MIRE KHENKIN

MIRE KHENKIN (1900-1960)

            She was a poet and prose author, born in the town of Novozybkov, Chernigov (Chernihiv) district, Ukraine. She was married to the writer Nokhum Oyslender. She lived in Kiev and Moscow. She was a member of the “Association of Revolutionary Jewish Writers in Ukraine.” She also took part in research work at the Kiev Institute for Jewish Culture at the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. She began writing poetry for the Communist youth publication Di fraye yugnt (Free youth) in Kiev in 1923. Later, she contributed to: Sovetishe literatur (Soviet literature) in Kiev; the collection Ukraine (Ukraine), Di royte velt (The red world), Prolit (Proletarian literature), and Shtern (Star)—in Kharkov; Emes (Truth), Yungvald (Young forest), Yunger prolit (Young proletarian literature), Eynikeyt (Unity), and the anthologies of Sovetish (Soviet)—in Moscow; Yidish kultur (Jewish culture) in New York; and Yidishe shriftn (Yiddish writings) in Warsaw; among others. Ezra Korman included some of her poems in his collection Yidishe dikhterins (Jewish women poets) (Chicago: L. M. Shteyn, 1928). She died in Moscow. A cycle of her poems from the last years of her life was published in Sovetishe heymland (Soviet homeland) (Moscow) 2 (September-October 1961). Fragments of a novel she was writing at the end of her life about events in Ukraine during the years of the Soviet Civil War appeared in Sovetish heymland in the 1980s.

            Her books include: Lider (Poetry) (Kharkov: Gezkult, 1928), 58 pp.; Dekade (Ten-day period), poetry (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932), 79 pp.; Moskver friling, lider (Moscow spring, poems) (Moscow: Emes, 1936), 136 pp. Her work also appeared in: Tsum zig (To victory) (Moscow: Emes, 1944); and Shlakhtn (Battles) (Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1932).

Sources: Y. Nusinov, in Royte velt (Kharkov) 9 (1926); D. Tsharni (Daniel Charney), in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (January 21, 1927); Ezra Korman, Yidishe dikhterins (Jewish women poets) (Chicago, 1928), pp. 310-14, 346; B. Glazman, in Idishe kemfer (New York) (October 4, 1930); N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetn-farband 1932 (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union, 1932) (Minsk, 1933), no. 435; N. Mayzil, Dos yidishe shafn un der yidisher arbeter in sovetn-farband (Jewish creation and the Jewish worker in the Soviet Union) (New York, 1959), see index.

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 317; 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), p. 191.]