ILYA VILENKIN

ILYA VILENKIN (b. April 15, 1879)

            He was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.  From 1900 he was active in the Bund in Minsk, and there he learned to speak and write Yiddish.  He was arrested several times and exiled to Siberia.  After the Russian Revolution in 1917, he was active in the trade union movement.  Subsequent information about him remains unknown.  He published correspondence pieces and contributed to the editing of the underground newspaper of the Bund in Minsk, Der minsker arbayter (The Minsk worker) in 1900, six issues.

Sources: Vladimir Medem, Fun mayn lebn (From my life) (New York, 1923); Y. Sh. H., in Doyres bundistn (Generation of Bundists), vol. 1 (New York, 1956).