Burg, Joseph Kunovich

Born in Vizhnitsa, one of the famous centers of Hasidism in Bukovina , at that time almost 90% of the population was Jewish. Father was a raftsman , participated in the First World War as a soldier of the Austrian army. When Russian troops entered Bukovina, mother and son fled to Hungary and hid there until the end of the war. ^{[5] [6]}

When the future writer was 12 years old, the family moved to Chernivtsi , where he began to study the profession of tailor, gave tutoring lessons to elementary school students, attended a Romanian gymnasium in the evening, then - courses for Jewish teachers. One of his teachers was Eliezer Steinbarg , whose fables and plays he met at the age of 9 and which had a great influence on him.

In 1934 he made his debut in the newspaper “Chernovitser Bleater” ( Yiddish טשערָאָוויצער בל , ר , “Chernivtsi Leaflets”) with the first Yiddish story - “In the rafting” ( Yiddish אױפֿן פּליטנטרײַב - afn platentribe ). The decision to write in Yiddish, and not in German (the literary language of the assimilated Jewish population of the city), was conscious. Since then, his short press has constantly appeared in the Jewish press, devoted mainly to the nature of the Carpathians and the people of Bukovina. They are published in the Chernovitser Bleater until its closure by the Romanian authorities in late 1937 in connection with the ban on Jewish periodicals in the country.

In 1935-1938 he studied at the Faculty of German Philology of the University of Vienna . After the Anschluss, he was forced to stop his studies and returned to Chernivtsi.

In 1939 and 1940, two debut collections of short stories by Joseph Burg were published in Bucharest - “On Cheremosh ” (“אויפֿן טשערמוש” - afn chermush ) and “Poison” (“סם” - itself ).

In 1940, after the accession of Northern Bukovina to the USSR, he accepted Soviet citizenship. In 1941, on the recommendation of Itzik Fefer, he was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR , but did not manage to get a membership card. At the beginning of the war he managed to evacuate, his mother was deported from the city and died in Transnistria . At first, he was evacuated to the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic ^[7] , then lived in Uzbekistan .

Returning to Chernivtsi after the war, he worked as a teacher of German . The campaign to combat "cosmopolitanism" and the defeat of Jewish culture in the USSR threw Burg into a state of creative shock, and his writing activity was a long break (the feelings of that time were conveyed by Burg in his novel Rus.) He was leaving Chernivtsi, forced to quit his job at a department at the institute and a dissertation on the work of Heine . ^{[7] [8]}

In the 1950s, he teaches German language and literature in the Urals and in Moscow . In 1958, together with his family (wife and daughter), he returned to Chernivtsi, finding the city completely changed. He continues to work as a teacher of the German language and writes in Yiddish "on the table." In 1967, in the only Yiddish publication in the USSR, the Moscow magazine Sovetish Geymland , his new story “Return” (“צוריק אהײם” tsurik aimeim ) first appeared. In 1980, his first book was published in the USSR - the collection of short stories “Life Continues” (דאָס לעבן גייט ווײַטער dos dos Labe Gate viter ). In 1987 he was again admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR.

In the era of perestroika , Chernivtsi actively participated in the revival of the national life of the Jewish community, headed the Jewish Culture Society, named after the classic of Jewish literature, fabulist Eliezer Steinburg . At the end of 1990, after a break of 53 years , the company resumed publishing the newspaper Chernivtsi Leaflets (this time bilingual in Russian and Yiddish), Joseph Burg became its editor.

Books of short stories and short stories “Poison”, “Life Continues”, “Roll Call of Times”, “Belated Echo”, “Flowers and Tears” were published in several editions in Germany , Austria , Israel , Italy in several European languages. In 2007, on the 95th anniversary of I. Burg, two of his new books were published - Nine (in German ) and Meetings (in Yiddish). There are bilingual German-Yiddish editions in which the Yiddish text is typed in Latin.

