AVROM
YUDITSKI (ca. 1885-January 6, 1943)
He was born in Korsun, Ukraine. He studied in religious elementary school and
yeshivas. At the time of the first
Russian Revolution (1905), he joined the Bund and was active in the Jewish
labor movement in Ukraine and Byelorussia.
In 1912 he was living in St. Petersburg, later until early 1916 in
Vilna. When the Germans during WWI
approached the city, Yuditski moved to Russia and until 1917 lived in
Irkutsk. After the February/March
Revolution (1917), he returned to St. Petersburg, was active there in the Bund,
and later (around June 1917) when the central committee of the Bund moved to
Minsk, Byelorussia, he too made his way there and became a contributor to the
editorial board of the Bundist central organ, Der veker (The alarm). In
late 1918 he traveled to Warsaw, and there he was interned in a prison camp in Chełm, from which he escaped to Kiev. When the Russian Bund split, he went over to
the Communists, and from that point forward he was their leader in the realm of
Yiddish culture and literature. Until
the German assault on Russia (June 1941), he was the supervisor of the Jewish
historical performances in the Moscow state art theater. He was evacuated in August 1941 to Inner
Asia, for a time worked there on a collective farm, before making his way to
Tashkent and—broken physically and mentally, a forlorn and disappointed man,
and moreover perennially suffering from hunger—he died in a hospital in
Tashkent after a serious illness. He
began writing for the monthly journal Di idishe velt (The Jewish world), of
which he was editorial secretary, in St. Petersburg in 1912, and later was a
contributor to Hazman (The times) in Vilna (1912)—as a Bundist he wrote solely
in Hazman on literary and cultural topics—and near the beginning of WWI (ca.
1915) he was an internal contributor to the Vilna daily Der fraynd (The friend)
which F. Margolin published. After the
1917 Revolution, he wrote intensively for Di arbayter-shtime (The voice of
labor) in Petrograd (1917) and Der veker in Minsk (1917-1918). From 1919 he was a regular contributor to the
Jewish Communist press in Russia. In the
1920s and 1930s, he worked with the Institute for Jewish Culture in the
Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He wrote
a series of important works on the history of the Jewish labor movement. He was a serious researcher into Jewish
cultural history and the Yiddish press in Russia, engaged as well in Yiddish
bibliography. Among other items, he
published in: Der apikoyres (The heretic) in Moscow (1924-1925) a portion of
his work on religion and “bourgeois Jewish history philosophy”; “Vegn a proyekt
fun a yidishn zhurnal in rusland in di 50 yorn” (On a project for a Yiddish
journal in Russia in the 1850s), in Logisher zamlbukh (Logic anthology) 1
(Moscow-Kharkov); “Vegn di politish-gezelshaftlekhe rikhtungen in yude in di
ershte yorn far un nokh unzer tsaytrekhenung” (On the political and social
directions in Judea in the first years before and after [the beginning of] the
Common Era), Sovetish (Soviet) in Moscow (1938); “Vegn inhaltn fun volf
kamrashs pyese ‘kohol in shtetl’” (On the contents of Volf Kamrash’s play, “Kohol
in shtetl”), Shriftn (Writings) in Kiev (1928); “Yidishe revolutsyonere
bavegung in 1905” (The Jewish revolutionary movement in 1905), Royte velt (Red
world) in Kharkov (1924-1935) and “Yidishe arbeter-bavegung af ukraine” (The
Jewish labor movement in Ukraine), Royte velt 1, 2, 3, 4 (1926); “Yidishe
burzhuazye un yidisher proletaryat in ershter helft 19 y״h (The Jewish bourgeoisie and the Jewish
proletariat in the first half of the nineteenth century), Historisher zamlbukh (Historical anthology) in Kiev (1930), which
appeared in book form (Kiev: Proletar, 1931), 120 pp., with a foreword by the
author. The last work was the first part
of his monograph on the economic history of Jews in Russia in the former half
of the nineteenth century in a variety of fields involving the popular
economy. He also contributed to: Emes (Truth) in Moscow; Der shtern (The star) in Kharkov-Kiev; Prolit (Proletarian literature) in
Kharkov; and Oktyabr (October) in
Minsk; among others. His published books
include: Der veg tsu oktyabr, revolutsyonere
bavegung in rusland, 1895-1917 (The road to October, the revolutionary
movement in Russia, 1905-1917), edited by Kh. Mironer, with a foreword by M.
