BORIS KLETSKIN

BORIS KLETSKIN (May 5, 1875-September 17, 1937)

            He was a book publisher, born in Horodishtsh (Gorodishche), Byelorussia.  He came from an aristocratic, wealthy family which moved to Vilna in 1885.  He was one of the founders of the “Zhargonishe komitetn” (Jargon [Yiddish] committees) to disseminate Yiddish literature among Jewish laborers, establish libraries, and publish popular scientific and fictional pamphlets and books.  He was active in the Bund, helped establish its periodicals Veker (Alarm) and Folkstsaytung (People’s newspaper) and the press “Di velt” (The world).  Around 1910 he founded the Vilna publisher B. A. Kletskin, which took over the monthly Di yudishe velt (The Jewish world) and published Der pinkes (The record) in 1912 and the first Yiddish children’s magazine, Di grininke beymelekh (Little green trees).  During WWI he lived in various cities, returning to Vilna in 1919, and he revived the interrupted work of the press which in 1925 was transferred to Warsaw.  There he published Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Yidishe teater (Yiddish theater) edited by M. Vaykhert, and the revived (1928) Di yudishe velt.  In the 1920s and 1930s, Kletskin Publishers brought out hundreds of Yiddish works of fiction and scholarship, as well as translations from world literature.  “Kletskin financed Yiddish literature,” wrote Meylekh Ravitsh, “and at times with such ease that it seemed as though he maintained it all himself.”  He died in Vilna.

Kletskin (left) with Jakub Dinezon

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 3; Meylekh Ravitsh, in Literarishe bleter (Warsaw) (November 27, 1936), in a series of articles; Vilner tog (Vilna) (September 19, 1937); Zusman Segalovitsh, Tlomatske 13, fun farbrente nekhtn (13 Tłomackie St., of zealous nights) (Buenos Aires: Central Association of Polish Jews in Argentina, 1946), p. 124; Y. Sh. Herts, Doyres bundistn (Generations of Bundists), vol. 3 (New York, 1968); Yeshurin archive, YIVO (New York).

Yekhezkl Lifshits