Der Nister
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Der Nister (, "the Hidden One"; 1 November 1884 – 4 June 1950 in the Abez camp of
Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
) was the pseudonym of Pinchus Kahanovich (), a
Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...
author, philosopher, translator, and critic.


Early years

Kahanovich was born in
Berdychiv Berdychiv (, ) is a historic city in Zhytomyr Oblast, northern Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Berdychiv Raion within the oblast. It is south of the administrative center of the oblast, Zhytomyr. Its population is approximat ...
,
Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...
, the third in a family of four children with ties to the Korshev sect of
Hasidic Judaism Hasidism () or Hasidic Judaism is a religious movement within Judaism that arose in the 18th century as a Spirituality, spiritual revival movement in contemporary Western Ukraine before spreading rapidly throughout Eastern Europe. Today, most ...
. His father was Menakhem Mendl Kahanovich, a smoked-fish merchant at
Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...
on the
Volga River The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...
; his mother's name was Leah. He received a traditional religious education, but was drawn through his reading to
secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...
and
Enlightenment Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to: Age of Enlightenment * Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
ideas, as well as to
Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
. In 1904 he left Berdychiv hoping to evade the military draft, and this was probably the time when he started using the pseudonym. He moved to
Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( ; see #Names, below for other names) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the Capital city, administrative center of Zhytomyr Oblast (Oblast, province), as well as the administrative center of the surrounding ...
, near
Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
, where he earned a modest living as a teacher of Hebrew at an orphanage for Jewish boys. At that time he also wrote his first book, in Yiddish, ''Gedankn un motivn - lider in proze'' ("Ideas and Motifs - Prose Poems"), published in Vilna in 1907. He also made the acquaintance of the Yiddish writer I. L. Peretz, whom he greatly admired. Peretz recognised Der Nister's literary talents, and helped and encouraged him to publish his prose ''Hekher fun der Erd'' ("Higher than the Earth"), published in Warsaw in 1910. In 1912, Kahanovich married Rokhel Zilberberg, a teacher. Their daughter, Hodel, was born in July 1913, shortly after the publication of his third book, ''Gezang un gebet'' ("Song and Prayer") in Kiev. At the outbreak of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, he found work in the timber industry, which gave him exemption from military service. He continued to write and produced in 1918/19 the first of his books for children, ''Mayselech in ferzn'' ("Erzählungen in Versen"; "Stories in Verse"). Also at this time he translated several of Andersen's fairy tales.


