Metadata: A. Ia. Kahan
Collection
- Country:
- Ukraine
- Holding institution:
- Central State Archive and Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine
- Holding institution (official language):
- Центральний державний архів-музей літератури і мистецтва України
- Postal address:
- 01001, м. Київ-01, вул. Володимирська, 22-a
- Phone number:
- 380 (044) 278-44-81
- Web address:
- csam.archives.gov.ua
- Email:
- cdamlm@arch.gov.ua
- Reference number:
- F. 767
- Title:
- A. Ia. Kahan
- Title (official language):
- Каган А.Я.
- Creator/accumulator:
- A. Ia. Kahan
- Date(s):
- 1918/1973
- Language:
- Yiddish
- English
- Hebrew
- Russian
- Ukrainian
- Extent:
- 459 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Included are manuscripts of novels (including drafts, fragments, and variants of particular chapters both in the original and translation into Russian and Ukrainian): In Our Land; Sholom Aleichem; Crime and Conscience; and clippings from newspapers containing pieces of works published therein; the plays The Singers from Brody and Sholom Aleichem, and the libretto-screenplay for Crime and Conscience (on the Beilis affair), and preparatory materials thereto; essays and novellas: “The Composer Lev Pulver”; “The Jew with a Goose”; “The Vilna Gaon Saw”; etc..; works of poetry: “A Poem on Itzik Fefer,” and children’s verse; articles on Mendele Moykher-Sforim, Moyshe Aronski, David Hofshtein, E. Shkarovskii, Lipe Reznik, E. B. Loytsker, and others; reminiscences on E. G. Kazakevich, Yisroel Tsinberg, Perets Markish, and others; the collection creator’s letters (to N. Lur’e; K. I. Chukovskii; N. Maizel’, editor of the journal Yidishe kultur; P. Novak, editor of the newspaper Morgn frayhayt; etc.); letters to the collection creator (from M. E. Al’tman, F. Arones, M. Belen’kii, S. Z. Halkin, M. I. Gold’blat, I. Gordon, I. Kh. Druker, E. B. Loytsker, Yekhiel Falikman, and others); statements to the KGB (regarding confiscated property); to E. A. Furtseva, USSR minister of culture, on the publication of his novel Sholom Aleichem; to the editor in chief of The Concise Jewish Encyclopedia (on the publication of his article on Jewish literature); to a jubilee congress of the Ikuf Society in New York; etc. The fond also includes personal documents of Abram Kahan (his press ID as correspondent of the newspaper Eynikayt, lists of things sent to him in prison, and a certificate on his release from incarceration), and articles on his literary work and on commemorating his memory; etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Jewish writer Abram (Avrom) Iakovlevich Kahan (1901-65) was born in the city of Berdichev (now Berdychiv, Zhytomyr region). He studied at the Berdichev Commercial School and Kiev University. He worked as a teacher in Berdichev and Khar’kov, and as an actor in a travelling Jewish theatre. In 1945-48, he was a correspondent for Eynikayt [Unity, the official newspaper of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee] in Kiev. His first published poem appeared in the Kiev newspaper Komunistishe fon [The Communist Banner] in 1921; and his first collection of poetry, Seams [Karbn], in 1923. His stories and novels include Alcove People [Mentshn fun al’kov] (1927); The Engineers (1932); Arn Liberman (1935); By the Gnilopiatka River (1937); In Our Land [Oyf unzer erd] (1944); Sholom Aleichem (1961); Crime and Conscience (1965), on events surrounding the Beilis affair; etc.; and he wrote several plays and literary-critical articles, and translated works by Russian and Ukrainian writers into Yiddish. A Second World War veteran, he was subjected to political repression in 1948 and rehabilitated in 1956. He died in Kiev.
- Access points: persons/families:
- Al’tman, M. E.
- Arones, F.
- Aronski, Moyshe
- Belen’kii, M.
- Chukovskii, K. I.
- Druker, I. Kh.
- Falikman, Yekhiel
- Fefer, Itzik
- Furtseva, E. A.
- Gold’blat, M. I.
- Gordon, I.
- Halkin, S.
- Hofshtein, David
- Kahan, Abram
- Kazakevich, E. G.
- Loytsker, E. B.
- Lur’e, N.
- Maizel’, N.
- Markish, P. D.
- Mendele Moykher-Sforim
- Novak, P.
- Pulver, Lev
- Reznik, Lipe
- Shkarovskii, E.
- Sholem Aleichem
- Tsinberg, S. L.
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes a single inventory systematised by document type (literary genre) and chronologically (with letters arranged alphabetically by addressee and correspondent name).
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary
