ALEKSANDR BELOUSOV

ALEKSANDR BELOUSOV (1948-2004)

            A poet, essayist, and translator, he was born in Samara (at the time, Kuibyshev) into an intellectual, non-Jewish, Russian family. He was raised by his grandparents. At age twelve, he was introduced to the Tanakh in Russian and was so impressed that he became determined to master Hebrew. Destiny sent him to the scholar Rabbi Dovid Lokshin, and with his help he learned Hebrew. In his teacher’s home, he heard Yiddish spoken, fell in love with the language, and together with mastering Hebrew, he studied Yiddish. He became acquainted with the poetry of Shmuel Halkin and began to write his own poems in Yiddish. Belousov’s first published poetry appeared in Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland) in 1969—beginning with a cycle of poems in issues 2 (1970), 1 (1971), 1 (1972), 1 (1974), 9 (1974), 3 (1975). His poems aroused a sensation abroad—in Poland, Israel, the United States, and France. The poems “Tsu der yidisher shprakh” (To the Yiddish language) and “Kdoyshim” (Martyrs) were published in Tel Aviv by Miriam Yelin-Shtekelis. Peysekh Novik published his poems in New York’s Morgn-frayhayt (Morning freedom). In Warsaw’s Folks-shtime (Voice of the people) as well, his poems and translations into Polish appeared. He had a correspondence with the great Israeli poet Avraham Shlonski, who highly appreciated the poems of this young writer. The journal Sovetish heymland regularly printed his poems. In 1971 he graduated from the Kuibyshev Pedagogical Institute.  He meticulously mastered Yiddish and Hebrew, and he worked as a translator of technical texts into Russian from other languages. He was also a teacher of Hebrew and ran an ulpan on his own in his home. In 1975 he was accused of Zionist activities, and after an investigation he was admonished. In 1990 he settled in Jerusalem, working for a Russian newspaper. In 1992 he received the Kubi Vohl Prize from the Association of Yiddish Writers and Journalists in Israel; and in 1998 he received the Dovid Hofshteyn Prize for creative literary work in Yiddish. He died unexpectedly in Jerusalem. His book-length work includes: Di vinterdike menoyre (The winter candelabra) (Jerusalem: Yidishe kultur-gezelshaft, 2006), 199 pp.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 96; 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. 48-49.