Life

In 1920, he lived for a few months in a Jewish orphanage at
Malakhovka, Moscow Oblast Malakhovka (), a Moscow suburb renowned for its historic dachas,Toda, Yasushi and Nozdrina, Nadezhda N.(2008) ''The Cottages in Suburban Moscow: A New Lifestyle for the Wealthy'', Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 24: 3, 444 ...
, where he worked as a teacher for Jewish orphans whose parents had been killed during the Tsarist pogroms from 1904 to 1906. Here he met other Jewish artists and intellectuals, among them David Hofstein, Leib Kvitko and
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
.Dara Horn, ''The World to Come'', New York: W. W. Norton, 2006, p. 313. Probably in early 1921 Kahanovich left Malakhovka and moved with his family to Kovno (now
Kaunas Kaunas (; ) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius, the fourth largest List of cities in the Baltic states by population, city in the Baltic States and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaun ...
),
Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...
. Here he had great difficulty earning a living, and decided to leave, as many other Russian intellectuals were doing, and moved to
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, where his son Joseph was born. From 1922 to 1924 he worked there as a freelancer for the Yiddish journal '' Milgroim'' ("Pomegranate") and also edited, along with
David Bergelson David (or Dovid) Bergelson (, , 12 August 1884 – 12 August 1952) was a Yiddish language writer born in the Russian Empire. He lived for a time in Berlin, Germany, before moving to the Soviet Union following the Nazi rise to power in Germany. He ...
, several Yiddish literary journals, though none lasted long. In Berlin, he also published a two-volume collection of his short stories under the title ''Gedakht'' ("Imagined"). The book was his first modest literary success. When the ''Milgroim'' closed in 1924, he moved with his family to
Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...
, where he worked for two years for the Soviet Trade Mission. In 1926, like many fellow exiles, he returned to the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and settled in
Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.
. In 1929, he published in
Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
''Fun mayne giter'' ("From My Estates"). The work contained a complicated web of metaphors tied to Hasidic mysticism - especially on the
Kabbalah Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ...
and the symbolic stories of
Nachman of Breslov Nachman of Breslov ( ''Rabbī'' ''Naḥmān mīBreslev''), also known as Rabbi Nachman of Breslev, Rabbi Nachman miBreslev, Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Reb Nachman Breslover ( ''Rebe Nakhmen Breslover''), and Nachman from Uman (April 4, 1772 – O ...
- that can create a universe of images and parables, folk tales, children's poems and rhymes. His long sentences create a hypnotic rhythm. But they also reflect the increasing pressure that has been exerted at that time by the Soviet regime on Jewish intellectuals. However, the symbol-laden work, rich in Jewish themes, was declared reactionary by the Soviet regime and its literary critics. He was subjected to the increasingly stringent Soviet censorship. In 1929, he was criticized when the Russian Yiddish newspaper ''Di Royte Velt'' ("The Red World") reprinted his tale ''Unter a Ployt'' ("Bottom Fence"). The then president of the Russian Yiddish Writers Federation, Moyshe Litvakov, initiated a smear campaign at the end of which Der Nister had to renounce the literary symbolism. He tried now to write his literary work within the constraints of prevailing socialist realism and began to write stories. These collected essays appeared in 1934 under the title ''Hoyptshtet'' ("Capital cities"). He stopped publishing his original works and earned a living as a journalist. In the early 1930s he worked almost exclusively as a journalist and translator, translating works by Tolstoy, Victor Hugo and Jack London. His own literary work was limited to four small collections of short stories for children. Just before
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the Soviet government briefly adopted less censorious policies over writings considered to be promoting Zionism. Der Nister began working on his real masterpiece: ''Di Mishpokhe Mashber'' ("The Family Mashber"). The first volume of work appeared in 1939 in Moscow. The work was almost universally praised by critics, and he seemed to be rehabilitated. But the success did not last long. The limited edition of the first volume sold out quickly, but the Second World War and the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, made publication of a second edition impossible. The second volume, dedicated to his daughter Hodel, who starved to death at the siege of Leningrad in early 1942, was not published until 1948 in New York. The manuscript of the third volume, the completion of which Der Nister mentioned in a letter, has been lost. During World War II, Der Nister was evacuated to
Tashkent Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. I ...
, where he wrote stories about the horrors of the persecution of Jews in German-occupied Poland, which had been described to him by friends firsthand. These collected stories were published in 1943 under the title ''Korbones'' ("Victims") in Moscow, where he had retired with his second wife Lena Singalowska, a former actress of the Yiddish theater in Kiev. In April 1942, Stalin ordered the formation of the
Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, abbreviated as JAC, was an organization that was created in the Soviet Union during World War II to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against ...
designed to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, particularly from the
West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
.
Solomon Mikhoels Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels ( lso spelled שלוימע מיכאעלס during the Soviet era , – 13 January 1948) was a Soviet actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish ...
, the popular actor and director of the
Moscow State Jewish Theatre The Moscow State Jewish (Yiddish) Theatre (Russian: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр; Yiddish: Moskver melukhnisher yidisher teater), also known by its acronym GOSET (ГОСЕТ), was a Yiddish theat ...
, was appointed the JAC chairman. Other members were Der Nister,
Itzik Feffer Itzik Feffer (10 September 1900 – 12 August 1952), also Fefer (Yiddish איציק פֿעפֿער, Russian Ицик Фефер, Исаàк Соломòнович Фèфер) was a Soviet Yiddish poet executed on the Night of the Murdered P ...
,
Peretz Markish Peretz Davidovich Markish () () (7 December O.S. 25 November">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 25 November1895 – 12 August 1952) was a Russian Jewish poet and playwright who wrote pr ...
and Samuel Halkin. They wrote texts and petitions as cries for help against the Nazi pogroms. Among others, the texts were printed in U.S. newspapers. The JAC also raised funds. In 1947, Der Nister made a trip to
Birobidzhan Birobidzhan ( rus, Биробиджан, p=bʲɪrəbʲɪˈdʐan; , ), also spelt Birobijan ( ), is a town and the administrative centre of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near the China–Russia bord ...
, the USSR Jewish Autonomous Region near the Chinese border. He traveled there on a special migrant train, together with a thousand Holocaust survivors, to evaluate the development of the self-governing Jewish settlement in this area. However, very soon Stalin changed policy to the extermination of Jewish writers and the destruction of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union. In February 1949, Der Nister was one of the last of the Jewish writers arrested. The Soviet authorities officially reported Der Nister died on 4 June 1950 in an unknown Soviet prison hospital. Many of Der Nister's contemporaries would be killed in August 1952 in the
Night of the Murdered Poets Night, or nighttime, is the period of darkness when the Sun is below the horizon. Sunlight illuminates one side of the Earth, leaving the other in darkness. The opposite of nighttime is daytime. Earth's rotation causes the appearance of ...
, including Itzik Feffer, Peretz Markish, David Hofstein, Leib Kvitko and
David Bergelson David (or Dovid) Bergelson (, , 12 August 1884 – 12 August 1952) was a Yiddish language writer born in the Russian Empire. He lived for a time in Berlin, Germany, before moving to the Soviet Union following the Nazi rise to power in Germany. He ...
. Der Nister's last writings, describing the persecution and destruction of the Jewish communities in Europe under the
Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...
regime, and hinting at Soviet persecution as well, were collected in a work, ''Vidervuks'' ("Regrowth"), published posthumously in 1969. Israel Joshua Singer, another famous Yiddish novelist, once said of Der Nister that "had writers of the whole world been given a chance to read iswork, they would have broken their pens.”


