ITSIK FEFER (ITZIK FEFFER) (September
23, 1900[1]-August
12, 1952)
Poet,
playwright, and essayist, he was born in Shpola, Kiev region, Ukraine. His
father was a teacher and a great influence on the education of his talented
son. At age twelve he began working in a print shop. For a time in his youth,
he joined the Bund. During the Soviet civil war, he volunteered to join the Red
Army. He directed underground work in Kiev during the period of Denikin’s rule,
was arrested and thrown in jail, and was barely saved from certain death. In
1919 he joined the Communist Party, and he held a number of Party posts. He
began writing poetry when quite young. He debuted in print in 1919 with a poem
in the Kiev newspaper Komunistishe fon
(Communist banner). In subsequent years, he published poetry, plays, polemics,
and articles on writers and literature in newspapers, magazines, almanacs, and
the like in: Yugnt (Youth), Naye tsayt (New times), Barg aruf (Uphill), Folks-tsaytung (People’s newspaper), Komunistishe fon, Shtern
(Star), Ukraine (Ukraine), Proletarishe fon (Proletarian banner), Shtrom (Current), Farmest (Competition), Prolit
(Proletarian literature), Di royte velt
(The red world), Af barikadn (At the
barricades), Sovetishe literatur
(Soviet literature), Almanakh fun yidishe
sovetishe shrayber (Almanac of Soviet Yiddish writers), and Shlakhtn (Battles), among others, in
Kiev-Kharkov; Oktyabr (October) and Der shtern (The star), among others, in
Minsk; Nayerd (New land), In iberboy (Under reconstruction), Komyug (Communist youth), Far der bine (Before the stage), Sovetishe dikhtung (Soviet poetry), Lomir zingen (Let’s sing), Heymland (Homeland), and Eynikeyt (Unity), among others, in
Moscow; Literarishe bleter (Literary
leaves) in Warsaw; and Frayhayt
(Freedom), Hamer (Hammer), Yidishe kultur (Jewish culture), and Af naye vegn (Along new roads), among
others, in New York. At one time or another, he edited: Prolit, Farmest, and Sovetishe literatur. Many of his works
were republished in various newspapers and magazines throughout the entire
Yiddish world. Fefer was one of the leaders of the Kiev writers’ group
“Vidervuks” (New growth), from whose publishing house appeared his first
collection of poetry, Shpener (Chips)
in 1922: “which expresses,” wrote Zalmen Reyzen, “the youthful, singing joy of
the new generation of Soviet Yiddish poets. In his subsequent development, he
and Izi Kharik stood at the head of this group of Yiddish poets in the Soviet
Union, who turned to the shtetl and introduced into Yiddish poetry a new folk
sensibility.” In 1924 he brought out his volume Vegn zikh un azoyne vi ikh (About me and those like me), which was warmly received by the critics,
including the harshest of them, Moyshe Litvakov.
He was new type of poet
of the Revolution, a new type of artist of the popular masses. He celebrated
the collective, the regular guys, the “fair-haired Communist youth of the
village and the town.” His buddies were the simple local gang, like his “Yosl
Shinder,” his “Elye,” the village girls “with a pistol at the hip.” He created
his first works about protagonists of this sort. These were typical poetic
creations of revolutionary romanticism. In his poems of the 1920s and 1930s, he
glimpsed the “manure in bloom,” the new condition of the new shtetl, the
intertwining of old and new in the first years of NEP (New Economic Policy). He
also saw tomorrow’s day that evolved of today’s: “With axe and hammer, my
brothers ring, and axe and hammer are waiting now for me.” In subsequent years,
he switched to the topic of industrialization, to “Dnieper construction,” to
the mine whence young people from the towns formed a current. Three of his poetic
works—Gefunene funken (Discovered
sparks), Plastn (Layers), and Groyse grenetsn
(Great borders)—embraced the principal moments of his works in the late
1920s through the beginning of WWII.
