RUVN REYZIN (1911-1942)
He was a
poet, born in London, England, where his parents had emigrated from Byelorussia,
though shortly after his birth, they returned and settled in Minsk. He wrote his given name as “Ruve.” In his youth he was left an orphan on both
sides. He traveled through the towns of
Byelorussia with an old barrel organ, later growing up in the Slutsk children’s
home. From 1929 he was living in
Minsk. He worked as a painter and
studied in an evening “Rabfak” (workers’ department or faculty). In 1938 he graduated from the Jewish section
of the Minsk pedagogical institute which he had entered in 1933. Drafted in 1940 into the army, he composed an
entire cycle of poems. In 1942 he was
killed at the Nazi-Soviet front. From
1927 he was publishing poetry in: Yunger
arbeter (Young worker), Oktyabr
(October), and the journal Shtern
(Star) in Minsk, among other serials.
His work also appeared in: Atake
(Attack) (1934), Sovetishe vaysrusland
(Soviet Byelorussia) (1935), and Di
bafrayte brider (The liberated brothers) (1939)—all in Minsk. His work includes: Durkh mi un prates (Through toil and labor), poems (Minsk: State
Publ., 1934), 77 pp.; A gezang vegn der
groyser khartye, poeme (A song about the great charter, poem) (Minsk: State
Publ., 1936); Lider (Poems) (Minsk:
State Publ., 1940), 54 pp.; “Mit mayn vzvod” (With my platoon), poetry cycle in
the anthology Lire (Lyre) (Moscow,
1985). His poetry reflects his very
difficult childhood years.
Sources: Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications
in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index; Heymland (Moscow) 5 (1948); Yeshurin
archive, YIVO (New York).
Khayim Maltinski
[Additional
information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon
fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New
York, 1986), col. 553; 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. 365-66.]
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