MOYSHE
(MIKHAIL) PINTSHEVSKI (March 1, 1894-1955)
He was born in Telenești,
Bessarabia. Until age sixteen he
received a fervently religious education, and thereafter he studied in the
yeshiva of Khayim Tshernovitser (Chaim Czernowitzer) in Odessa. In 1912 he left Russia and traveled on a
vessel (on which he worked in the steam room) carrying merchants to Hamburg. From Hamburg he made his way to
Argentina. He lived there until
1920. He worked initially as an
unskilled laborer in Buenos Aires, for a short time as a teacher in a Jewish
colony, and later (until mid-1921) he wandered around the Argentinian pampas,
the Brazilian wasteland, and the uninhabited domains of South America with his
friend Abe Kliger, also a poet. He later
returned to Europe, lived for a time in Germany, Belgium, Romania, and
Bessarabia, and from there in late 1922 he arrived in the Soviet Union, where
he initially settled down in Moscow but soon moved to Kharkov and from there to
Kiev. His first published writings
(under the pen name Ben-Sara) were Hebrew-language children’s poems in Sh.
Levner’s Haperaḥim
(The fruits) in Lugansk (1911) and in Sh. Ben-Tsiyon’s Moledet (Homeland) in Odessa (1912). In Argentina he switched to Yiddish. He debuted in print in Yiddish with a poem in
the collection Shtrahln (Beams [of
light]) in Buenos Aires (1913), and he went on to publish articles, stories,
feature pieces (also using the pseudonym Telenester Avezhera) in such serials,
among others, as: Unzer vort (Our word)
(1913), Tog (Day) (1914), Idishe tsaytung (Jewish newspaper), and Di prese (The press) in Buenos Aires; Di feder (The pen) and Tsukunft (Future) in New York; Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper), Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves),
and Varshe (Warsaw), in a poetry
competition of 1922 he received first prize for his “Lid fun soykher” (Song of
the businessman)—in Warsaw; in the Soviet Union his first poems and children’s
stories appeared in Pyoner (Pioneer)
in Moscow and Yunge gvardye (Young
guard) in Kharkov, and he later contributed to numerous Yiddish publications
there. His true métier was as a
playwright. In book form: Tsvit, lider (Blossom, poetry) (Buenos
Aires, 1918), 131 pp.; Farfalen
(Doomed), stories (Buenos Aires, 1919); Fir
poemes (Four poems) (Kharkov, 1930), 213 pp.; Far kinder (For children), poems and stories (Kharkov, 1930), 97
pp.; Far der bine (For the stage),
one-act plays (Moscow, 1930), 112 pp.; Gedekte
kortn (Covered cards), three-act review (Kharkov, 1930), 96 pp., which
played for two years in the Kharkov State Yiddish Theater; Git dem forhang, komedye in eyn akt (Get the curtain, a comedy in
one act) (Berdichev, 1931), 30 pp.; Lider
fun tog (Poems of the day) (Kharkov, 1932), 131 pp.; Undzere kinder, lider (Our children, poems) (Minsk, 1933), 97 pp.; Dos lebn un der toyt fun vilyam sven, poeme
(The life and death of William Sven, a poem) (Kiev, 1935), 270 pp.; Der botshan (The stork), a play-story
for very young children (Kharkov, 1935), 43 pp., from which the Bolshoi Theater
created a children’s ballet which became part of its repertoire for over two
decades; Eldorado, a pyese-maysele far
kinder vegn (El Dorado, a play-story for children), six scenes (Kiev,
1936), 51 pp.; Kolya (Kolya), a play
(Kiev, 1937), 80 pp., which played in the Kiev State Yiddish Theater; Fun friling biz friling (From spring to
spring), poetry (Kharkov, 1938), 174 pp.; Di
gliklekhe, vos hobn derlebt (The happy ones who survived), stories (Kiev,
1938), 130 pp.; Geklibene lider, poemes
un mayselekh (Selected poems and stories) (Kiev, 1940), 300 pp.; Di legende vegn di sokoln (The legend of
the falcons), poetry (Kiev, 1941), 158 pp.; Dos
lenin-bliml, mayselekh far kleyn un far groys (The Lenin flower, stories
for young and old) (Kiev, 1941), 103 pp.; Ikh
leb (I am alive), a drama in three acts (Moscow, 1947), 96 pp., performed
in the war years at the Kiev State Yiddish Theater, in Kokand (1946-1948), and
in the survivors’ camps in Germany; Der
lets (The clown), a play; and the tragi-comedy Traybt aroys der sheyd (Expel the devil), which played in Yiddish
theaters. He was also the author of Kinder-balet (Children’s ballet),
performed first in the Moscow academy theater in 1933, and until the war in
Yiddish children’s theaters in the Soviet Union. When the mass arrests began in 1937 he too was
arrested, but a year later he was allowed to return home. Following the Nazi invasion of the USSR, he was
evacuated to Alma-Ata in Soviet Central Asia, where he lived until 1944. He then returned to Ukraine. He lived in Romania and Bessarabia
(1945-1946)—among other items, he wrote at this time the Holocaust poems:
“Klog-lid af telenetsh” (Dirge for Telenești) and “Der besaraber yid” (The
Bessarabian Jew). He then returned and
settled in Kharkov again and, during the murderous Stalinist actions against
Yiddish writers and the liquidation of Jewish culture, in 1948 he was arrested
and exiled to a forced labor camp in the Far East, where he suffered
terribly. He was released from
the Gulag in 1955, spent physically and spiritually, and returned to Kiev where
he died that year.
Sources:
Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; Zalmen
Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater),
vol. 3 (New York, 1959); Shmuel Niger, in Tsukunft
(New York) (February 1930); Y. Botoshanski, in Tsukunft (August 1931); Botoshanski, in Algemeyne entsiklopedye (General encyclopedia), vol. 5 (New York,
1957), p. 379; M. Khashtshevatski, in Royte
velt (Kharkov) (August 1931); Yashe Bronshteyn, Sheferishe
problemen fun der yidisher sovetisher poezye (Creative problems in Soviet
Yiddish poetry) (Minsk, 1936); Sh. Rozhanski, Dos yidishe gedrukte vort in
argentina (The published Yiddish word in Argentina), vol. 1 (Buenos Aires,
1941), see index; A. Kushnirov, in Naye
prese (Paris) (July 27, 1945), pp. 39-42; Nakhmen Mayzil, Dos yidishe
shafn un der yidisher shrayber in sovetnfarband (Jewish creation and the
Jewish writer in the Soviet Union) (New York, 1959), see index; Chone Shmeruk,
comp., Pirsumim yehudiim
babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union,
1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1961), see index; Y. Gar and F. Fridman, Biblyografye
fun yidishe bikher vegn khurbn un gvure (Bibliography of Yiddish books
concerning the Holocaust and heroism) (New York, 1962); Sovetish heymland (Moscow) (March 1964).
Khayim Leyb Fuks
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 430; and 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. 280-82.]
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