Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur

לעקסיקאָן פֿון דער נײַער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור

A playwright, poet, and storyteller, he was born in Vilna. He descended from a working-class family. He acquired an education through reading a great deal. He knew Russian, Polish, German, French, and Hebrew. He mastered photography which became his profession. He traveled through Poland, the Land of Israel, and North Africa and took images from the ways of Jewish life there. After the Holocaust, his hundreds of photos acquired a special value. He lived in Ekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk), and from 1910 in Warsaw where Perets befriended him. After Y. L. Perets’s death (1915), Kacyzne was in a close spiritual affinity with Sh. An-ski. 

With the outbreak of WWII, he departed for Lemberg with his wife and daughter. There he was active on the Soviet pre-state Yiddish theater and radio. When the German continued their advance march, he reached Tarnopol (Ternopil), where he was tortured to death by Ukrainian collaborators. 

He debuted in print in 1909 with two Russian stories which Sh. An-ski published in Evreiskii Mir (Jewish World). Under the influence of Perets, he began to write in Yiddish: memoirs of Perets for Di Yudishe Velt (The Jewish World) in Vilna (April-May 1915). His first work of fiction in Yiddish was a fragment of his dramatic poem Der Gayst der Meylekh (The Spirit, the King) in the collection Eygns (One’s Own) in Kiev 1 (1918).

He published poems, folk ballads, dramatic works, articles about literature, art, and theater, and on community topics for: Literarishe Bleter (Literary Newspaper) which he briefly co-edited, Bikher-Velt (Book World), M. Shalit’s Leben (Life), Ilustrirte Velt (Illustrated World), Folkstsaytung (People’s Newspaper), Vilner Tog (Vilna Day), Varshever Shriftn (Warsaw Writings), Unzer Ekspres (Our Express), Lebens Fragn (Life Issues) (1918-1920), and the daily newspaper Naye Tsayt (New Times) (1923).

He edited or co-edited: the collection Di Teyve (The Ark) and Di Glokn (The Bells)—both only one issue—Literatur (Literature) (1935), and the Communist Der Fraynd (The Friend) in Warsaw (1935).

Over the years 1937-1939, he published the biweekly Mayn Redndiker Film (My Speaking Film), in which he published articles, features, and translations, among other pieces. He work also appeared in Shimshon Meltser’s Al naharot, tisha maḥazore shira misifrut yidish (By the Rivers, Nine Cycles of Poetry from Yiddish Literature) (Jerusalem, 1956) and Zugot, shemona asar sipurim shel shisha asar meḥabrim beyidish (Pairs, Eighteen Stories by Sixteen Authors in Yiddish) (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1972), Kadia Molodowsky’s Lider fun Khurbn, T”Sh-Tsh”H (Poetry from the Holocaust, 1939-1945) (Tel Aviv, 1962), and Hubert Witt’s Der Fiedler vom Getto: Jiddische Dichtung aus Polen (The Fiddler of the Ghetto, Yiddish Poetry from Poland) (Leipzig, 1966, 1978).

His own work includes:

Der Gayst der Meylekh (Warsaw, 1919), 312 pp.;

Prometeus, a Dramatishe Poeme (Prometheus, a Dramatic Poem) (Warsaw, 1920), 58 pp.;

Arabeskn (Arabesques), stories and tales (Warsaw, 1922), 183 pp.;

Dukus, Drame in Fir Aktn (Duke, a Drama in Four Acts) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1926), 137 pp.;

Hurdus, tragedye in finf aktn, nayn bilder (Herod, a tragedy in five acts and nine scenes) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1926), 159 pp.;

Shtarke un shvakhe, roman (Strong and weak, a novel) (Vilna: B. Kletskin, 1929-1930), 2 vols., new edition (Buenos Aires, 1954);

Baladn un groteskn (Ballads and grotesques) (Warsaw: H. Bzhoza, 1936), 148 pp.;

Geklibene shriftn (Selected writings) (Warsaw: Yidish Bukh, 1951), 196 pp.;

Gezamlte shriftn (Collected writings) (Tel Aviv: [his daughter] Shulamis Reale, 1967-1972), 4 vols.;

Shvartsbard ([Sholem] Schwartzbard) (Paris: Committee for Yiddish and Yiddish Culture, 1980), 175 pp.—earlier published in Mayn redndiker film.

Fragments of his dramatical poem Der Turem fun Bovl (The Tower of Babel), under the title Meysim-Tants (Dance of Corpses), were published in Vayter-Bukh (Volume for [A.] Vayter) (Vilna, 1920), Der Teyve, Dos Lebn (The Life), Ringen (Links), and Folkstsaytung, and his chamber play Ester (Esther) appeared in Mayn Redndiker Film.

Unpublished plays by him include: In Krizis (In Crisis) and Di Farkishefte Shtivlen (The Magic Boots). He had great stage success with Sh. An-ski’s Tog un Nakht (Day and Night), which he restored from the author’s sketched notes of the first two acts, adding full scenes and completing the third act. Irrespective of the initial stinging criticism in the Vilna Yiddish press and later from A. Mukdoni, Shmuel Niger, and others concerning Kacyzne’s reworking, the play was quickly included in the classic Yiddish repertoire.

He wrote numerous songs for Yiddish revue theater, for the play Volpone, the dialogue and poems for Yankev Gordin’s film On a Heym (Homeless), and the scenario for Sh. An-ski’s Der Dibek (The Dybbuk). He also adapted Mendele’s Masoes Benyomen hashlishi (Travels of Benjamin III)—which can be found in the Dovid Herman archive at YIVO. 

Translations into foreign languages:

Hebrew — Peninim Ḥolot (Sick Pearls), translation of Arabeskn by A. D. Shapir (Tel Aviv, 1970);

German—Die Pest (The Plague);

Italian—Le Perle Malate, L’opera Dell’ebreo (The Sick Pearl, Jewish Opera), prepared for Italian television.

His own translations include:

Aleksandr Blok, Tsvelf (Twelve [original: Dvenadtsatʹ]) (Warsaw, 1920), 24 pp.; Anatoly Lunacharsky, Der Meylekhs Razirer (The King’s Barber [original: Korolevskii Bradobrei]), a fragment appearing in Di Glokn (Warsaw, 1921).

The literary critical reaction to Kacyzne’s work was, on the one hand, full of praise, while on the other stingingly negative. Following his literary debut, Bal-Makhshoves wrote: “The motifs are as original as they are masterfully carried out…. He accomplishes beauty sufficient to establish him as a poet in his own right.”

“Although the drama [Dukus] suffers psychologically,” noted Zalmen Reyzen, “from serious faults,…it still enriches the modern Yiddish repertoire with a colorful and theatrical work.”

Shmuel Niger uttered a highly negative view of Dukus.

Meylekh Ravitsh wrote that, like Perets, Kacyzne “was searching for the integral line between the secular and religious path for Yiddish literature…. He was perpetually occupied with something, not just doing something but creating, experimenting…. The task of the Yiddish writer is [according to Kacyzne] to find what suits him best [in the entirety of Jewish history] and integrate it into our literature.”

He died in Ternopil, Galicia.