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Ilya Selvinsky | |
|---|---|
Илья Сельвинский | |
 Ilya Selvinsky as a student of the Yevpatoria gymnasium | |
| Born | (1899-10-24)October 24, 1899 |
| Died | (1968-03-22)22 March 1968 |
| Resting place | Novodevichy Cemetery |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, dramatist, essayist |
| Awards | Order of the Patriotic War Order of the Red Banner of Labour Order of the Red Star Medal "For the Defence of Moscow" Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" |
Ilya Lvovich Selvinsky (Russian:Илья Львович Сельвинский, 24 October 1899 – 22 March 1968) was a Soviet poet, dramatist, memoirist, and essayist born inSimferopol,Crimea.
Selvinsky grew up inYevpatoria in a Jewish family. His father was a furrier merchant. In 1919, Selvinsky graduated from agymnasium in Yevpatoria, spending his summers as a vagabond and trying his hands at different trades, including sailing, fishing, working as a longshoreman and circus wrestler, and acting in an itinerant theater.
Selvinsky published his first poem in 1915 and in the 1920s experimented with the use ofYiddishisms and thieves' lingo in Russian verse. He is credited with innovations in Russian versification, including the proliferation of taktovik, a Russian nonclassical meter. Extensive travel and turbulent adventures fueled Selvinsky's longer narrative works and cycles, "loadified" (term used by the Russianconstructivists) with local color. Selvinsky briefly joined the anarchist troops in theRussian Civil War but later fought on the side of theReds. He moved toMoscow in 1921 and studied law atMoscow University, graduating in 1922. From 1924 until its dismantlement in 1930, Selvinsky was the leader of the Literary Center of Constructivists (LTsK), an early Soviet modernist group, and edited several landmark anthologies by constructivist authors (e.g.,The State Plan of Literature). In the late 1920s, the LtsK counted among its members poetsEduard Bagritsky,Vera Inber, andVladimir Lugovskoy; critic Kornely Zelinsky; prose writerYevgeny Gabrilovich; and others. In the middle to late 1920s, after the publication ofRecords,The Lay of Ulyalaev (1924) and the narrative poemNotes of a Poet (1927), Selvinsky achieved fame and acclaim. In 1929, his tragedyArmy 2 Commander was staged byVsevolod Meyerhold. Selvinsky's major early Jewish works includeBar Kokhba (1920, published 1924), a powerful monument to Jewish—and Judaic—survival; "Anecdotes about the Karaite Philosopher Babakai-Sudduk" (1931); "Motke Malech-hamovess [Motke the Angel of Death]" (1926); andThe Lay of Ulyalaev. "Portrait of My Mother" (1933) contains a constructivist bitter comment about Jewish-Soviet assimilation: "Henceforth her son's face will remain defiled/Like the Judaic Jerusalem,/Having suddenly become a Christian holy site."
In the late 1930s Selvinsky was an important mentor to the younger generation of Soviet Russian poets. During World War II, Selvinsky served as a military journalist and combat political officer in his nativeCrimea,North Caucasus, andKuban. He joined theCommunist Party in 1941, and was wounded and decorated for valor. In the poem "I Saw It!" ("Ia eto videl!"), composed in January 1942 and published shortly thereafter, Selvinsky depicted the aftermath of the mass execution, in November–December 1941, of thousands of Jews at the so-called Bagerovo anti-tank ditch outside the Crimean city ofKerch. According to the research ofMaxim D. Shrayer, Selvinsky's "I Saw It!" was the first literary text about theShoah to reach a nationwide audience. In late 1943, lieutenant colonel Selvinsky was summoned to Moscow, punitively dismissed from the army, and subjected to repressions. Especially devastating was the February 10, 1944 resolution of the Secretariat of theCentral Committee of the Communist Party, "About I. Selvinsky's Poem 'To whom Russia sang a lullaby….'" In April 1945, Selvinsky's status was finally restored, and he was allowed to return to the frontlines. One of the principal Soviet literary witnesses to the Shoah, Selvinsky treated the topic of the mass extermination of Jews by the Nazis and their accomplices in two other works of 1942, "Kerch" and "A Reply toGoebbels," and in other wartime poems. Selvinsky's long poemKandava (1945) unfolds around a nightmare in which he imagines himself and his wife "somewhere in Auschwitz/or Maidanek."
Through a combination of personal bravery and political navigation, Selvinsky weathered the storms of Stalinism. He remained a proud Jew during the most antisemitic of the Soviet years and despite direct official ostracism. Shortly before his death, Selvinsky published the autobiographical novelO My Youth (1966), where Jewish themes figured prominently. He lived inWriters' House in Lavrushinsky Lane. Selvinsky died in Moscow in 1968 and was buried at theNovodevichy Cemetery.
A poetic virtuoso of high caliber, Selvinsky holds a prominent place in the history of modern Russian poetry and in the history of Jewish literature and Shoah literature. Selvinsky's uneclipsed literary achievements include the epic poemThe Lay of Ulyalaev and the novel in verseFur Trade (1928).
Harriet Murav, "Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-Revolution Russia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).
