NOYEKH
LURYE (1885-May 18, 1960)
He was born in Blashne, near Polonke
(Palonka), Minsk district, Byelorussia, into a working-class family. He studied in religious primary schools,
later in the yeshivas of Maltsh, Slonim, and Slobodka. In 1905 he joined the Bund and was active in
the party in a number of cities. He
spent 1907-1908 in Tsarist prisons in Warsaw, Vilna, and Berdichev. In those years, he began to write, initially
in Hebrew and later switching to Yiddish.
Around 1911 he debuted in print with stories that appeared in Warsaw and
Vilna publications, among them the collection Di fraye erd (The free earth) and Der fraynd (The friend) in Warsaw.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he joined Kerensky’s army. In 1917 he published stories and sketches in
the Bundist daily, Der veker (The
alarm), in Minsk. In 1918 he contributed
to the weekly newspaper Der glok (The
bell), organ of the Odessa committee of the Bund. At the time he moved to Kiev where he was a
member of the central committee and of the executive of the “Kultur-lige”
(Culture league), as well as manager of the extracurricular section of the
Culture League; he worked in the Ministry of Jewish Affairs and was one of the
administrators of courses in social education.
In 1921 he was in charge of the Yiddish pedagogical courses in
Kiev. He was also a teacher and speaker
on literature and educational matters.
At that time he began to turn his attention to literature for
children. He wrote children’s stories,
poetry, sketches, and plays himself and translated stories from European
children’s literature. He published
pedagogical articles and reports on children’s literature in: Shul un lebn (School and life), Pedagogisher byuleten (Pedagogical
bulletin), and Bikher-velt (Book
world) in Kiev. From 1930 he was writing
primarily realistic stories and novels about general Soviet and Jewish life and
published them in the journal Farmest
(Challenge) and the great majority of Yiddish publications in Soviet
Russia. In the 1940s he wrote on war
themes. From his own original writings,
the following were published: Moyshe
rabeynu (Moses, our teacher) (St. Petersburg, 1917), 49 pp.; Af eyn fisele (On one little foot), a
children’s tale in verse (Kiev, 1922), 8 pp.; Der letste ber (The last bear), a children’s play (Kiev, 1929), 33
pp.; Brikn brenen (Bridges burning),
stories (Kharkov, 1929), 300 pp.; Zavl di
fis (Zavl the feet) (Kiev, 1932), 34 pp.; Elter mit a nakht (Older by a night), stories (Kharkov-Kiev, 1934),
114 pp.; A geveynlekh lebn, dertseylungen
(A regular lige, stories) (Moscow, 1935), 158 pp.; Eyner fun der sherenge, dertseylungen (One in the line, stories) (Kiev,
1936), 279 pp.; Shoyel-hersh
(Saul-Hersh), a novel of the life of colonists in Nay-Zlatopolye (1937), 258
pp.; Elye-yorsh, roman (Elye Yorsh, a
novel) (Kiev, 1938), 352 pp.; A fule mos,
dertseylung (A full measure, a story) (Moscow, 1940), 34 pp.; Geklibene dertseylungen (Selected
stories) (Kiev, 1940), 444 pp.; In vald
(In the woods), story (Kiev, 1941), 32 pp.; Ba
der ofener grub, dertseylungen (At the open mine, stories), including
several stories of German atrocities against Jews (Moscow, 1944), 84 pp.; Vidershtand (Uprising), a ghetto drama
(Kiev, 1944), which was staged in a number of Yiddish theaters including the
Warsaw Yiddish State Theater; In vald
(Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1972), 365 pp.
