Mani Leib

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Mani Leib before 1918

Mani Leib (* 20th December 1883 in Nizhyn , Russian Empire , now Ukraine ; † 4. October 1953 in New York ; Yiddish מאַני לייב, real name Mani Leib Brahinsky ) was a Yiddish speaking poets of modernity . He belonged to the Di Yunge group, an avant-garde group of Yiddish poets and writers in New York in the first half of the 20th century.

life and work

Title page of the volume of poetry Lider from 1918
Title page of the children's book Yingl Tsingl Khvat from 1918
Title page of Vunder iber Vunder from 1930

Mani Leib was born in Ukraine in 1883 and was involved in revolutionary circles against the tsarist regime as a young man. After being incarcerated for his socialist activities, he emigrated to the United States in 1905 . He was a shoemaker and boat builder by trade and worked in New York shoe factories even after he had become a well-known poet. Because of the poor working conditions there, he fell ill with tuberculosis.

Mani Leib, who took his pseudonym with no surname when he started writing, began his poetic career translating Russian and Ukrainian poetry for the Yiddish daily Forward . His own writing was influenced by the ideals of the Russian symbolists whom he translated. Like his Russian and Eastern European role models, Mani Leib also wrote poems and short prose for children, including his classic Yingl Tsingl Khvat, which was illustrated by the Russian avant-garde master El Lissitzky . In his most productive year, 1918, he edited eleven collections of his poems. In 1925 he was co-editor with Zishe Landau and Reuben Iceland of the anthology Insel, the main anthology of the literary group Di Yunge . After his death, his poems and ballads were published in several collective editions.

Mani Leib advocated a new, formal complexity in modern Yiddish poetry. Completely renouncing social issues, he wrote poems with high formal demands, which are permeated with a belief in the ability of art to compensate for human suffering. His “sound poems” gave the Yiddish language new attention through the artful use of alliterations and assonances .

Mani Leib's poems were included in the curricula of Yiddish schools early on, which became one of the reasons for his great popularity. In addition, he became known beyond the borders of the Yiddish-speaking readership; many of his poems have been translated into English and other languages.

literature

  • H. Bass: Mani Leib: Monografye . ha-Menorah, Tel-Aviv 1978. (PDF at www.archive.org ; PDF file; 2.40 MB)
  • Ruth Wisse: Little Love in Big Manhattan: Two Yiddish Poets . Harvard University Press, Harvard 1988, ISBN 0-674-53659-2 .

Works (selection)

  • Idishe and slavish motifs . Ferlag Inzel, 1918
  • The stranger: the shlof . Together with Zuni Moud, Ferlag Inzel, 1918
  • Dos lidel fun broyt: Dray malokhim and others . together with Zuni Moud, Ferlag Inzel, 1918
  • Eyelids . Farlag Inzel, 1918
  • Balades . Ferlag Inzel, 1918
  • Literary zamelbikher. the Inzel. seen bukh . With David Kazanski. Ferlag Inzel, 1918
  • Yingl Tsingl Khvat . Yidisher Folksfarlag, Kiev / Petersburg 1918/19, ISBN 0-918825-52-0
  • Vunder iber vunder . 1930
  • David Ignatoff: finf-un-tsvantsik yor literarisher shafn . With I. Rosenfeld, Verlag M. Ceshinsky, 1935
  • Eyes and baladn . 2 volumes. Aroysgegebn fun Mani Leyb bukh-komitet baym Alveltlekhn yidishn culture congresses durkhn Tsiko bikher-farlag, 1955 (posthumous)
  • Sonetn . 1961 (posthumously)
  • Briv 1918–1953: Mani Leyb tsu Roshel Veprinski. Correspondence with Roshelle Weprinsky. Farlag Y. L. Perets, 1980

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mani Leib ( English ) National Yiddish Book Center . 2010. Archived from the original on June 1, 2011. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 29, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.yiddishbookcenter.org
  2. ↑ See biography and work: Sol Liptzin, Alisa Braun: Mani Leib. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica (Second Edition). New York et al. a .: Thomson Gale, Volume 13, 2007, p. 470, ISBN 0-02-865941-4 .
  3. ↑ Yingl Tsingl Khvat - Book Detail ( English ) National Yiddish Book Center Bookstore. 2010. Retrieved January 29, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Body, Mani
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brahinsky, Mani Leib (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yiddish poet
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Nizhyn , Ukraine
DATE OF DEATH 4th October 1953
Place of death new York