Burial site

For more than a half-century after his death in captivity, Der Nister's place of death was not known to the public. In August 2017, researchers from Israel and Russia located his remains at a prisoner cemetery of Abez camp of
Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...
in the village of Abez, near
Vorkuta Vorkuta (; ; Nenets languages, Nenets for "the abundance of bears", "bear corner") is a coal-mining types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin a ...
, where he was recorded to have died on June 4, 1950. The researchers set up an improvised memorial atop his unmarked grave consisting of a Star of David fashioned from barbed wire.


Works

Even in his earliest works, he was drawn to the arcane teachings of the
Kabbalah Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of Mysticism, mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ...
and to the intense use of symbols in his writings. His best-known work, ''Di mishpokhe Mashber'' ("The Family Mashber"), is a naturalistic
family saga The family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. In novels (or sometimes sequences of novels) with a serious intent, this is often ...
. The work is a realistically written description of Jewish life in his native city Berdychiv at the end of the 19th century, with the three brothers as main actors: Moshe is a proud business man; Luzi is a skeptic mystic and benefactor who believes with brave defiance in the eternity of the Jewish people, probably a self-representation of Kahanovich; and Alter is a philanthropic altruist.
David Roskies David G. Roskies (Yiddish: דוד ראָסקעס; born 1948, Montreal) is an internationally recognized Canadian literary scholar, cultural historian and author in the field of Yiddish literature and the culture of Ashkenazi Jews, Eastern European ...
calls the depiction of the protagonist, Moshe, "the most finely wrought portrait of a hasidic merchant in all of Yiddish literature." As in the novel, whose protagonist's brother joins the Breslover Hasidim, Pinchas's brother Aaron did the same. Der Nister himself was influenced by Rebbe Nachman's Hasidic parables, though this manifests in his fiction, Roskies argues, through a filter of Russian modernism, and authors like
Andrei Bely Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (, ; – 8 January 1934), better known by the pen name Andrei Bely or Biely, was a Russian novelist, Symbolist poet, theorist and literary critic. He was a committed anthroposophist and follower of Rudolf Steiner. Hi ...
also influenced his work. ''Di mishpokhe Mashber'' ("The Family Mashber") was translated into Hebrew in 1962, into French in 1984, into English by
Leonard Wolf Leonard Wolf (March 1, 1923 – March 20, 2019) was a Romanian-American poet, author, teacher, and translator. He is known for his authoritative annotated editions of classic gothic horror novels, including ''Dracula'', ''Frankenstein'', '' The ...
in 1987, into German in 1990, and into Dutch in 2002 by Willy Brill. Der Nister appears as one of the main characters in the novel ''The World to Come'' (2006) by
Dara Horn Dara Horn (born 1977) is an American novelist, essayist, and professor of literature. She has written five novels and in 2021, released a nonfiction essay collection titled '' People Love Dead Jews'', which was a finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Priz ...
. The book describes Kahanovich's uneasy friendship with artist
Marc Chagall Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shagal; – 28 March 1985) was a Russian and French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with the School of Paris, École de Paris, as well as several major art movement, artistic styles and created ...
, inside whose frames he hid some of his writings. Adaptations, descriptions, and excerpts from his stories, and those of other Yiddish writers, are included. (Horn makes one fictional change: Der Nister dies almost as soon as arrested, whereas in reality he died the following year, or maybe as late as 1952 according to some sources).


