Ilya Selvinsky
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Ilya Lvovich Selvinsky (russian: Илья Сельвинский, 24 October 1899 – 22 March 1968) was a
Soviet Jewish The history of the Jews in the Soviet Union is inextricably linked to much earlier Expansionism, expansionist policies of the Russian Empire conquering and ruling the eastern half of the European continent already before the Bolshevik Revolution ...
poet, dramatist, memoirist, and essayist born in
Simferopol Simferopol () is the second-largest city in the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, and is considered the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. However, ...
,
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
.


Biography

Selvinsky grew up in Yevpatoriya in a Jewish family. His father was a furrier merchant. In 1919, Selvinsky graduated from a gymnasium in Yevpatoriya, spending his summers as a vagabond and trying his hands at different trades, including sailing, fishing, working as a longshoreman and circus wrestler, and acting in an itinerant theater. Selvinsky published his first poem in 1915 and in the 1920s experimented with the use of
Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
isms and thieves' lingo in Russian verse. He is credited with innovations in Russian versification, including the proliferation of taktovik, a Russian nonclassical meter. Extensive travel and turbulent adventures fueled Selvinsky's longer narrative works and cycles, "loadified" (term used by the Russian constructivists) with local color. Selvinsky briefly joined the
anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
troops in the
Russian Civil War , date = October Revolution, 7 November 1917 – Yakut revolt, 16 June 1923{{Efn, The main phase ended on 25 October 1922. Revolt against the Bolsheviks continued Basmachi movement, in Central Asia and Tungus Republic, the Far East th ...
but later fought on the side of the
Reds Reds may refer to: General * Red (political adjective), supporters of Communism or socialism * Reds (January Uprising), a faction of the Polish insurrectionists during the January Uprising in 1863 * USSR (or, to a lesser extent, China) during th ...
. He moved to
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
in 1921 and studied law at
Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...
, graduating in 1922. From 1924 until its dismantlement in 1930, Selvinsky was the leader of the Literary Center of Constructivists (LTsK), an early Soviet modernist group, and edited several landmark anthologies by constructivist authors (e.g., ''The State Plan of Literature''). In the late 1920s, the LtsK counted among its members poets Eduard Bagritsky,
Vera Inber Vera Mikhailovna Inber (russian: link=no, Вера Михайловна Инбер), born Shpenzer (10 July 1890, Odessa11 November 1972, Moscow), was a Russian and Soviet poet and writer. Biography Her father Moshe owned a scientific publishing ...
, and Vladimir Lugovskoy; critic Kornely Zelinsky; prose writer Evgeny Gabrilovich; and others. In the middle to late 1920s, after the publication of ''Records'', ''The Lay of Ulyalaev'' (1924) and the narrative poem ''Notes of a Poet'' (1927), Selvinsky achieved fame and acclaim. In 1929, his tragedy ''Army 2 Commander'' was staged by Vsevolod Meyerhold. Selvinsky's major early Jewish works include ''Bar Kokhba'' (1920, published 1924), a powerful monument to Jewish—and Judaic—survival; "Anecdotes about the Karaite Philosopher Babakai-Sudduk" (1931); "Motke Malech-hamovess otke the Angel of Death (1926); and ''The Lay of Ulyalaev''. "Portrait of My Mother" (1933) contains a constructivist bitter comment about Jewish-Soviet assimilation: "Henceforth her son's face will remain defiled/Like the Judaic Jerusalem,/Having suddenly become a Christian holy site." In the late 1930s Selvinsky was an important mentor to the younger generation of Soviet Russian poets. During World War II, Selvinsky served as a military journalist and combat political officer in his native
Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...
,
North Caucasus The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...
, and
Kuban Kuban (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian: Кубань; ady, Пшызэ) is a historical and geographical region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Pontic–Caspian steppe, ...
. He joined the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
in 1941, and was wounded and decorated for valor. In the poem "I Saw It!" ("Ia eto videl!"), composed in January 1942 and published shortly thereafter, Selvinsky depicted the aftermath of the mass execution, in November–December 1941, of thousands of Jews at the so-called Bagerovo anti-tank ditch outside the Crimean city of Kerch. According to the research of
Maxim D. Shrayer Maxim D. Shrayer (russian: Шраер, Максим Давидович; born June 5, 1967, Moscow, USSR) is a bilingual Russian-American author, translator, and literary scholar, and a professor of Russian, English, and Jewish Studies at Boston ...
, Selvinsky's "I Saw It!" was the first literary text about the
Shoah The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
to reach a nationwide audience. In late 1943
Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...
Selvinsky was summoned to Moscow, punitively dismissed from the army, and subjected to repressions. Especially devastating was the February 10, 1944 resolution of the Secretariat of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the c ...
, "About I. Selvinsky's Poem 'To whom Russia sang a lullaby….'" In April 1945, Selvinsky's status was finally restored, and he was allowed to return to the frontlines. One of the principal Soviet literary witnesses to the Shoah, Selvinsky treated the topic of the mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices in two other works of 1942, "Kerch" and "A Reply to
Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
," and in other wartime poems. Selvinsky's long poem ''Kandava'' (1945) unfolds around a nightmare in which he imagines himself and his wife "somewhere in Auschwitz/or Maidanek." Through a combination of personal bravery and political navigation, Selvinsky weathered the storms of Stalinism. He remained a proud Jew during the most antisemitic of the Soviet years and despite direct official ostracism. Shortly before his death, Selvinsky published the autobiographical novel ''O My Youth'' (1966), where Jewish themes figured prominently. Selvinsky died in Moscow in 1968. A poetic virtuoso of high caliber, Selvinsky holds a prominent place in the history of modern Russian poetry and in the history of Jewish literature and Shoah literature. Selvinsky's uneclipsed literary achievements include the epic poem ''The Lay of Ulyalaev'' and the novel in verse ''Fur Trade'' (1928).


References

Vera S. Babenko. ''Voina glazami poeta: Krymskie stranitsy iz dnevnikov i pisem I. L. Sel’vinskogo''. Simferopol’: Krymskaia Akademiia gumanitarnykh nauk; Dom-muzei I. L. Sel’vinskogo, 1994. Aleksandr Gol'dshtein. "O Sel’vinskom." ''Zerkalo'' 15-16 (2000).

Iakov Khelemskii. "Kurliandskaia vesna." In O ''Sel’vinskom: vospominaniia'', edited by Ts. A. Voskresenskaia and I. P. Sirotinskaia, 125-175. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1982. Maxim D. Shrayer. "Ilya Selvinsky." In ''An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry, 1801-2001'', 2 vols., edited by Maxim D. Shrayer, 1: 226-227. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2007. Maxim D. Shrayer. "Selvinskii, Ilia Lvovich." In ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'', 2 vols., edited by Gershon David Hundert, 2: 1684-1685. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

Maxim D. Shrayer. Jewish-Russian Poets Bearing Witness to the Shoah, 1941-1946: Textual Evidence and Preliminary Conclusions." In ''Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures. ICCEES'', edited by Stefano Garzonio, 59-119. Bologna: Portal on Central Eastern and Balkan Europe, 2011.

Maxim D. Shrayer
''I SAW IT: Ilya Selvinsky and the Legacy of Bearing Witness to the Shoah''
Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2013. Harriet Murav, "Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-Revolution Russia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).


External links


English translations of "I Saw It" and "Kerch"

Includes English translation of poem "Report," (1921-22,) 132-133
{{DEFAULTSORT:Selvinsky, Ilya Jewish poets People of the Holocaust Soviet writers 1899 births 1968 deaths Moscow State University alumni Soviet poets People from Simferopol