SHLOYME
MIKHOELS (March 16, 1890-January 13, 1948)
He was born Shloyme Vofsi in Dvinsk
(Daugavpils), Latvia, to a father who was a timber
merchant and landlord. At age four he
began attending religious elementary school, later studying at home with his
own teacher. From his earliest youth, he
drew, wrote poetry, and also composed a play which he staged with friends for
his family and relatives. In 1905 he
moved with his family to Riga, where in 1908 he graduated from a senior high
school, but because numbers of Jewish students exceeded the allowed percentage,
he was unable to continue studying and became a tutor in the Russian
language. In 1910 he entered a private
business school in Kiev, from which he was soon expelled for his part in
student unrest following the death of Lev Tolstoy. Over the years 1915-1918, he studied in the
law faculty at St. Petersburg University.
In 1919 he joined Alexander Granovski’s Yiddish theatrical studio
(later, “Moscow Chamber Theater”). He
debuted on stage in Maurice Maeterlinck’s Di
blinde (The blind [original: Les
Aveugles]), and he performed in Sholem Asch’s Der zindiker (The sinner) and later in the title role of Uriel akosta (Uriel Acosta). Over the years 1920-1927, he played the lead
roles in works by Sholem-Aleichem, Y. L. Perets, Avrom Goldfaden, and A.
Vayter. He particularly excelled in the
role of Benyomen in Mendele’s Masoes benyomen
hashlishi (The travel of Benjamin III), which he performed with B.
Ziskin. In 1928 he went with the Chamber
Theater on a tour of Europe. He staged
(1929-1932): Dovid Bergelson’s Der toyber
(The deaf man), Perets Markish’s Nit
gedayget (Don’t worry about it!), Y. Dobrushin’s Der gerikht geyt (The trial is on), and other
plays by Soviet Yiddish playwrights. In
1933 he took over the leadership of the Moscow Yiddish State Theater (formerly,
“Chamber Theater”). He later made a
great impression with his staging of Shakespeare’s King Lear in Yiddish. He was
the organizer and chair of the “Anti-Fascist Committee,” founded in Moscow
after the German invasion of Soviet Russia.
He was co-editor of Eynikeyt
(Unity) in 1942 in Kuibyshev. He was
also at that time in Uzbekistan in Central Asia, where he accomplished a
considerable amount in raising the level of Uzbeki theater. In June 1943, he and Itzik Fefer went abroad
on assignment from the Anti-Fascist Committee.
They gave speeches in England, Canada, Mexico, and the United
States. At the Polo Grounds in New York,
he spoke before tens of thousands of Jews about German crimes committed against
the Jewish people. Already in 1926 he
had received the title “Distinguished Artist of the State Academic Theater.” He acted in such Yiddish-language films as: Yidishe glikn (Jewish luck) and Neyten beker kumt aheym (Nathan Baker
comes home); and he adapted texts for the stage and wrote a great deal for the
theater. He also contributed articles
to: Eynikeyt in Moscow, Naye prese (new press) in Paris, and
other serials. In the anthology Yidn in sss״r (Jews in the USSR) (Moscow, 1935), he wrote (with Y.
Dobrushin) “Yidishe teater-kultur in ratnfarband” (Yiddish theatrical culture
in the Soviet Union). Into Yiddish he
translated Lenin’s Di valn in der
grindungs-farzamlung un di diktatur funem proletaryat (The election at the
founding meeting and the dictatorship of the proletariat [original: Vybory v
Uchreditelʹnoe Sobranie i Diktatura Proletariata]) (St. Petersburg, 1920), 47 pp. He edited Eynaktors
(One-act plays) by various authors, with directorial comments (Moscow, 1940),
207 pp. On Mikhoels’s artistic
personality, books in Russian, Yiddish, and other languages have been
published. In the Yiddish press throughout
the world, a great many articles were written about the highly secretive circumstances
surrounding his death. Numerous
newspapers conjectured that he was murdered in or near Minsk. A second conjecture claimed that he must have
been murdered in Moscow.[1] To his funeral in Moscow came tens of
thousands of ordinary folks and intellectuals.
In 1962 the city administration of Tel Aviv named a square after
Mikhoels. His wife, Anastasia
Pototskaia, left behind a Russian-language volume about her husband.
Sources:
Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish
theater), vol. 2 (New York, 1934), with a bibliography; P. Markish, in Der shtern (Minsk) (March 1937);
Markish, in Eynikeyt (Moscow)
(January 17, 1948); Y. Dobrushin, Mikhoels
der aktyor (Mikhoels the actor) (Moscow, 1940), 125 pp.; H. Leivick, in Der tog (New York) (July 25, 1943);
Dovid Pinski, in Morgn-zhurnal (New
York) (September 19, 1943); Ida Shagal, in Naye
prese (Paris) (February 28, 1948); Dovid Bergelson, in Eynikeyt (April 3, 1948); Y. Leftvitsh, in Fraye arbeter-shtime (New York) (January 30, 1953; June 9, 1953);
M. Yarblum, in Unzer vort (Paris)
(May 2, 1953; May 5, 1953); Bolshaia
sovetskaia entsiklopedia (Great Soviet encyclopedia) (Moscow, 1954); M.
Vaykhert, Zikhroynes, vol. 2: Varshe (Memoirs, vol. 2: Warsaw) (Tel
Aviv, 1960/1961), see index; A. Shteynberg, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 43 (1962), pp. 142-52; A. Sutskever, in Di goldene keyt 43 (1962), pp. 153-69; Chone
Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim
babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union,
1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index; Anastasia Pototskaia, in Al hamishmar (Tel Aviv) (January 11,
1963); Afrikaner idishe tsaytung
(Johannesburg) (February 8, 1963).
Benyomen Elis
[1] Translator’s note. We now know that he was murdered
in Minsk by State Security agents on orders from Stalin. (JAF)
No comments:
Post a Comment