Selected works

* ''Gedankn un motivn — lider in proze'' ("Ideas and Motifs — Prose Poems"), Vilna, 1907 * ''Hekher fun der erd'' ("Higher than the Earth"), Warsaw, 1910 * ''Gezang un gebet'' ("Song and Prayer"), Kiev, 1912 (collection of songs) * Translation of selected tales from
Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen ( , ; 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogue (literature), travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales. Andersen's fai ...
, 1918 * ''Mayselekh in ferzn'' ("Stories in Verse"), 1918/19 (many editions: Kiev, Warsaw, Berlin) * ''Gedakht'' ("Imagined"), Berlin, 1922/23 (collection of fantastic stories, 2 vols.) * ''Fun mayne giter'' ("From My Estates"), Kiev, 1929 * ''Hoyptshtet'' ("Capital Cities"), Moscow, 1934 * ''Zeks mayselekh'' ("Six Little Tales"), 1939 * ''Di mishpokhe Mashber'' ("The Family Mashber"), Kiev, 1939 (Vol. 1), New York, 1948 (Vol. 2) * ''Korbones'' ("Victims"), Moscow, 1943 * ''Dertseylungen un eseyen'' ("Stories and Essays"), New York, 1957 (posthumous) * ''Vidervuks'' ("Regeneration"), Moscow, 1969 (posthumous)


See also

*
Yiddish literature Yiddish literature encompasses all those belles-lettres written in Yiddish, the language of Ashkenazic Jewry which is related to Middle High German. The history of Yiddish, with its roots in central Europe and locus for centuries in Eastern Eu ...
*
Antisemitism in the Soviet Union The February Revolution in Russia officially ended a centuries-old regime of antisemitism in the Russian Empire, legally abolishing the Pale of Settlement. However, the previous legacy of antisemitism was continued and furthered by the Soviet s ...
* Rootless cosmopolitanism, Soviet canard used during antisemitic purges of Jewish writers 1948-1953


References


Further reading

* Delphine Bechtel: ''Der Nister’s Work 1907–1929: A Study of a Yiddish Symbolist.'' Bern 1990 (= «Contacts» Etudes et Documents, III, 11). * Delphine Bechtel: ''Der Nister’s ‘Der Kadmen’: a Metaphysical Narration on Cosmogony and Creation.'' , Yiddish, vol. VIII, n° 2, New York, 1992, p. 38–54. * Saul Kaleko, Artikel ''NISTER'', in: ''Jüdisches Lexikon,'' Bd. IV/1, Berlin 1927. (German) * Ber Kotlerman: ''Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness: The Post-Holocaust Plea for Jewish Reconstruction of the Soviet Yiddish Writer Der Nister.'' Academic Studies Press, Boston 2017 * Peter B. Maggs: ''The Mandelstam and „Der Nister“ Files: An Introduction to Stalin-Era Prison and Labor Camp Records.'' 1995. * Daniela Mantovan-Kromer: ''Female Archetypes in Nister's Symbolist Short Stories.'' Jerusalem 1992 (Beitrag zur 4. International Conference in Yiddish Studies). * Daniela Mantovan-Kromer: ''Der Nister's 'In vayn-keler'. A Study in Metaphor.'' In: ''The Field of Yiddish''. Fifth Collection, Northwestern University Press and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York 1993. * Salman Reisen, ''Leksikon fun der Yidisher Literatur un Prese,'' 1926 ff., Vol. II. (Yiddish) * Günter Stemberger, ''Geschichte der jüdischen Literatur,'' 1977. (German) * ''Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister,'' ed. Estraikh Gennady, Hoge Kerstin, and Krutikov Mikhail. Studies in Yiddish 12, Legenda, Oxford 2014 * Salomon Wininger, Vol. III, 1925 ff. (German)


External links


Der Nister and his symbolist short stories (1913-1929): Patterns of imagination
by Daniela Mantovan, Columbia University (1993)
Der Nister
in
The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'' is a two-volume, English-language reference work on the history and culture of Eastern Europe Jewry in this region, prepared by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and published by Yale Univ ...
* * Daniela Mantovan-Kromer
''Der Nister. The hidden one''

''Der Nister 1884-1950''
short biography {{DEFAULTSORT:Nister Yiddish-language writers Yiddish-language novelists Translators to Yiddish Soviet translators Jewish writers Soviet writers Jewish philosophers Soviet Jews Jewish Ukrainian writers Ukrainian people who died in Soviet detention People who died in the Gulag People from Berdychiv 1884 births 1950 deaths