Metadata: Mark Razumny. Collection of Works and Documents
Collection
- Country:
- Latvia
- Holding institution:
- Museum “Jews in Latvia”
- Holding institution (official language):
- Muzejs “Ebreji Latvijā”
- Postal address:
- Slokas iela 16, Rīga, LV-1048
- Phone number:
- +371 67 283 484
- Web address:
- http://www.jewishmuseum.lv/
- Title:
- Mark Razumny. Collection of Works and Documents
- Title (official language):
- Marks Razumnijs. Darbu un dokumentu kolekcija
- Creator/accumulator:
- Mark Razumny
- Date(s):
- 1920/1989
- Language:
- Yiddish
- Russian
- Latvian
- German
- English
- Bulgarian
- Polish
- Esperanto
- Extent:
- about 390 collection items
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collected works of the writer Mark Razumny contains his poems, short stories, fables, scripts, plays, translations, reviews, articles and letters written mainly in Yiddish, Russian, Latvian and German. These are handwritten and typewritten texts (some of them with corrections by the writer) as well as clippings of the author’s publications from newspapers and magazines. There are also four books by Mark Razumny in the Latvian Jewish museum: one in Yiddish - “A velt mit vunder” (1986) - and three in Russian - “The Golden Dove“ (1975), “The Trees Bloom Also in Autumn“ (1980) and “Talking with a Portrait“ (1981). The collection also includes Mark Razumny's personal and family documents: 7 personal and family photos, various certificates, references, letters from publishers, letters from his grandson, congratulations from other writers on his 70th birthday and his 75th birthday, etc. There is also a statement to the head of the camp of the Irkutsk region, where Mark Razumny was exiled, from his wife, Deborah Razumny, requesting permission for Mark to enter the Latvian SSR. His wife reports that she is able to support her husband and provide him with living space in the apartment she occupies. In addition, the collection contains publications about the writer and his work, reviews of Razumny's works, articles, and interviews with Razumny.
- Archival history:
- The collection of works and documents was donated to the museum "Jews in Latvia" by M ark Razumny's widow after his death.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Mark Razumny (born 1896, Zhagary, Lithuania; died 1988, Riga) was a Yiddish writer, poet, and playwright. Razumny grew up in Riga; after Heder he studied at the school of arts, in the German gymnasium. From 1919 to 1921 he worked in a bank in Hamburg, Germany but was deported for participating in the activities of a pro-communist organisation. He returned to Riga, where he began writing for the Yiddish press - first working as a freelancer in the "Dos Folk" magazine, the "Naye Zeit" newspaper, and the humour magazine "Amidai", then as a correspondent of the daily newspaper "Frimorgn" (1926-34). From 1937 until the Soviet occupation of Latvia he was the editor of the "Yiddish Builder" magazine he founded. He achieved great mastery of poems and short stories, translated L Feuchtwanger and E M Remarque into Yiddish. Razumny's plays “Doctor German Meerovich” and “Motke Chabad”, as well as his performances by Mendele Mocher Sforim and Sholem Aleichem, were staged at Jewish theatres in Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. From 1924 to 1939 several books by Razumny were published in Riga. When the Second World War broke out, Razumny was evacuated to Tashkent. In 1946-48 he was the Riga correspondent of the newspaper "Einikayt". In 1950 he was arrested in the Anti-Fascist Jewish Committee affair and in 1951 he was sentenced by a military tribunal to 10 years of labour camps. In 1956, Razumny was released and rehabilitated, and he returned to Riga. His stories were published in the Moscow magazine ”Sovetish Heimland”, the newspapers ”Birobidzhaner Stern” and ”Folkshtime” (Warsaw), and were translated into Latvian and Russian.
- Access points: locations:
- Riga
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Jana Makarova