{"id":18036,"date":"2021-02-19T22:32:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T20:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/judaicacenter.kyiv.ua\/?page_id=18036"},"modified":"2021-03-11T00:27:07","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T22:27:07","slug":"pinchevsky","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.judaicacenter.kyiv.ua\/en\/archive\/writers\/pinchevsky\/","title":{"rendered":"Mykhailo (Moishe) Pinchevsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Inventory of the archive<\/a><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mykhailo (Moishe) Pinchevsky<\/b> (1894\u20131955) was a Yiddish poet, playwright, and translator.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mykhailo Pinchevsky was born on 1<\/span><\/i> April 1894 in the Bessarabian town of Telene\u0219ti (today a district center in Moldova) to a family of a shopkeeper. He studied in a cheder and a yeshiva in Odesa. In 1913, Pinchevsky ran away from home and went travelling after being hired as a cabin boy. He visited Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. It was then when he started to write poems in his mother tongue, Yiddish, and published his first book. In 1920, he returned to Europe, and then lived in Germany, Belgium, and Romania. Seeking a better life, he returned to his hometown (then under Romanian rule) in 1924 and after that moved to the Soviet Union.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

For some time, Mykhailo Pinchevsky lived in Moscow and then, since 1928, in Kharkiv, where he worked for Jewish newspapers and published a few poetical collections. Pinchevsky\u2019s first epic poem <\/span><\/i>Bessarabia<\/span> \/<\/span><\/i>\u05d1\u05e2\u05e1\u05d0\u05e8\u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05e2<\/span><\/i>\/ was published in 1929, which was followed by the collections: <\/span><\/i>Four Poems<\/span> \/\u05e4\u05d9\u05e8\u00a0 \u05e2\u05de\u05e2\u05e1\/<\/span><\/i> in 1930, <\/span><\/i>For Children<\/span> \/<\/span><\/i>\u05e4\u05d0\u05e8 \u05e7\u05d9\u05e0\u05d3\u05e2\u05e8\/<\/span><\/i> in 1930, <\/span><\/i>Poems of the Day<\/span> \/\u05dc\u05d9\u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05d5 \u05d8 \u05d2\/<\/span><\/i> in 1932, and <\/span><\/i>Draw the Curtain<\/span> \/<\/span><\/i>\u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e4\u05d9\u05e8\u05d4\u05d0\u05e0\u05d2 \u05d2\u05d9\u05d8<\/span><\/i>\/ in 1932. Altogether, during his life in the USSR, the writer published 13 books, created 12 plays and had many newspaper publications. Aside from poems and plays (staged in many theatres of the country), Mykhailo Pinchevsky wrote fairy tales for children and was the author of libretti of the children\u2019s ballet <\/span><\/i>Baby Stork<\/span>, staged at Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (1935).\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The writer moved to Kyiv in 1934, where he joined the All-Ukrainian Association of Proletarian Writers (VUSPP) and also became a member of the Writers Union of the USSR. In October 1938, Mykhailo Pinchevsky was accused of \u201cespionage\u201d and arrested as an \u201cagent of foreign intelligence\u201d. He was released in 1939 because of the absence of corpus delicti. Nevertheless, in 1951, Pinchevsky was imprisoned again, this time on the charges of \u201cnationalism\u201d, \u201canti-Soviet agitation\u201d and \u201cdestructive spirit\u201d in his creations. He was sentenced to 10 years in a supermax labor camp. At the beginning of 1954, the Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR cancelled the sentence. Soon after his release, in 1955, the writer died. Mykhailo Pinchevsky was buried in Baikove cemetery in Kyiv.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s grandchildren handed over his archive to the Center for Studies in History and Culture of East European Jewry.<\/span><\/p>\n

