Jacob Gordin

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Jacob Gordin

Jakob Gordin (also Jakob Michailowitsch Gordin, Jacob Gordin, Yiddish: יעקבֿ גאָרדין Jankew Gordin; born May 1, 1853 in Mirgorod , Poltava Governorate ; † June 11, 1909 in New York ) was a Yiddish author , he wrote over 70 plays and was the most played author on Yiddish stages in the USA . He was the first to write realistic dramas in Yiddish. After Gordin, in America we have two strands of "serious" and "entertaining" Yiddish theater. Many Yiddish films were also made from his plays.

Life

Jakob Gordin was born in 1853 to a Jewish family in Myrhorod in what is now the Ukraine . From 1870 he published short stories in various Russian-language newspapers. He worked as a farmer and shipyard worker in Odessa , as an actor, teacher, socialist agitator and journalist.

In 1879 he founded the Biblical Brotherhood in Elisabethgrad , a movement that moved away from Orthodox Judaism , tried to follow Tolstoy's religious ideas and propagated a return to physical work.

In July 1891 he emigrated to the USA and wrote for Russian newspapers there. He tried unsuccessfully to build a colony on a communist basis. After getting to know the Yiddish theater director Jacob Adler and the important actor Sigmund Mogulescu , he began to write in the Yiddish language and for the Yiddish theater.

Jakob Gordin was the first to write realistic dramas for Yiddish stages. Until then, plays by Abraham Goldfaden and others were performed there that had produced the Yiddish theater but did not take into account the real life of the Jewish world.

In addition, he worked on a large number of the most excellent European dramas, often setting their plot in a Jewish milieu. Great successes were u. a. Der Yidischer kenig Lier (1892) based on Shakespeare (transfer of the theme of ungrateful children to a generation conflict between traditionally thinking and living parents and their Americanized children), Mirele Efros (1898) and Got, mentsch un tajwl (1900) based on Goethe's Faust . Gordin adapted Lessing's Nathan the Wise , Schiller's Cabal and Love , dramas by Ibsen , Molière , and created theatrical versions of stories by Tolstoy , Gogol and others.

He also wrote essays on dramaturgical and acting questions and thus contributed a lot to the elevation of Jewish acting.

Together with Jacob Adler, he temporarily ran a theater that mainly staged his own plays.

Gordin died in New York in 1909. Since 1912, Gordin's plays have also appeared in Russian translation and have been performed with great success on Russian stages. From 1911 onwards, his dramas were the basis for many Yiddish films.

Works (selection)

Poster for Der idische kenig Lier 1898
  • Ernani , 1886 (after Victor Hugo )
  • Siberia , 1892 (his first drama, a realistic play from the Jewish present)
  • The great socialist , 1892
  • Freedom , 1892 (his first piece in America that was immediately crowned with success)
  • The idische kenig Lier , 1892 (after Shakespeare)
  • Mohammed and the Jews in Arabia , 1894 (historical opera)
  • Egel Hasahaw, the golden god , 1895
  • The wild king , 1896 (fantastic opera)
  • Auditor , 1896 (after Gogol )
  • Medea , 1896 (after Grillparzer )
  • Nathan the Wise , 1897 (after Lessing)
  • Selig Itzik der Fidler , 1897 (based on Schiller's Cabal and Love )
  • Mirele Efros , 1898 (his most important and at the same time most popular piece)
  • Luria brothers , 1898
  • The orphan , 1898
  • The wild man , 1898
  • Captain Dreyfuss , 1898
  • Got, mentsch un teiwl , 1900 (after Goethe's Faust)
  • The beautiful Mirjam , 1900
  • The oath , 1900 (based on Hauptmanns Fuhrmann Henschel )
  • Kreutzer Sonata , 1902 (after Tolstoy)
  • The Ez Hadaath , 1902
  • Chasie the Jesoime , 1903
  • The Pelishtim , 1904
  • Rosa Berndt , 1904 (after Hauptmann)
  • The Unknown , 1905
  • Mina , 1906
  • Elisha ben Abuja , 1906
  • The Children of the Sun by Gorky , 1906 (translation)
  • The Stranger , 1906 (romantic drama)
  • On the mountain , 1907
  • Without a home , 1907
  • Goluth Galicia , 1908
  • The Meschigaath in America , 1908
  • The Auntie of Warsaw , 1910 (comedy)

Expenses (selection)

  • Jacob Gordins one-acters , New York 1907
  • Ale script fun Jakob Gordin , 4 vols., New York 1910
  • Jakob Gordin's Dramas , 2 vols., New York 1911

literature

  • Travel , Leksikon fun der yidisher literature , 1914
  • B. Gorin, History of Yiddish Theater , New York 1918
  • Eugen Tannenbaum, article Jakob Gordin. In: Jüdisches Lexikon Vol. II., Berlin 1927
  • Beth Kaplan: Finding the Jewish Shakespeare: the life and legacy of Jacob Gordin , Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-8156-0884-4
  • Barbara Henry: Rewriting Russia: Jacob Gordin's Yiddish drama , Seattle, Wash. [u. a.]: Univ. of Washington Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-295-99133-7
  • Nina Warnke: Sibirya. In: Dan Diner (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Jewish History and Culture (EJGK). Volume 5: Pr-Sy. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-02505-0 , pp. 487-492.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edna Nahshon: The Yiddish Theater in America. A Brief historical Overview. In: Zachary M. Baker: The Lawrence Marwick Collection of Copyrighted Yiddish Plays at The Library of Congress. An Annotated Bibliography. Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 2004, p. XIII.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gordin, Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gordin, Jacob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yiddish writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Mirgorod
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1909
Place of death New York City