A radical lyrical voice of Soviet Yiddish literature
On 12 August 1952, he was executed with other Yiddish writers, becoming a symbol of the Night of the Murdered Poets.
Peretz Markish was a central poet, writer, and playwright of post-revolutionary Soviet Yiddish culture. His work joined war, revolution, and Jewish experience in Yiddish, while his participation in Soviet cultural construction coexisted with an independent concern for Jewish culture and territorial autonomy. His work with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee made him a target of the postwar state campaign, and he was executed with other Yiddish writers in 1952. His death remains emblematic of a purge that reached beyond political organizations into literature and language institutions.
Career Timeline
- 1895–1917Grew up in Volhynia; served in the Imperial Russian Army during the First World War
- 1917–1921Began his career as a Yiddish poet in Kyiv
- 1921–1926Wrote and published in Warsaw, Berlin, Paris and other European cities
- 1926–1941Returned to the Soviet Union; wrote poetry, fiction and plays
- 1939Received the Order of Lenin
- 1941–1945Produced anti-Nazi poetry and cultural work during the war
- 1942–1949Joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and served in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee leadership
- 1949–1955Arrested, executed, and posthumously rehabilitated