The archive includes more than 200 units of storage, the majority of which are from the writer\u2019s creative legacy (manuscripts and typewritten drafts of poems, stories, articles and plays from 1929\u20131955). There are also some letters, one of which (sent to the editorial office of <\/span>Literaturnaya Gazeta<\/span><\/i> [Literary Newspaper] in 1954) includes a request to return the manuscripts and reviews of Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s writings after his exoneration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Materials from the archive belong to the Soviet period of life of Mykhailo Pinchevsky, who moved to the USSR in 1926, after a long stay in Argentina and journeys around Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s writings are almost unknown to contemporary readers. The last time his works were published was 1960: those were <\/span>Doina<\/span><\/i> (Russian translation, Moscow, Sovetskii Pisatel Publishing House) and <\/span>The Praise to Life<\/span><\/i> (Ukrainian translation, Kyiv, Radianskyi Pysmennyk Publishing House, a copy of the book is in the archive).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the works from the archive were not printed during the author\u2019s lifetime. Thus they require a detailed analysis of literary scholars and Yiddish linguists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Epic poems<\/b>: <\/span>Bessarabia<\/span><\/i> \/\u05d1\u05e2\u05e1\u05d0\u05e8\u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05e2\/<\/span> (Yiddish and Russian), <\/span>Doina<\/span><\/i> \/\u05d3\u05d5\u05d9\u05e0\u05e2\/<\/span> (Yiddish and Russian),<\/span> Ziamele<\/span><\/i> \/\u05d6\u05d9\u05d0\u05de\u05e2\u05dc\u05e2\/<\/span> (Yiddish), <\/span>The Red Lily of the Valley<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e8\u05d5\u05d9\u05d8\u05e2\u05e8 \u05dc\u05d0\u05e0\u05d3\u05d9\u05e9<\/span>\/ (Yiddish), <\/span>Lenin\u2019s Flower<\/span><\/i> \/\u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05dc\u05e2\u05e0\u05d9\u05e0\u05e2 \u05d1\u05dc\u05d9\u05de\u05e2\u05dc\/<\/span> (Yiddish), <\/span>The Monument<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d3\u05e2\u05e0\u05e7\u05de \u05dc<\/span>\/ (Yiddish), <\/span>The First Rain<\/span><\/i> \/\u05e2\u05e8\u05e9\u05d8\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e8\u05e2\u05d2\u05e2\/<\/span> (Yiddish), <\/span>The Piano<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d0 \u05d9 \u05e0\u05e2<\/span>\/ (Yiddish), <\/span>The Light Legend<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d3\u05d9 \u05dc\u05d9\u05d4\u05d8\u05d9\u05e7\u05e2 \u05dc\u05e2\u05d2\u05e2\u05e0\u05d3\u05e2<\/span>\/ (Yiddish and Russian), <\/span>Thirty Fur Coats<\/span><\/i> \/\u05d3\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05e1\u05d9\u05e7 \u05e2\u05dc\u05e1\/<\/span> (Yiddish), <\/span>A Poem about Bessarabia<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d3\u05d9 \u05dc\u05d9\u05d3 \u05d5\u05d5\u05e2\u05d2 \u05d1\u05e2\u05e1 \u05e8 \/\u05d1\u05d9\u05e2<\/span> (Yiddish and Russian), <\/span>The Tailor<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d3\u05e2\u05e8 \u05e9\u05e0 \u00a0 \u05b7\u05d3\u05e2<\/span>\/ (Yiddish), <\/span>The Whale and the Fox<\/span><\/i> \/<\/span>\u05d3\u05d9 \u05d5\u05d5 \u05dc\u05e4\u05d9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05d5 \u05d3\u05d9 \u05e4\u05d5\u05e7\u05e1<\/span>\/ (Yiddish),\u00a0 <\/span>Joc<\/span><\/i> (Ukrainian translation by Andrii Miastkivsky), and <\/span>Seven Knives<\/span><\/i> (Ukrainian and Russian). Some poems are in multiple versions and separate fragments.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s big poetic works can be of great interest to researchers of the history of shtetls. This particularly concerns the epic poems <\/span>Bessarabia<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Doina<\/span><\/i>, which are a poetical requiem for Jewish towns. In 1995, a CD with the musical composition <\/span>Bessarabia<\/span><\/i> on Pinchevsky\u2019s lyrics was released in the United States. Since then, a great number of klezmer bands have played this composition.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The collection includes about 50 poems in Yiddish. Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s poetic legacy is a valuable material for research of Soviet Yiddish poetry in the first half of the twentieth century.<\/span><\/p>\n

Those who study the phenomenon of Soviet-era translation might be interested in the translations of Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s poems to Ukrainian and Russian by the masters of poetry such as Volodymir Sosiura, Malksym Rylsky, Andrii Miastkivsky, and Sava Holovanivsky.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mykhailo Pinchevsky was a talented playwright. His plays were successfully staged at the best Jewish theatres of the country. In the theatrical collection of the Center, one can find the posters of Kyiv Shalom-Aleichem Jewish theatre advertising the performances based on Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s plays. For instance, one of the posters informed that on 10 March 1945, the first post-war season of Kyiv State Jewish Theatre (then operating in Chernivtsi) began with the performance based on Pinchevsky\u2019s play <\/span>I Live.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Mykhailo Pinchevsky\u2019s archive includes valuable information for those who study the development of Yiddish drama in the second half of the twentieth century.<\/span><\/p>\n