MOTYE (MOTE) DEKHTYAR

MOTYE (MOTE) DEKHTYAR (1909-October 1939)

          He was a prose author, born in Ptich' (Ptsich), Byelorussia, and from his childhood forward he worked with his father as a cobbler.  At age twenty he graduated from a Construction Technicum in Minsk as a builder, later completing literary studies at the Minsk Pedagogical Institute. He was a member of the literary circle of the builders club in Minsk. His first work in literature appeared in 1931 with stories about the conditions and psychology of Jewish laboring youth. He published in the Minsk Yiddish serials: Der yunger arbeter (The young worker), Oktyabr (October), Shtern (Star), and literary anthologies. He contributed a story to the collection Sovetishe vaysrusland (Soviet Byelorussia), compiled by Yashe Bronshteyn and Izi Kharik (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publishers, 1935). In subsequent years, he brought out several collections of stories and novellas. In 1938 he left to serve in the Red Army, and he took part in the Soviet-Finnish war. He died the next year while still a soldier.

Among his books: Boyer, dertseylungen (Builder, stories) (Minsk: State Publ., 1936), 192 pp.; Traye verter (Faithful words) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publishers, 1938), 26 pp.; Undzer erd (Our land) (Minsk, 1939), 192 pp.; Brider (Brothers) (Minsk: State Publ., 1940), 47 pp. He may have been the translator (using the initials “D. M.”) of V. P. Stavsky’s Di stantsye, kubaner skitses (The station, Kubansk sketches [original: Stanitsia kubanskie ocherki]) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publishers, 1931), 134 pp.

Sources: Shlogler (Shock troops), anthology (Minsk, 1932), p. 90; M. Reznik, in Shtern (Minsk) (November 1939); H. Vinokur (H. Vaynraykh), in Eynikeyt (Moscow) (November 25, 1943); A. Kushnirov, in Naye prese (Paris) (July 27, 1945).

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 200; and 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. 103-4.]