In
1926 he was a research student in the literature section of the Yiddish
department in the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He gave the inaugural address
at the All-Ukrainian Conference of Jewish Proletarian Writers (December 21,
1927) in Kharkov. He often gave public speeches and lectures before thousands
of laborers in large halls and factories, and throughout virtually all the
years of his writing career, he was energetically involved at every literary
and ideological front line. In name he was almost always linked to all Jewish
community and Yiddish literary events, earlier in Ukraine and later in Moscow. In
Yiddish literary centers of the Soviet Union, there was no single battle or
polemic in which he did not participate. There was in the Soviet Union
virtually no single literary journal, literary collection, or almanac of which
he was not a member of the editorial board or co-editor. On a number of
occasions, he translated from modern Ukrainian poetry well. He also adapted
Yankev Gordin’s Khasye di yesoyme (Khasye the orphan) for the stage, and it was performed in 1927 at the
Kiev State Theater under the title Koymenkerer
(Chimneysweep). A number of his poems were sung and recited by artists outside
Russia as well. Fefer brought to Soviet Yiddish literature the air of battle;
he personified a new type of poet of the revolution, a new type of artist of
the folk masses. He sang of the collective farms and of Communist youths from
villages and towns. He wrote for the masses, not just for the select, for
grandfathers and grandmothers in his “simple prose.”
His lyrical poetry grew
ever stronger and developed over time, especially in his books, Fayln af mayln (Arrows over miles) and Kraft (Force). The symptoms of the epoch are starkly expressed in his
poetry, the heated atmosphere of the times. Fefer’s popularity in the 1920s was
something simply to marvel at, although if one thinks hard about it, it is completely
understandable. Poetry satisfies in every era a spiritual need not only for select
lovers and gourmets of it, but also for hundreds of thousands of pupils and
students, and through them for fathers and mothers, grandfathers and
grandmothers, and one must approach them, first, with “ordinary language,”
folkish and with simple words, so that they may come to comprehend it in their
hearts and in their soul. In the 1920s and 1930s, it would appear, there was
not a single Yiddish-speaking boy or girl who failed to know by heart Fefer’s “Iber
shtet un derfer geyen shvartse volkns, forn af di frontn blonde komsomolkes” (Black
clouds over cities and villages, as fair-haired Communist youth go off to the front)
or “Sibir, ural, kaluge un tripolye” (Siberia, Urals, Kaluga, and Tripoli)—they
rang out in classes in schools and universities, in evenings of artistic autonomy.
Not every writer was worthy of enjoying such recognition while still alive, as
that of Itsik Fefer. And he absolutely did not exaggerate when he noted in one
of his poems: “Over the blooming breadth of Ukraine, my noisy way breathed, such
that poems no longer mine all sing my great song.”
Abroad,
whence Fefer’s verses would enthusiastically reach, he dedicated his Vunderland (Wonderland), and people
marveled at the exaggerated self-confidence. Yet how can one explain Fefer’s statement
in his poem Elyes toyt (Elye’s death): “This
country is immense with its roads / And rich in snows and with bread, / Every
field is ready for rain / Is every man prepared for death?” And this leads him (in
another poem) to say that death is standing by in the country not only for
every man but for every poetic line and every letter: “My lengths have died out,
/ Roads hidden in a cloud, / On what would a poem hang at night / And frightened
letters swing from a girder?” And it so happens that the poet of “ordinary language” was not at all that ordinary, as people thought,
and by the same token the accusation disappeared that Fefer was no genuine ethnic
poet, that he was ostensibly foreign to any ethnic sensibility. When the
murderous axe of fascism fell over the Jewish people, this same Fefer emerged with
his poem “Ikh bin a yid” (I am a Jew), which incidentally was one of the principal
accusations leveled at the poet. The years of WWII were the last stage of Fefer’s
creative work. His thinking became deeper, his imagery sharper and more penetrating,
the social pathos, linked with an ethnic motif, reached a genuinely higher
level of passion. This all developed in such writings of his as “Di shvue” (The
oath) and Shotns fun varshever geto
(Shadows of the Warsaw Ghetto). In 1939 he received the Order of Honor, and in
1941 the Order of Lenin. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he served as
secretary of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow. In June 1943,
together with Shloyme Mikhoels, he traveled around giving talks in England,
Canada, Mexico, and the United States to mobilize Jewish public opinion on
behalf of the Soviet Union in its fight against fascism. In the Polo Grounds in
New York, he spoke before several tens of thousands of people about German
crimes against the Jewish people. He lived, 1946-1947, mostly in Moscow, where
he was active in the community and as a co-editor of the newspaper Eynikeyt and the almanac Heymland. At that time, the Moscow
theater staged his new play Di zun
fargeyt nisht (The sun doesn’t set).
