Emmanuil Genrikhovich Kazakevich (, ; February 24, 1913 – September 22, 1962) was a

Soviet 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 ...

author, poet and playwright of

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

extraction, writing in

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and

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 ...

Biography

Early life

Kazakevich was born at

Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; , , also spelt Kremenchug, ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. The city serves as the administrative center of Kremenchuk Raion and Kremenchuk urban hromada within ...

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 ...

(then part of

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

) in 1913 and received training as an engineer at

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

. In the early 1930s he moved to the Jewish autonomous region of

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 ...

on the

Amur River The Amur River () or Heilong River ( zh, s=黑龙江) is a perennial river in Northeast Asia, forming the natural border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China (historically the Outer and Inner Manchuria). The Amur ''proper'' is ...

, where he became the chairman of a local

kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to eme ...

and also ran a theatre. During these years he began writing and publishing poems and stories in Yiddish. In 1941 he was in Moscow, taking part in the defence efforts of the capital and later joining the regular

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

for frontier service. His war service brought him close to some of the major battles of 1943-45 and finally into the battle for Berlin; by this time he had become assistant director of intelligence in one of the armies involved.

Career

After 1945 Kazakevich began writing in Russian, and his debut short story ''Zvezda'' ("The Star", 1947, adapted into a film in 1949 (remake -

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

2002)) was an instant success and awarded a Stalin Prize for literature. The story describes an army intelligence unit during WW2 and their raid behind enemy lines. It showcases some of his later recurrent traits: the sharp, lyrical evocation of nature, the interest in moral conflicts and ambiguities, often relating to the transition between war and peace, the sense of humour and psychological observation. Many of his later stories are set during or shortly after the Second World War. Kazakevich's 1948 story "Dvoe v stepi" ("Two in the Steppe", adapted into a 1964 film and a 2015 remake "On the Road to Berlin"), was fiercely criticized in the Party press but that did not prevent his next story "Vesna na Odere" ("Spring on the Oder River," 1949) from being awarded a second Stalin Prize. The novella "In the Light of Day" (1960) explores ambiguities of guilt, bravery and memory as a soldier makes a visit to the widow of his fallen friend and unit officer. During the fifties, Kazakevich reached high positions in the Soviet Association of Writers and was aligned with the efforts of de-Stalinization. He kept picking up potentially sensitive subjects, and during his last years may have been working on a major novel about

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

during the

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...

years. The short novel ''Sinyaya tetrad'' ( The Blue notebook) appeared in 1961; it is set during Lenin's stay on the

Karelia Karelia (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; , historically Коре́ла, ''Korela'' []; ) is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Russia (including the Soviet Union, Soviet era), Finland, and Sweden. It is currentl ...

n isthmus in the summer of 1917 and brings Lenin face to face both with ordinary people and with Grigory Zinovyev, who was still considered a traitor or at best a dubious figure at the time of writing. While Kazakevich, in the end, makes Lenin refute Zinovyev's fears and allegations, there is no attempt to show the latter as an evil or insincere person, which would have been a given for most Soviet writers at the time. Kazakevich continued with Lenin as a main character in another story, "Enemies", written in his last year, and it is likely that he was planning to bring them together within a larger novel about Lenin. However, his sudden passing away in the summer of 1962 meant that those plans were left unfulfilled.

Works

;English translations *''Star: A Story'', Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952. *''Heart of a Friend: A Story'', Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1952. *''Hungarian meetings'', - his travel notes on Russian, 1955 (The Hungarian Revolution was in 1956). *''The House on the Square'', Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957. *''Selected Works'', Progress Publishers, 1978. *''The Blue Notebook'', Fredonia Books, 2002.

References

* Kazakevich, Emmanuil: ''Den blå anteckningsboken'' ("The Blue Notebook and two other stories"), translated into Swedish by H. Björkegren; introduction gives biographical information. Askild & Kärnekull, Stockholm/Progress, Moscow, 1978 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kazakevich, Emmanuil 1913 births 1962 deaths People from Kremenchuk Ukrainian Jews Jewish poets Yiddish-language poets Soviet novelists Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian male writers Russian male novelists Russian male poets 20th-century Russian poets