculty of the Odessa Pedagogical Institute. He then lived in Kharkov from
1933 to 1936 and thereafter until July 1941 in Kiev. He was an officer in the Red Army (1942-1947)
and was wounded at the front. He
returned to Kiev after the war. He was
arrested when preparations were being made for the “Doctors’ Trial” in Moscow
and then freed with the death of Stalin in 1953. He was in Kiev until 1972 when he made aliya to Israel. He resided there in
Jerusalem.
He began
writing at the age of only twelve and published for the first time—two poems from
the cycle “In shpil fun shneyen” (In the play of snows)—in 1928 in the journal Di royte velt (The red world); at the
same time, the supplement Yunger boyklang
(The young sound of construction) to the newspaper Yunge
gvardye (Young guard) published a poem of his. He wrote practically no poetry thereafter,
moving over to prose. He also published
his first story in 1928, and from that point in time he published in most
Soviet Yiddish publications: Farmest
(Challenge), Sovetishe literatur
(Soviet literature), the Kiev almanac Shtern
(Star), and Sovetish heymland (Soviet
homeland), among other serials. His work
also appeared in: Shlakhtn (Battles)
(Kharkov-Kiev, 1932); the almanac Komsomolye (Communist Youth) (Kiev,
1938); and Dertseylungen fun yidishe
sovetishe shrayber (Stories by Soviet Yiddish writers) (Moscow, 1969). In Israel, he received the “Prime Minister’s
Award for Literary Creativity in Yiddish.”
In honor of this, the committee for Yiddish culture in Israel published
the pamphlet Prayz fun rosh-hamamshele
far literarisher shafung in yidish (Prize of the prime minister for
literary creation in Yiddish) (Tel Aviv: Havaad, 1973), 34 pp.
His works include: Afn sheydveg (At the crossroad), stories
(Kharkov: Ukrainian State Publishers, 1930), 194 pp., concerning the decline of the shtetl
after the October Revolution; Farkerte
mezhes (Ploughed-up boundaries), his first novel (Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1932-1936),
2 vols., second printing of vol. 1 (1936), of vol. 2 (1941); Poleyser velder (Polesia woods), stories
(Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1940), 256
pp.; Erev, roman (On the eve, a novel)
(Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1965), 235 pp., (Tel Aviv: Perets Publishers, 1974), 4
vols. in 2, with fifth and sixth books (Tel Aviv: Perets Publishers, 1979), 317 pp., a
full seven-volume text appeared in 1983 (Tel Aviv: Yisorel-bukh)—a work that
deals with the lives of Jews in Russia from the beginning of the twentieth
century until the 1970s, portions of which were translated into French,
English, and Hebrew (under the title Beterem);
Ringen af der neshome (Rings
in the soul) (Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1981), 2 parts, in Di
goldene keyt [The golden chain] 92-93 [1977]), vol. 3 was beginning
to be published in Yidishe kultur
(Jewish culture) (New York) from June 1985—it is an autobiographical work; Baym shkie-aker (Dawn harvesting) (New York: Yidishe
kultur, 1994), 392 pp., a depiction of a Polish Jewish dynasty over several
generations.
Most critical articles concerning Shekhtman’s work engage
with his most important and meaty book, Erev.
It was the crowning achievement of his
literary career; in it he depicts on a broad historical canvas several generations of a large Jewish family. Where “the heroes speak
for themselves in a language,” wrote Y. Rapoport, “that is loaded with
experience, emotion, and artistic perspective…[there is] in every sentence the
stamp of authentic artistry, of profound poetic importance.”
“For Eli Shekhtman as artist,” noted Hersh Remenik,
“characteristic before all else is the capacity to demonstrate the principal
arteries of life. Secluded, irrelevant
pathways have no place in his work….
Circumstantial opportunism and declarative superficiality are alien to
Shekhtman. The light and frivolous soar
above the surface of the phenomena of life….
The artistic power of the author can be felt in the wealth and maturity
of the images depicted, in the universality and individuality of the figures, in
the certainty of the developments of the subject, in the dramatic tension of
the conflicts, as well as…in the linguistic texture, word formations, and
linguistic apparel of the entire depiction.”
“The narrative is extremely dense,” commented Froym
Oyerbakh, “the events pressing each upon the next, people swarming about…. But he doesn’t look to pile colors on the
theme, only on each of the events…. It
is a bit of an exaggeration to compare him to [Dovid] Bergelson or Der Nister,
but inasmuch as he is an important storyteller,…there isn’t the least doubt
about it.”
In the words of Shloyme Bikl: “Next to D. Bergelson’s Penek (Penek),…M. Kulbak’s Zelmenyaner (The Zelmenyans), and
Der Nister’s Mishpokhe mashber (The
family Mashber), there stand [Erev]
as one of the most important works of fiction that Soviet Yiddish literature
has given us.”
Sources: S. Zhukovski, in Pruvn (Attempts) (Kharkov, 1934); Moyshe Mizhiritski, in Literarish-kritishe etyudn (Literary
critical studies) (Kiev, 1940); Hersh Remenik, in Sovetish heymland (Moscow) 6 (1962); Y. Rapoport, in Yidishe shriftn (Warsaw) 3-4 (1963); R.
Rubin, postface to Erev (Moscow,
1965); Froym Oyerbakh, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal
(New York) (April 10, 1966); Shloyme Bikl, Shrayber fun mayn dor (Writers of my generation),
vol. 3 (New York: Matones, 1970); Yitskhok Kahan, Afn tsesheydveg, literatur-kritik, eseyen, impresyes (At the crossroads, literary
criticism, essays, impressions) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1971), pp. 327-34; Dov
Sadan, in Folksblat (Tel Aviv)
(May-June 1973); Elye (Elias) Shulman, in Forverts
(New York) (August 5, 1973); Yankev Meytlis, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 84-85 (1974); Gitl Mayzil, Eseyen (Essays) (Tel Aviv, 1974), pp.
158-72; Y. Keshet, in Moznaim (Tel
Aviv) (1974); Dan Miron, in Yediot aḥaranot
(Tel Aviv) (August 2, 1975); Dovid Sfard, in Bay zikh (Jerusalem) 5 (1975); Noyekh Gris, in Tsukunft (New York) (July-August 1975)
Noyekh Gris
[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers
(Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 532; 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. 388-89.]
[1] According to the anthology Dertseylungen fun yidishe sovetishe shrayber (Stories by Soviet
Yiddish writers) (Moscow, 1969), he was born January 8, 1908.
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