On
December 24, 1948, during the period of the liquidation of Yiddish culture in
the Soviet Union, he and Dovid Hofshteyn, Perets Markish, and Dovid Bergelson,
among others, were arrested and tortured for four years in the Lubyanka Prison
in Moscow. At the judgment of the military tribunal of the supreme court, he
was shot by the N.K.V.D. [Soviet secret police] on August 12, 1952.
His books would include:
Shpener (Kiev: Lirik, 1922), 32 pp.; Vegn zikh un azoyne vi ikh, poetry
(Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers, 1924), 93 pp.; Proste trit (Simple footsteps) (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1925), 64 pp.; Gezamlte verk (Collected works), vol. 1
(1925); A shayn tsu a shayn (Light to
light), poetry (Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers, 1925), 94 pp.; Gefunene funken (Kiev: Kultur-lige,
1928), 93 pp.; Elyes toyt, poeme
(Elye’s death, a poem) (Kharkov: Gezkult, 1928), 35 pp.; Geklibene verk (Selected works) (Kharkov: State Publ., 1929), 371
pp.; Mayselekh in ferzn (Stories in
verse) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publishers, 1929), 32 pp.; Shlek (Nuisances),
a revue in four scenes, with Ezra Fininberg (Kharkov: State Publ., 1930), 142
pp.; Gevetn (Wagers) (Kiev:
Kultur-lige, 1930), 239 pp.; Far groys un
kleyn (For big and small), children’s poetry (Minsk, 1930), 52
pp.; Bliendike mistn,
poeme (Manure in bloom, a poem) (Moscow: Central Publishers, 1931), 11 pp.;
Gruzye, poeme (Georgia, a poem) (Kharkov:
Literatur un kunst, 1931), 89 pp.; Plakatn
af bronze, plakatn, pamfletn, satire, noveln, lozungen, faḳtn (Placards on bronze, placards, pamphlets, satire, novellas,
slogans, facts) (Moscow: Central People’s Publishers, USSR, 1931), 117 pp.; Dos taybele un andere mayselekh (The
little dove and other stories) (Moscow: Central People’s Publishers, USSR,
1931), 40 pp.; Di oyfgabes fun der
yidisher proletarisher literatur in rekonstruktivn peryod (The tasks of
Yiddish proletarian literature in the reconstruction period), stenographic
report (Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers
for National Minorities, 1932), 55 pp.; Gezamlte verk, 1918-1925 (Kharkov:
Literatur un kunst, 1932), 230 pp.; Plastn
(Kharkov: State Publ., 1932), 182 pp., second edition (Kiev, 1934), 130 pp.; Di yidishe literatur in di kapitalistishe
lender (Yiddish literature in the capitalist countries) (Kharkov-Kiev: Ukrainian
State Publishers for National Minorities, USSR, 1933), 107 pp.; Tsvishn himl un ayz (Between sky and
ice), a poem (Kharkov, 1934), 32 pp.; Yatn
(Guys) (Kharkov: Molodoy Bolshevik, 1934), 231 pp.; Lider un poemes, 1925-1928 (Poetry, 1925-1928) (Kharkov: Literatur
un kunst, 1934), 299 pp.; Lenin in der
kinstlerisher literatur (Lenin in artistic literature), with Moyshe
Khashtshevatski (Kharkov-Kiev, 1934), 192 pp.; Lebn zol dos lebn (Let life live) (Kharkov: Ukrainian State
Publishers for National Minorities, 1934), 189 pp.; Lider (Poems) (Moscow: Emes, 1935), 140 pp., with a preface by B.
