ZALMEN-VIGDER KHRAPKOVSKI

ZALMEN-VIGDER KHRAPKOVSKI (1883-1924)

            He was a folklorist born in Kapulye (Kopyl), Byelorussia. He studied in religious primary school and public school, and he later graduated from a Haradok middle school and passed the examination to become a school teacher. For a time he taught in state schools in Lyozna, Orsha, and Vitebsk, where at the same time he was active in the Jewish labor movement. From his youth he was involved in collecting Jewish folklore, which he initially published in the newspaper Der fraynd (The friend) (Warsaw) just before WWI and later in: Tsaytshrift (Periodical) in Minsk 1 (1926), pp. 117-39, and 2-3 (1928), pp. 831-60. He died in Vitebsk.

In book form: Milkhome-vits, legendes, anekdotn, vertlekh, glaykhvertlekh, shpasn, roshe-teyvesn, kalamburn ukhdoyme, geshpanen arum milkhome bikhlan un arum der groyser velt-milkhome fun 1914-1917 yor bifrat, gezamlt in vitebsker gegn (War jokes: legends, anecdotes, saying, aphorisms, jokes, abbreviations, puns, etc., covering war generally and the Great World War of 1914-1917 specifically, assembled in Vitebsk district) (Vitebsk: Vitebsker poligrafpres, 1922), 171 pp.

Milkhome-vits (1923 edition)

Sources: Chronicle in Oyfboy (New York) (January 1924); A. Zaretski, in Di royte velt (Kharkov) 7-8 (1926); Tsaytshrift (Minsk) 1 (1926), p. 117,

Khayim Leyb Fuks

[Additional information from: 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. 192.]