thumb|alt=Abraham Sutzkever, 1962|Abraham Sutzkever, 1962

Abraham Sutzkever (; ; July 15, 1913 – January 20, 2010) was an acclaimed Yiddish poet. The New York Times wrote that Sutzkever was "the greatest poet of the Holocaust."

Biography

Abraham (Avrom) Sutzkever was born on July 15, 1913, in Smorgon, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire, now Smarhon, Belarus. During World War I, his family moved to Omsk, Siberia, where his father, Hertz Sutzkever, died. In 1921, his mother, Rayne (née Fainberg), moved the family to Vilnius, where Sutzkever attended cheder.

Sutzkever attended the Polish Jewish high school Herzliah, audited university classes in Polish literature, and was introduced by a friend to Russian poetry. His earliest poems were written in Hebrew.

In 1930 Sutzkever joined the Jewish scouting organization, Bin ("Bee"), in whose magazine he published his first piece. There he also met his wife Freydke.

In 1933, he became part of the writers’ and artists’ group , along with fellow poets Shmerke Kaczerginski, Chaim Grade, and Leyzer Volf.

He married Freydke in 1939, a day before the start of World War II.

In 1941, following the Nazi occupation of Vilnius, Sutzkever and his wife were sent to the Vilna Ghetto. Sutzkever and his friends hid a diary by Theodor Herzl, drawings by Marc Chagall and Alexander Bogen, and other treasured works behind plaster and brick walls in the ghetto. Sutzkever joined a Jewish unit and was smuggled into the Soviet Union.

thumb|Sutzkever testifies before the [[International Military Tribunal, 27 February 1946]]

In February 1946, he was called up as a witness at the Nuremberg trials, testifying against Franz Murer, the murderer of his mother and son. After a brief sojourn in Poland and Paris, he emigrated to Mandatory Palestine, arriving in Tel Aviv in 1947. Rina and another daughter, Mira, survive him, along with two grandchildren.

In 1949, Sutzkever founded the Yiddish literary quarterly Di goldene keyt, Israel's only Yiddish literary quarterly, which he edited until its demise in 1995. Sutzkever resuscitated the careers of Yiddish writers from Europe, the Americas, the Soviet Union and Israel. Many in the Zionist movement, however, dismissed Yiddish as a defeatist diaspora argot. "They will not uproot my tongue," he retorted. "I shall wake all generations with my roar." Selected poems in Russian translation of were published in 2010.

Works

  • Di festung (1945; “The Fortress”)
  • About a Herring (1946)
  • Yidishe gas (1948; “Jewish Street”)
  • Sibir (1953; "Siberia")
  • In midber Sinai (1957; "In the Sinai Desert")
  • Di fidlroyz (1974; "The Fiddle Rose: Poems 1970–1972")
  • Griner akvaryum (1975; “Green Aquarium”)
  • Fun alte un yunge ksav-yadn (1982; "Laughter Beneath the Forest: Poems from Old and New Manuscripts")
  • Burnt Pearls : Ghetto Poems of Abraham Sutzkever, translated from the Yiddish by Seymour Mayne; introduction by Ruth R. Wisse. Oakville, Ont.: Mosaic Press, 1981.
  • The Fiddle Rose: Poems, 1970-1972, Abraham Sutzkever; selected and translated by Ruth Whitman; drawings by Marc Chagall; introduction by Ruth R. Wisse. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
  • A. Sutzkever: Selected Poetry and Prose, translated from the Yiddish by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav; with an introduction by Benjamin Harshav. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
  • Laughter Beneath the Forest : Poems from Old and Recent Manuscripts by Abraham Sutzkever; translated from the Yiddish by Barnett Zumoff; with an introductory essay by Emanuel S. Goldsmith. Hoboken, NJ: KTAV Publishing, 1996.
  • Sutzkever Essential Prose; translated from the Yiddish by Zackary Sholem Berger (A Yiddish Book Center Translation); with an introduction by Heather Valencia. Amherst, MA: White Goat Press, 2020.

Awards and recognition

  • 1969: Itzik Manger Prize for Yiddish literature.
  • 1985: Israel Prize for Yiddish literature.

Sutzkever's poems have been translated into 30 languages.

Recordings

  • Hilda Bronstein, A Vogn Shikh, lyrics by Avrom Sutzkever, music by Tomas Novotny Yiddish Songs Old and New, ARC Records
  • Karsten Troyke, Leg den Kopf auf meine Knie, lyrics by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, Itzik Manger and Abraham Sutzkever, music by Karsten Troyke
  • Abraham Sutzkever, The Poetry of Abraham Sutzkever (Vilno Poet): Read in Yiddish, produced by Ruth Wise on Folkways Records

Compositions

  • "The Twin-Sisters" - "Der Tsvilingl", music by Daniel Galay, text by Avrum Sutzkever. Narrator (Yiddish) Michael Ben-Avraham, The Israeli String Quartet for Contemporary Music (Violin, Viola, Cello), percussion, piano. First performance: Tel-Aviv 2/10/2003 on the 90th birthday of Avrum Sutzkever.
  • "The Seed of Dream", music by Lori Laitman, based on poems by Abraham Sutzkever as translated by C.K. Williams and Leonard Wolf. Commissioned by The Music of Remembrance organization in Seattle. First performed in May 2005 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle by baritone Erich Parce, pianist Mina Miller, and cellist Amos Yang. Recent performance on January 28, 2008, by the Chamber Music Society of Southwest Florida by mezzo-soprano Janelle McCoy, cellist Adam Satinsky and pianist Bella Gutshtein of the Russian Music Salon.
  • Sutzkever's poem "Poezye" was set to music by composer Alex Weiser as a part of his song cycle "and all the days were purple."

See also

  • List of Israel Prize recipients
  • Alexander Bogen
  • Paper Brigade

References

Further reading

  • Dawidowicz, Lucy S. From that Place and Time: A Memoir 1938 - 1947. New York: Norton, 1989.
  • Kac, Daniel. Wilno Jerozolimą było. Rzecz o Abrahamie Sutzkeverze. Sejny: Pogranicze, 2004.
  • Szeintuch, Yehiel. "Abraham Sutzkever", in Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust. New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA. . vol. 4, pp. 1435–1436
  • From Vilna with love: The life of a remarkable Yiddish poet, mati shemoelof, J61, 2018
  • Sutskever's work in English translation
  • Bibliotheca Iiddica
  • Abraham Sutzkever among The Writers and Painters Group "Jung Vilna"
  • Catherine Madsen on Abraham Sutzkever's life
  • Mati Shemoelof on Abraham Sutzkever's documentary