David Bergelson

David Bergelson with his son Lew (Berlin, 1922)

David Rafailowitsch Bergelson ( Russian Давид Рафаилович Бергельсон , Yiddish Dovid Bergelson דוד בערגעלסאָן, eingedeutscht David Bergel son ; * 12 August 1884 in Ochrimowo , Kiev Governorate , Russian Empire ; † 12 or 13. August 1952 in Moscow , Soviet Union ) was a Yiddish Soviet novelist with a realistic-social direction. Bergelson was executed in the Lubyanka during the last Stalinist "purge" in the so-called " Night of the Murdered Poets ", Russian: Ночь казнённых поэтов .

Bergelson was born in Okhrimovo, today's Sarny in Monastyryschtsche Rajon of the Ukrainian Cherkassy Oblast . In novels, short stories and dramas he described the incursion of modern times into the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe and the hopelessness of many Jews with harsh and previously unknown subjectivity, and in his works he also dealt with the Bolshevik revolution, and later also with the persecution of the Jews.

His novel The End of the Song is considered a masterpiece of Impressionist narrative literature.

Life

David Bergelson's father was an educated Hasid and his mother studied Yiddish literature intensively . David received traditional lessons in cheder and, in addition, a secular education. His first stories are still entirely based on Chekhov's model . Bergelson initially wrote in Hebrew and Russian , but literary success did not materialize until he began to write in his mother tongue, Yiddish , with the novel Arum wogsal, which he had produced at his own expense.

Bergelson was in Kiev in 1917 among the founding directors of the Yiddish Culture League and editor of the literary magazines Ojfgang and Ejgnß .

In 1920, consciously turning away from communism, he moved the center of his life to Berlin , but as one of the best-known and probably best-paid Yiddish writers of the 1920s, he traveled a lot in Europe and also visited the United States and from around 1925 wrote for the New York Yiddish Forverts . In Berlin, Bergelson was co-editor of the Milgroim and Schpan magazines .

In 1926 he returned to Russia from exile in Berlin after publicly declaring his anti-communist attitude to be a mistake. During this time, Yiddish culture received a great deal of attention and conscious promotion by the state, so that Bergelson believed that the Soviet Union , together with Poland, would soon overtake the United States as the center of Yiddish art and culture, which was perceived as “assimilatory”. From this time on he also wrote for newspapers in the communist Yiddish press. B. Morgn Frajhajt in New York or Emeß ("Truth") in Moscow . The enthusiasm did not last long, however, and Bergelson returned to Berlin and stayed until Hitler came to power , which prompted him to return to the Soviet Union. There he became a supporter of the Jewish-Autonomous Republic of Birobidzhan and was also a member of the Jewish-Antifascist Committee during World War II .

Nevertheless, he was arrested in January 1949, tried - presumably in secret - and three and a half years later, as part of the anti-Semitic campaign against “ rootless cosmopolitans ”, he was found along with around thirty other Jewish personalities, including the 13 most prominent Yiddish poets , Musician and actor, executed - and only rehabilitated after Stalin's death. In 1961 the Soviet Union brought out an edition of his works.

Works (selection)

• Arum wogsal, Warsaw 1909 (successful novella from the merchant's life, which provoked enthusiastic articles in the Yiddish press; German "Rings um den Bahnhof", Berlin 1922)
• Noch alemen ("After all"), 1913 (novel; considered his best work; German by Alexander Eliasberg under the title: Das Ende vom Lied, Berlin 1923; describes the generation of transition who lost the old traditions, but nothing Has gained something new, for example in the dreary life of "Mirel Hurwitz", who like many of her friends, unsatisfied with her world, takes refuge in a dream world and finds herself bored in her fate instead of doing anything ...; entitled When All Is said and Done )
• In fartunklte zajtn, Kiev 1917 (novel)
• Ejgenß, Kiev 1918 (compilation, editor)
• Opgang ("Departure"), Berlin 1922 (novel)
• Fajwelß geschichtn, woodcuts and lithographs by Lasar Segall , in Yiddish first Wostock, Berlin 1923. In Yiddish and in German translation contained in: David Bergelson, Lejb Kwitko, Peretz Markisch, Ber Smoliar : Der Galaganer Hahn. Yiddish children's books from Berlin, Yiddish and German, from Yidd. transfer and ed. by Andrej Jendrusch, Ed. DODO, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-934351-06-9
• Schturemteg ("Stormy Days"), Kiev 1927 (collection of short stories)
• Weltojß - Weltajn, Warsaw 1928 (collection of short stories)
• Midas hadin, Moscow 1928 (novel)
• Bam Dnjepr ("Beim Dnjepr") (2 vols.), 1932 and 1936 (educational novel, partly autobiographical)
• Naje Derzejlungen ("New Reports"), 1947 (War Reports)

Expenses (selection)

• Selected works, 4 vols., Berlin 1922
• Selected works, 1 vol., Moscow 1961
• Roman: The End of the Song (German 1965)

Literature (selection)

• Joseph Sherman, Gennady Estraikh (Ed.): David Bergelson: from modernism to socialist realism. Legenda, Leeds / London 2007, ISBN 978-1-905981-12-0 .
• Avraham Novershtern: Bergelson, Dovid . In: Gershon David Hundert (Ed.): The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. Yale University Press, New Haven 2008 / YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York 2010.
• Ruth Wisse, Joseph Sherman: Bergelson, David. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 418f.

Web links

Commons : David Bergelson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Boris Sandler: David Bergelson . Section Tog Tog bay of the Jewish Daily Forward of 12 August 2015 (in Yiddish with English subtitles)
• Digital copies of Bergelson's works at archive.org
• Text (bilingual in transcribed Yiddish and German) and setting of the story Tsvey rotskhim ("Two Murderers")