DOBRUSHIN, YEKHEZKEL

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DOBRUSHIN, YEKHEZKEL (1883–1953), Yiddish literary critic, poet, and playwright. Born in the Ukraine, he was educated privately and at the Sorbonne, where he was involved in *Territorialist circles. After his literary debut in 1912, he became a central figure among young Kiev-based Yiddish modernist writers, co-edited the Moscow literary journal Der Shtrom (1922–24), worked as one of the first university lecturers of Yiddish literature, and was the main literary consultant of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, adapting works by Sholem Yankev *Abramovitsh, *Sholem Aleichem and A. *Goldfaden, while various Yiddish theater troupes staged his plays. An enthusiast of Soviet Jewish colonization, he spent much time in villages built by Jewish colonists in the Crimea, one of which still bears his name: Dobrushino. He (co)authored several folklore collections and books of literary criticism, including his study Dovid Bergelson (1947). Together with other leading Jewish cultural activists of the Jewish *Anti-Fascist Committee he was arrested in 1949 and sent to a Siberian labor camp, where he died.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Sh. Gordon, in: Sovetish Heymland, 8 (1988); Ch. Beider, in: Di Pen, 7 (1995); J. Veidlinger, The Moscow State Yiddish Theater: Jewish Culture on the Soviet Stage (2000); D. Shneer, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture, 1918–1930 (2004); G. Estraikh, In Harness: Yiddish Writers' Romance with Communism (2005).

[Gennady Estraikh (2^nd ed.)]