MIRIAM MARGOLIN

MIRIAM MARGOLIN

            She was a teacher, poet, and prose author who came from Minsk, Byelorussia, and lived as well in Moscow and Berlin. Over the years 1922-1924, she worked in the division of preschool education in the Jewish section of the Commissariat for Public Education. She was a teacher, 1925-1930, in Jewish public schools and pedagogical technical schools in Minsk, Homyel' (Homel, Gomel), and other cities in Byelorussia. She published poetry and translations to the Minsk newspaper Oktyabr (October). She also contributed to the compilation and publication of textbooks for Jewish schools. Her name disappeared from 1933. In book form: Mayselekh far kleyninke kinderlekh (“Little Stories for Little Children”) (Moscow: Commissariat for Public Education, Jewish section, 1922), 28 pp., with illustrations on the frontispiece and in the text by Y. B. Ryback, English translation by Jeffrey Shandler (Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell Ltd., 1986), 32 pp.; with the teachers Shloyme-Itshe Ravin and Yoysef Ravin, Zay greyt, arbetbukh farn 4tn lernyor (Get ready, workbook for the fourth school year) (Moscow-Kharkov-Minsk: Central People’s Publishers, 1930), 472 pp.—for which she composed the lessons: “Di felker fun sovetnfarband” (The peoples of the Soviet Union) and “Af rushtovanyes fun sotsyalistisher boyung” (On the scaffolding of socialist construction); as well as translations from Russian, Byelorussian, and Ukrainian. She also wrote under such pen names as: M. Margoline and Margol, among others.

Sources: M. L. (Litvakov), in Der emes (Moscow) (March 12, 1923); 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), pp. 227-28.]