Memorial for the Dead

Aharon (Arn) Kushnirov was a prolific Soviet Yiddish poet, prose writer, playwright, literary translator, and editor. Born in Boyarka, Ukraine, and active in the Yiddish literary scene in Kiev, Kushnirov first wrote poetry that was full of youthful vigor and a desire for a revolutionary mass culture. The editor of influential literary journals throughout the interwar period and early postwar years—including the Moscow-based Der shtrom, the Minsk-based Der shtern, and the Moscow literary almanacs Sovetish and Heymland—Kushnirov was attracted to proletarian writing and culture, and enthusiastically participated in its production. Some of his most memorable works in this regard include the play Hirsh Lekert (1928), later translated into Russian by Eduard Bagritsky, and his writing on the settlement of Birobidzhan and other new industrial centers. A member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Kushnirov was a victim of the repression of Soviet Yiddish culture and was killed in September 1949.