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Kulbak, Moshe

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Moshe Kulbak was a Yiddish-language writer. His mystical novella The Messiah of the House of Ephraim (1924) draws together many strands of Jewish folklore and apocalyptic belief, presenting them from a perspective that owes much to German expressionist cinema. In September 1937, Moyshe Kulbak was arrested during a wave of Stalinist purges. He was accused of espionage and executed a month later together with several dozens of other Belarusian writers, intellectuals and administrators. In 1956, after the death of Joseph Stalin, he was officially exonerated by the Soviet authorities --

Reference Code
P402
Dates
1920-2020
Consists of
16 files.
Languages
Russian; Yiddish; bel; Polish; French; Hebrew; lit; English;
Description
The private collection of Moshe Kulbak contains his poems and works, his personal records, various materials related to his works and arrest, letters related to his exoneration and other papers for his biography, articles and newspapers’ clippings about his life, records related to his relatives, and documentation on anniversary events in his memory. It includes illustrations by Mark Zhitnitsky for Kulbak’s novel “Zelmenyaner”, poster of Kulbak’s play and theatre programs. The importance of the collection is the light it sheds on the arrest of Moshe Kulbak in 1937. There are extracts from the investigation file of Moshe Kulbak in MGB from the Central Archive of the KGB of the Republic of Belarus (Minsk), the memoirs of his wife, Zelda, and her autobiography. The collection includes a transcription from the radio program "The Last 48 Days of Moshe Kulbak’s Life", prepared by the Committee for the Language and Culture of Yiddish (Brussels, Belgium, 15.05.1991) that describes a story about the life and work of Moshe Kulbak, about his arrest and execution, the deportation of his wife Zelda to a forced labor camp, etc. The collection includes also published memories of Ilya Kulbak - Moshe’s brother, and Moshe Kulbak’s photographs with family and friends from the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, the collection contains materials about the engineer and champion of Belarus in checkers Max Shavel, son-in-law of Moshe Kulbak (husband of Raia Kulbak).
Title Kulbak, Moshe.
Additional Titles אוסף חומרים על המשורר, הסופר, המחזאי ביידיש משה קולבק (קולבאק), שנורה בשנת -1937.
Contributors IlyaKulbak
ZeldaKulbak
MaxShavel
RaiaKulbak
Abraham,Liessin 1872-1938
Joseph,Stalin 1878-1953
Moshe,Kulbak 1896-1940
Tsentraler Bildungs Komitet
Yeshivat Mir (Belarus)
ʻEts ḥayim (Yeshivah : Valozhyn, Belarus)
Notes Коллекция материалов о выдающемся поэте, писателе, драматурге, писавшем на идише Моше Кульбаке, расстрелянном в 1937 году. Материалы собраны вдовой писателя Зельдой и его дочерью Раей Кульбак.
Moshe Kulbak's papers are also located at the National Library of Israel. There is a manuscript of his book of poems in Yiddish "Naie Lider" (published in 1922), and corrections added to the manuscript (Schwad 01 19 60). The papers of Abraham Liessin located at the YIVO Archives in New York (RG201) include Moshe Kulbak's letters.
Host Item Kulbak, Moshe - Private Collection
Level of Description Fonds Record
Biographical summary Moshe Kulbak was born in Smorgon, Vilna Province of the Russian Empire in March 1896. He attended Crown Jewish Russian elementary school and a reformed Heder. In 1914 he continued his education at the famed Volozhin yeshiva, and later studied in the Mir and Sventsyan yeshivot. In 1916, he published a poem "Shterndel" (Little Star) in the Vilna’s literary journal “Letse Nayes”. The poem quickly became extremely popular and turned into a popular folk song. During World War I, Kulbak lived in Kovno, where he began to write Hebrew poetry, and taught at a Jewish orphanage. In 1918, he moved to Minsk, where he taught and wrote poetry. Later he lived in Vilna. In 1920 Kulbak moved to Berlin and contributed to several Yiddish periodicals in Berlin, New-York and Poland. After his return to Vilna in 1923 Moshe Kulbak worked as a teacher in the Vilna Yiddish Real Gymnasium and the Yiddish Teachers’ Seminary. He also served as chairman of the World Center for Yiddish Authors and Poets' Clubs. In 1928 Kulbak moved to the Soviet Union and settled in Minsk, where many of his relatives lived. Over the next years, he was at work on his long poem “Disner Tshayld-Harold” (1933), two dramas “Boytre” (1936) and “Benyomin Magidov” (lost), and the family saga “Zelmenyaner”, about the fate of a traditional Jewish family facing life in the Soviet Union (1931-1935). In September 1937 Kulbak was arrested and killed as part of the Stalinist purges, and for decades no one knew his fate for certain.
Ownership history In 2020 the collection was transferred to the Central Archives in Jerusalem by Moshe Kulbak's daughter, Raia.
Language Note Russian
Yiddish
Belarussian
Polish
French
Hebrew
Lithuanian
English
National Library system number 997009165687905171
Links פרטים על מיקום החומר/Location&access
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