DOVID MONIN

DOVID MONIN (1898-November 9, 1957)

He was born in Sde Lavan (Bila Tserkva, Belaya Tserkov), Ukraine.  Monin was his pen name, but his real name has not as yet been discovered.  From his early youth he was active in the labor movement.  Over the years 1918-1922, he volunteered to serve in the Red Army and fought on the front against the armies of Petlura, Makhno, and others.  He was secretary of the main office of the Jewish section of the central committee of the Communist Youth Association in Ukraine.  He lived in Kharkov, Kiev, and Minsk, later in Moscow.  He was a delegate of the Profintern [Red International of Labor Unions] to congresses of the leftist World Federation of Trade Unions.  He edited the supplement for youth of Komunistisher fon (Communist banner) in Kiev (1919); Der yunger arbeter (The young worker) in Kiev (1920); Yunger spartak (Young Spartacus) (1921); Freyd (Happiness) (1922); Di yunge gvardye (The young guard) in Kharkov (1923-1928); Yungvald (Young forest) in Moscow (1923-1927); and Pyoner (Pioneer) in Moscow (1925-1928).  His contributed to: Oktyabr (October) in Minsk; Shtern (Star) in Kharkov; and Der emes (The truth) in Moscow.  He also placed writings in: Af di vegn tsu der nayer shul (En route to the new school) and Fragn fun komyug (Questions from the [Jewish] Communist Youth Association) in Moscow; and Di royte velt (The red world); among others.  He translated into Yiddish and adapted for the Party school P. M. Kerzhentsev and Leontiev’s Alefbeys fun leninizm (The ABCs of Leninism) (Moscow, 1924), 195 pp., second edition (Moscow, 1925), 199 pp., third edition (Moscow, 1928), 331 pp.; V. Virganskii’s Komyugishe forlezungen (Komyug lectures), first volume (Moscow, 1925), 60 pp.; M. Taishin and F. Kozlov’s Politalefbeys, ershter teyl, lerbukh far dorfishe un shtetlshe baveglekhe politshuln un far zelbstbildung (Political ABCs, part one: Textbook for village and town mobile political schools and for self-education) (Moscow, 1926), 196 pp., part two (Moscow, 1927), 320 pp.; M. Grishin’s In lenins veg, lernbukh far shtotishe normale politshuln un far zelbstbildung (In Lenin’s way, textbook for urban normal political schools and for self-education), part 1 (Moscow, 1928), 415 pp.; M. Bragin’s Komyugishe alefbeys (Komyug ABCs), with A. Kovner and H. Smolyar (Moscow, 1927-1928), 193 pp.  In the late 1920s he was mobilized for political work in the army, and he was not to return to Yiddish environs.  After the army work, he studied at the Institute for Red Professors.  From 1937 until WWII, there was no information about him available.  Several years thereafter, he was editor of the Russian newspaper Trud (Labor) in Moscow.  He also published under such pen names as: D. Min and Dmitri.  He died in Moscow.

Sources: Pyoner (Moscow) 1 (January 1, 1927); Biblyografishe yorbikher fun yivo (Bibliographic yearbooks from YIVO) (Warsaw, 1928), see index; H. Smolyar, in Folksshtime (Warsaw) (November 1957); Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index.

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. 225.]