Rabinovitsh (Kiev, 1925), 372 pp.; Polit-ivre
(The ABCs of politics) (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1926), 232 pp., with L.
Mishkovski. He compiled the collections:
1905, zamlung (1905, collection)
(Kharkov, 1925), 120 pp.; Oktyabr-zamlung
(October collection), with E. Finenberg (Kharkov, 1929), 73 pp.; Polit-ivre far polit-shuln (The ABCs of
politics for political schools), part 1 (Moscow, 1926), 8 pp.; Oktyaber-teg, materyaln tsu der geshikhte
fun der oktyaber-revolutsye tsum 10 yorike yubiley (October days, materials
on the history of the October Revolution on its tenth anniversary), edited by
Y. Liberberg (Kiev, 1927), 432 pp.; Parizher
komune, zamlung (The Paris Commune, collection) (Kharkov, 1931), 183 pp.; Narodovoltses, materialn-zamlung tsum
fuftsik yorikn yubiley fun narodnaya volya (The Populists, collection of
materials on the fiftieth anniversary of Narodnaya Volya [People’s Will])
(Moscow-Kharkov-Kiev, 1932), 243 pp.; Etyudn
tsu der alt-yidisher geshikhte, loyt a. ranovitshes bukh, “etyudn iber der
geshikhte fun der alt-yidisher religye” (Studies in ancient Jewish history,
according to A. Ranovich’s book, Ocherk
istorii drevneevreiskoi religii [Studies in the history of ancient Jewish religion]
(Moscow, 1940), 82 pp.; and Yidishe
folkslider (Yiddish folksongs), with Y. Dobrushin (Moscow, 1940), 486 pp.,
Russian edition (Evreiskie narodnye pesni)
(Moscow, 1947), 279 pp. He was
co-editor, with M. Viner, of an edition of Y. Aksenfeld’s work and wrote an
introduction there entitled “Der oytser oder di genarte velt” (The treasure or
the disappointed world), in Y. aksenfelds
verk (Y. Aksenfeld’s works) (Kharkov, 1931). He translated into Yiddish S. Ingulov’s Polit gramote (Fundamentals of politics
[original: Politgramota]), textbook
for party candidate school (Moscow, 1935), 426 pp.; and M. A. Gremiatskii’s Funvanen shtamt der mentsh? (Where does
man come from? [original: Kak Proizoshel Chelovek]) (Kiev, 1940), 155 pp.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 1; Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic
yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; Y. Shatski, in Teater-arkhiv (YIVO, Vilna and New York)
(1930), pp. 474-75; Shatski, in Yivo-bleter
(Vilna) 6.2 (1934), pp. 268-70; Kh. Verber, Afn
visnshaftlekhn front (Minsk) 3-4 (1933); Sh. Khayes, Otsar beduye
hashem (Thesaurus Pseudonymorum; Treasury of
pseudonyms) (Vienna: Glanz, 1933), p. 150; N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetn-farband in 1932, 1933, 1934 (The Yiddish
book in the Soviet Union in 1932, 1933, 1934) (Minsk, 1934), see index; Al.
Pomerants, in Dovid edelshtat gedenk-bukh
(Dovid Edelshtot memory book) (New York, 1953); Y. Keytlman, in Forverts (New York) (May 10, 1953); N.
Mayzil, Dos yidishe shafn un der yidisher
shrayber in sovetnfarband (Jewish creation and the Yiddish writer in the
Soviet Union) (New York, 1959), pp. 35, 128.
Khayim Leyb Fuks
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), cols. 299-300; 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. 179.]
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