His work also appeared in: Deklamater fun der sovetisher
yidisher literatur (Reciter of Soviet Yiddish literature) (Moscow, 1934); Almanakh fun yidishe sovetishe shrayber tsum
alfarbandishn shrayber-tsuzamenfor (Almanac of Soviet Yiddish writers to
the All-Soviet Writers’ Conference) (Kharkov-Kiev, 1934); Komyug, literarish-kinstlerisher zamlbukh ([Jewish] Communist Youth, literary-artistic
anthology) (Moscow, 1938); and Shlakhtn
(Battles) (Kharkov-Kiev, 1932). His
translations include: Andersen’s Margeritke
(The daisy) (Kiev, 1919); Wilhelm Hauff,
Haufs mayselekh (Hauff’s stories) (Warsaw, 1923), 164 pp.; and in separate
booklets: Hauff, Der kleyner muk (The
little gnat) (Warsaw, 1923); Hauff, Di
mayse mit kalif bushl (The tale of caliph stork) (Warsaw, 1923), 19 pp.;
Hauff, Liliputl noz (Tiny nose)
(Warsaw, 1923); Hauff, Vos mit saidn iz
zikh farlofn (The fortunes of Said) (Warsaw, 1923), 56 pp.; Hauff, Mayselekh (Fairy tales [of the Brothers
Grimm]) (Kiev, 1922), 47 pp.; Maxim Gorky, A
mentsh ba laytn (A man of the people) (Kiev, 1935), 333 pp., second edition
(1940); Molière’s comedy, Der kloymersht
kranker (The imaginary invalid) (Kiev, 1935), 119 pp.; and a literary
adaptation of Aleksandr Petshorsky’s Der
oyfshtand in sobibur (The uprising at Sobibor) (Moscow, 1946), 62 pp. He lived in Moscow after WWII. In 1947 he contributed to the almanac publications
of Soviet Yiddish writers. In 1948 he
took part in the last literary evening that took place in Moscow in Yiddish (a
discussion of the content of the literary collections Heymland [Homeland]). His
last work published in Yiddish appeared in the almanac Heymland 6 (July-August 1948); it was a review of Shire Gorshman’s
book, Der koyekh fun lebn, noveln un dertseylungen (The power of life,
novellas and stories). In the late
1940s, he was imprisoned, exiled to a forced labor camp in the far north, and
then released in 1955. In 1957 a Russian
translation of his novel In vald was
published under the title Lesnaia tishina
(Forest quiet) (Moscow; 1961 reprint).
He died in Moscow. In Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland)
(Moscow) 1 (January-February 1962), his story “Oys khaver” (No longer friends)
was republished. After his death the
Moscow Writers’ Union appointed a commission to put together his literary
behest. He left behind critical works on
Mendele, Y. L. Perets, Kvitko, Hofshteyn, and others.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo
(Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1928); N. Rubinshteyn, Dos yidishe bukh in sovetn-farband in 1933,
1934, 1935 (The Yiddish book in the Soviet Union, 1932) (Minsk, 1933, 1934,
1935); Shmuel Niger, in Literarishe
bleter (Warsaw) (April 29, 1927); B. Orshanski, Di yidishe literatur in vaysrusland nokh der revolutsye (Yiddish
literature in Byelorussia after the revolution) (Moscow, 1931), pp. 146-50; D.
Tsharni, (Daniel Charney), in Tsukunft
(New York) (October 1935); Anon., “Tsvishn di sovetishe yidishe shrayber”
(Among the Soviet Yiddish writers), Eynikeyt
(Moscow) (June 7, 1942; August 3, 1944; January 24, 1946); A. Kushnirov, in Naye prese (Paris) (July 27, 1945); N.
Y. Gotlib, in Keneder odler
(Montreal) (March 30, 1953); Lo amut ki eḥye
(I shall not die but live), anthology (Merhavya, 1957); Y. Tsang, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (November
8, 1959); 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; L. Blekhman (“Avrom
der tate” [Father Abraham]), Bleter fun
mayn yugnt (Pages from my youth) (New York, 1959), pp. 189, 272, 273; Sh.
Rabinovitsh, in Morgn-frayhayt (New
York) (May 27, 1960; August 8, 1960); Chone
Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim
babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union,
1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index; Biblyografye
fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure (Bibliography of Yiddish books
concerning the Holocaust and heroism) (New York, 1962), see index; A. Holdes,
in Sovetish heymland (Moscow)
(March-April 1962); Z. Vendrof, in Yidishe
kultur (New York) (May 1963).
Zaynvl Diamant
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 328; 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), pp. 199-200.]
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