KHONE
VAYNERMAN (1902-1979)
He was born in Lugyn, Ukraine. He grew up in the atmosphere of war,
revolution, and civil war. Early on he
had to worry about earning a living, and he tried a variety of trades and
occupations. In the early 1920s, when
Jewish Communists in Soviet Russia called upon Jews to settle the land,
Vaynerman moved to the Jewish colonies in the Kherson district, where he worked
in agriculture. He graduated from the
Odessa Pedagogical Institute. He debuted
in print in 1925 with a poem in Der
yunger arbeter (The young laborer) in Minsk. From that point in time, he published poems
in Soviet Yiddish periodicals. His books
include: In baheftung, 1925-1928
(United, 1925-1928), poems from the village (Kharkov-Odessa, 1930), 112 pp.; Fishke (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1931), 16
pp.; Erd baneyte (Land renewed)
(Kiev: Ukrainian state publishers for national
minorities, 1932), 32 pp.; Far
broyte, lazungen, lider tsum zingen, kolektive deklamatsyes (For bread,
slogans, songs to sing, collective declamations) (Kharkov, 1932), 37 pp. Kleyn brigade (Little brigade), children’s
stories in verse (Odessa, 1932), 64 pp.; Nakht
(Night) (Kiev: Ukrainian state publishers for national
minorities, 1933), 32 pp.; Goldene
tsaygn, poeme (Golden boughs, a poem) (Berdichev, 1935), 236 pp.; In lebn farlibt (In love with the land)
(Kiev: Ukrainian state publishers for national
minorities, 1940), 80 pp. His
work was also included in: Far der
bine: dertseylungen, pyeses, lider (For the stage: stories, plays, poems), with musical notation (together
with Y. Dobrushin and E. Gordon) (Moscow, 1929); Komyug, literarish-kinstlerisher zamlbukh ([Jewish] Communist Youth, literary-artistic
anthology) (Moscow, 1938); Komsomolye (Communist Youth) (Kiev,
1938); and Shlakhtn
(Battles) (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932). From the mid-1930s he was living in
Birobidzhan. With the outbreak of the
Soviet-Nazi war, he was mobilized and experienced the war in the army at the
front. After the war he was a
correspondent for Eynikeyt
(Unity). In 1950 he was arrested and
tried for “economic espionage” on behalf of the United States and sentenced to
fifteen years in prison and the Gulag.
He returned to Odessa in 1956, a much disturbed man from these harsh
experiences.
Sources:
Sh. Epshteyn, in Di royte velt (Kiev)
(March 1930); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(New York) (September 1930); R. Kahir, in Morgn-frayhayt
(New York) (February 9, 1931); S. Zhukovski, in Pruvn (Attempts) (Kharkov, 1934), p. 210; N. Y. Gotlib, Sovetishe yidishe shrayber (Soviet Yiddish
writers) (Montreal, 1934), pp. 42-43; Y. Katsenelson, in Morgn-fraythayt (March 11, 1956); N. Mayzil, Dos yidishe shafn un der yidisher shrayber in sovetnfarband (Jewish
creation and the Yiddish writer in the Soviet Union) (New York, 1959), see
index.
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), cols. 239-40; 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), p. 139.]
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