Olyevski; Mit hayntike oygn (With
contemporary eyes) (Kiev-Kharkov: Literatur un kunst, 1935), 182 pp.; Fayln af mayln (Kiev: Ukrainian State
Publishers for National Minorities, 1935), 182 pp.; Kraft (Kiev: State Publ., 1937), 274 pp., second edition (Kiev,
1941); Ba di gruzinishe yidn (With
Georgian Jews) (Kiev, 1938), 23 pp.; Dos
goldene fiksl, fantastishe poeme (The little golden fox, a fantasy poem) (Moscow:
Emes, 1938), 46 pp.; Geklibene verk
(Kiev, 1938), 282 pp.; Frages fun
sholem-aleykhems shafung (Issues drawn from the works of Sholem-Aleichem),
bulletin from the Sholem-Aleichem session of the division for social sciences
(Kiev: Academy of Sciences, Ukrainian S.S.R., 1939), 35 pp.; Groyse grenetsn, roman in ferzn (Great
borders, a novel in verse) (Kiev: State Literary Publishers, 1939), 317 pp.; Birobidzhaner lider (Birobidzhan poems)
(Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1939), 22 pp.; Geklibns (Selections), special for
school (Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, 1940), 199
pp.; Vunderland (Kiev: Ukrainian
State Publishers for National Minorities, USSR, 1940), 260 pp.; Tsen mayselekh (Ten stories) (Kiev,
1940); In a mazldike sho (Good luck!)
(Kiev: Ukrainian State Publishers for National Minorities, USSR, 1941), 182
pp.; Milkhome-balades (War ballads)
(Moscow: Emes, 1943), 63 pp.; Roytarmeyish
(Like the Red Army) (New York: IKUF, 1943), 125 pp.; Shotns fun varshever geto (New York: IKUF, 1945), 76 pp., second
edition (1963); Shayn un opshayn (Light
and reflection) (Moscow: Emes, 1946), 215 pp.; Afsnay, lider (Renewal, poems) (Moscow: Emes, 1948), 243 pp.; Lider, balades, poemes, oysderveylts
(Poems and ballads, selected) (Moscow: Sovetski pisatel, 1967), 436 pp.
In 1957 a
volume of his poetry was published in Russian in Moscow. Fefer’s work was also
represented in Shimshon Meltsar’s anthology Al
naharot (By the rivers) (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1955/1956) and other
Hebrew publications, in Shmuel Rozhanski’s Mustern
fun der yidisher literatur (Specimens of Yiddish literature) (Buenos Aires,
1965), the anthology A shpigl af a
shteyn, antologye, poezye un proze
fun tsvelf
farshnitene yidishe
shraybers in ratn-farband (A mirror on a star,
anthology, poetry and prose from twelve murdered Jewish writers in the Soviet
Union) (Tel Aviv: Di goldene keyt, 1964), and also in the journal Sovetish heymland (Soviet homeland) (Moscow)
2 (1962). “There have emerged poets in the Soviet Union,” wrote Shmuel Niger,
“for whom the revolution is not an upheaval or a break, but the natural air in
which they were raised and grew up. Poets have appeared who, if the ‘Internationale’
is not much of a lullaby, it was already the march that accompanied their first
steps as toddlers; the Red Army, the Civil War, all the forms and activities of
Communism were not topics for them, not objects to celebrate in song, but a
part of their lives, their lives themselves.” “In Yiddish poetry,” noted Yankev
Glatshteyn, “no one with such great talents has so thoroughly undressed a man
naked and given away his last shirt to the country as has Fefer…. Itzik Fefer emerges
in Soviet poetry as a young wonder with his full and lively mastery and with
his pioneering and vehement reconstruction of the moderating Yiddish word. In
truth, his abilities were tremendous, but very often he, more often than other
Soviet poet, dishonored his own talents with vulgar proclamations, because he
assumed the mission of the pious caregiver of the line and of the cruelest
interveners against the opposition…. He was highly gifted with a verse-breath
and verse-zest, a remarkable phenomenon in Yiddish poetry that, thanks to
Fefer, started to look toward a new continent conquered by Yiddish. No one made
Yiddish so convincingly Soviet as did Fefer. No one knew the contours of a new,
broken down Jew so linguistically and musically substantial, as were Fefer’s
poetry. The new Jewish Soviet personality, with its colossal and super-powerful
capacity for adjustment, was nowhere so marked as in Fefer’s elastic-verbal
poems through his thoroughly zigzag periods. Fefer was the Soviet Yiddish poet
par excellence, because he dissolved in his own chapter with which he
triumphantly opened his poem.”
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