Metadata: I. O. Perper and E. I. Kaplan
Collection
- Country:
- Russia
- Holding institution:
- State Museum of the History of Religion
- Holding institution (official language):
- Государственный музей истории религии
- Postal address:
- 190000, Russia, St. Petersburg, Pochtamskaia ul., d. 14/5
- Phone number:
- (812) 315-30-80
- Web address:
- www.gmir.ru
- Email:
- gmir@relig-museum.ru
- Reference number:
- F. 21
- Title:
- I. O. Perper and E. I. Kaplan
- Title (official language):
- Перпер И. O., Каплан Э. И.
- Creator/accumulator:
- I. O. Perper and E. I. Kaplan
- Date(s):
- 1906/1933
- Language:
- Russian
- Extent:
- 315 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
- Housed in the fonds are editorial materials of the journal Vegetarianskoe obozrenie [Vegetarian Review], articles and pieces for the journal by various authors, correspondence, materials of the Moscow Vegetarian Society, and personal documents of I. O. Perper and E. I. Kaplan (1910s-30s). Pertaining to Jewish history and culture are two letters and six postcards sent by Sholem Aleichem from Italy (1910) in connection with editorial and authorial corrections to a piece by this writer published in the journal Vegetarian Review.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Iosif Ovshievich (Iosifovich) Perper (1886-1966) was a writer, researcher of the oeuvre of Sholem Aleichem, vegetarianism activist and publisher of the journal Vegetarianskoe obozrenie [Vegetarian Review], and a Tolstoyan. In 1904-06, he studied at St. Gallen (Switzerland) Trade Academy, and in Germany, studying languages, literature, economics, and business. In 1908 he graduated from the commercial school in Proskurov with a business doctorate, and the status of “personal honorary citizen.” In 1904, under the influence of Lev Tolstoy’s article “The First Step” (1892), I. O. Perper became an adherent of Tolstoyanism and a vegetarian. In 1909, together with his brother M. O. Perper and N. B. Nordman, he founded the journal Vegetarian Review in Kishinev and was its permanent editor-in-chief. His impressions from his visit to Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana were published in the journal in June 1909. He recruited Sholem Aleichem, M. P. Artsybashev, A. A. Gol’denveizer, I. E. Repin, Ia. M. Gordin, and others to contribute to the journal. From 1910 on, the journal’s editorial office was in Kiev. It was published until 1915. In 1911, I. O. Perper attempted to establish a Jewish-vegetarian publishing house in Kiev and a Yiddish-language journal called Der Vegetarisher gedank [Vegetarian Thought], to which Sholem Aleichem, Yitskhok Leybush Peretz, Shimen Frug, S. M. Abramovich (Mendele Moykher-Sforim) and Avrom Reyzen were to be recruited as contributors. However, a Yiddish-language journal on the same subject began to be published that same year in New York. After Vegetarian Review shut down in 1915, I. O. Perper moved to Moscow, where he made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a journal on the same topic. He was a member of the Moscow Vegetarian Society. In 1929 he was elected a delegate from the Moscow Vegetarian Society to the 7th International Vegetarian Congress in Steinschönau, but that same year, the society ceased to exist.
Esfir’ Isaakovna Kaplan (1889-1933), I. O. Perper’s wife, was a writer and vegetarian activist. She established a vegetarian cafeteria in Poltava in 1909, and from 1911-15 served as secretary of the journal Vegetarian Review, published by her future husband. She engaged in extensive correspondence with several Russian and foreign cultural figures and vegetarian activists, including Lev Tolstoy and N. N. Nordman (Severova).
- Access points: locations:
- Russia
- Access points: persons/families:
- Kaplan, E. I. (Esfir’ Isaakovna)
- Perper, I. O. (Iosif Ovshievich)
- Sholem Aleichem
- Subject terms:
- Correspondence
- Literature
- Literature--Writers, poets, and playwrights
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds includes a single inventory systematised according to the thematic-chronological principle.
- Finding aids:
- An inventory is available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary