FollowingNochum Shtif's death in 1933, Spivak was appointed director of the linguistics section of theAll-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture (Russian:Институт Еврейской Пролетарской Культуры) and editor of its journal,Afn shprakhfront ('On the Language Front').[4] The Institute was closed down in early 1936 amid theGreat Purge, with many of its staff members arrested on charges ofTrotskyism. The smaller Office for the Study of Soviet Jewish Literature, Language, and Folklore was created in its place, with Spivak as director.[5] Along with the rest of the Office, Spivak was evacuated toUfa,Bashkiria with theAxisinvasion of the Soviet Union, and returned in 1944.[2]
Spivak played a major role in Soviet Yiddishlanguage planning. He sought to compromise betweenRussification of Yiddish and the purported nationalism of the use of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin, and wrote in favour of a partial de-Hebraization of Soviet Yiddish.[6][7] Spivak opposed new coinages based on Hebraic elements not present inpre-revolutionary Yiddish, promoting instead the introduction ofRussian,Ukrainian andBelarusianinternationalisms.[8][9]
While at the Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture, Spivak put forward the idea of compiling a comprehensiveRussian-Yiddish dictionary, a project which began in 1935.[10] Though completed in 1948, the dictionary's manuscript and other research materials were confiscated by theSoviet security organs upon the arrest of Spivak and its other authors.[11] The dictionary was published posthumously in 1984.[12]
The following is a partial list of Spivak's publications (not including textbooks):
Yidishe shprakh 1: Intonatsye, fonetik un ortografye, elementn fun morfologye (יידישע שפּראך: אינטאָנאציע פאָנטעיק און אָרטאָגראפיע, עלעמענטן פון מאָרפאָלאָגיע, 'Yiddish Language, Part I: Intonation, phonetics and orthography, elements of morphology') (Kiev:Kultur-lige, 1925)
Yidishe shprakh 2: Morfologye un sintaks ('Yiddish Language, Part I: Morphology and syntax') (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1926)
Metodik fun shprakh un literatur in shul ('Methods for language and literature in school') (Kiev, 1928)
Shprakh-kultur: teorye un praktik (שפּראכ-קולטור: טעאָריע און פּראקטיק, 'Language culture: theory and practice') (Kiev, 1931)
Maks un engels vegn shprakh-problemes (מארקס און ענגעלס וועגן שפּראך-פּראָבּלעמלעס, 'Marx andEngels on language issues') (Kiev, 1934)
Naye vortshafung ('New Word Formation') (Kiev, 1939)
Sholem-aleykhems shprakh un stil: etyudn (שאָלעם־אלײכעמס שפּראך און סטיל :עטיודן, 'Sholem Aleichem's language and style: studies') (Kiev, 1940)
Rusish-yidisher rekhtlekh-administrativer verterbukh ('Russian-Yiddish Dictionary of Legal and Administrative Terminology') (Kiev, 1941)
Di shprakh in di teg fun der foterlendisher milkhome (די שפּראך אין די טעג פון דער פאָטערלאנדישער מילכאָמע, 'Language in the Time of the Patriotic War') (Kiev, 1946)
^Spivak, Elye (1939).Naye vortshafung [New Word Formation] (in Yiddish). Kiev.OCLC50183516.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Spivak, Elye (1935). "Vegn dehebreizatsye un vegn dem hebreishn element in yidish" [Dehebraization and the Hebrew Element in Yiddish].Afn Sprakhront (in Yiddish).2. Kiev.
^Moskovich, Wolf (1984). "An Important Event in Soviet Yiddish Cultural Life: The New Russian‐Yiddish Dictionary".Soviet Jewish Affairs.14 (3):31–49.doi:10.1080/13501678408577465.
