HIRSH (GRIGORI) RIKLIN

HIRSH (GRIGORI) RIKLIN (1894-1973)

            He was a poet and prose writer, born in the village of Litovsk, Chernigov (Chernihiv) Province. In early 1918, while living in Homyel', he was contributor and later an editor of the newspaper Komunister vegn (Communist way); he was also publishing poetry, jottings, and articles in the Communist Yiddish press in Byelorussia. In 1924 he moved to Moscow and began working as a feature writer for Moscow’s Pravda (Truth) and Izvestiya (News), as well as a contributor to the satirical journal Krokodil (Crocodile) of which he was editor-in-chief (1938-1948). Using the pen name Hirshl Riklin, he placed poems in a collection of poetry which was published in 1921 in Homyel', and also contributing to it were Khayim Gitlin, Dovid Oytkes, Sonye Gurevitsh, and Ilishe Rodin. In book form: Dertseylungen vegn grenetsler (Tales of frontier guards) (Moscow: Emes, 1938), 131 pp.; Di sosnove shishke (The pine conifer) (Minsk: Byelorussian State Publishers, 1939), 26 pp. He died in Moscow.

Khayim Maltinski 

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 553; 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. 366-67.]