NEKHEMYE SHMAIN (SHMAYIN)

NEKHEMYE SHMAIN (SHMAYIN) (1906-1943)

            He was a playwright and actor, born in Kamenaya (Kamiana), near Belaya Tserkov (Bila Tserkva), Ukraine.  He performed in the Kiev Yiddish children’s theater, and he later also directed Yiddish theater performances there.  He died during WWII at the front in a battle near Lozansk (Lozanskoye), Kharkov district, Ukraine.  His published plays include: Eynakters far der bine (One-act plays for the stage) (Minsk: State Publ., 1935), 40 pp.; Der dnyeper dertseylt, tripolyer tragedye (The Dnieper [River] recounts, a triple tragedy), “a play in three acts and nine scenes” (Kiev-Kharkov: Ukrainian state publishers for national minorities, 1937), 24 pp.; A gast (A guest), “a play in one act” (Kiev-Kharkov: USSR state publishers for national minorities, 1937), 24 pp.; Der zeyde un di eyniklekh (The grandfather and the grandchildren) (Kiev: USSR state publishers for national minorities, 1937), 24 pp.; Bam ofenem forhang (By the open curtain), three one-act plays (Kiev: USSR state publishers for national minorities, 1939), 68 pp.; Kantonistn, tragedye in dray aktn (Recruits, a tragedy in three acts), with Fayvl Sito (Kiev: State publishers for national minorities of the USSR, 1940), 95 pp.  He also dramatized Mendele’s Der priziv (The conscript) (Kharkov, 1927), 62 pp.

Sources: Zalmen Zilbertsvayg, Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Handbook of the Yiddish theater), vol. 5 (Mexico City, 1966); Chone Shmeruk, comp., Pirsumim yehudiim babrit-hamoatsot, 1917-1961 (Jewish publications in the Soviet Union, 1917-1961) (Jerusalem, 1962), see index.

Berl Cohen

[Additional information from: 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), p. 387.]