• 1992 - Segal Literature Award ( Israel )
• 1993 - Honored Worker of Culture of Ukraine
• 1997 - Honorary Citizen of the city of Chernivtsi
• 2002 - Golden Order of Merit for the Republic of Austria
• 2002 - Order of Merit for the Federal Republic of Germany ^[9] (Ukrainian) ^[7]
• 2007 - Cross of honor in the field of science and art of the 1st class (Austria) ^[10]
• 2009 - Theodor Cramer Prize (Austria) ^[11]

In Vizhnitsa, the street where the writer lived as a child was called by his name during his lifetime ^[12] .

Yiddish

• אױפֿן טשערמוש ( afn chermush - on Cheremosh ). Bucharest , 1939.
• סם ( himself - poison). Bucharest, 1940.
• דאָס לעבן גײט װײַטער ( dos labm gate whiter - life goes on). M., Soviet writer, 1980.
• איבערוף פֿון צײַטן ( Iberuf fun Zeitn - roll call of the times). M., Soviet writer, 1983.
• אַ פֿאַרשפּעטיקטער עכאָ ( and the farsheptikter echo: darzeilungen, noveles, fartseichenungen - a belated echo: stories, short stories, sketches). M., Soviet writer, 1990; Bilingual Yiddish-German Edition - Munich : Kirchheim, 1999.
• אונטער אײן דאַך ( Unter Ein Dah - under one roof). Chernivtsi : Mame-loshn, 1992.
• צװײ װעלטן ( tsvei veltn: derceilungen, skitsn - two worlds: stories, essays). Odessa - Chernivtsi : Mame-loshn, 1997.
• צעװיקלטע סטעזשקעס ( tseviklte stegkes: derceilungen - tangled paths: stories). Odessa: Lighthouse, 1997.

In Russian

• Life goes on: Novels. M .: Soviet writer, 1987.
• Belated echoes: Short stories, short stories (bilingual edition). M .: Soviet writer, 1990.

In Ukrainian

• Quarter th slosi: opovidannya, narisi. Chernivtsi: Rіdna mov, 1997.

In Italian

• La canzone dimenticata: racconti yiddish. Florence : La Giuntina, 2006.

In German

• Ein Gesang über allen Gesängen: Erzählungen und Skizzen. Leipzig : St.-Benno-Verlag, 1988; 2nd edition - 1993.
• Ein verspätetes Echo (bilingual publication in Yiddish and German). Munich : Kirchheim, 1999.
• Irrfahrten: Ein ostjüdisches Leben. Winsen : Hans Boldt Literaturverlag, 2000.
• Jom Kippur. Winsen : Hans Boldt, 2001.
• Sterne altern nicht. Ausgewählte Erzählungen. Winsen : Hans Boldt, 2004 and Rimbaud-Verlag, 2011.
• Auf dem Czeremosz. Erzählungen. Winsen : Hans Boldt, 2005.
• Gift. Zwei Erzählungen. Winsen : Hans Boldt, 2005.
• Dämmerung. Erzählungen. Winsen : Hans Boldt Verlag, 2005.
• Mein Czernowitz. Winsen : Hans Boldt Verlag, 2006.
• Begegnungen - eine Karpatenreise. Winsen : Hans Boldt Verlag, 2006.
• Über jiddische Dichter. Erinnerungen. Winsen : Hans Boldt Verlag, 2007.
• Ein Stück trockenes Brot. Series "Erzähler Josef Burg". Ausgewählte Erzählungen. Winsen : Hans Boldt Verlag, 2008.

About him

• Raphaela Kitzmantel. Die jiddische Welt von gestern: Josef Burg und Czernowitz. Mandelbaum, 2012.

• Burg Yosef - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• Ute Weinmann, Vlad Tupikin. Witness of four eras
• Obituary at The New York Times
• Praskovya Nechaeva. 95th spring of Joseph Burg
• Josef Burg. La canzone dimenticata: racconti Yiddish (Italian)
• Othmar Andrée. Josef Burg. Auf dem Czeremosz. Gift (German)
• Interview with the correspondent of Il Foglio, January 2009 (Italian)
• 2004 Interview on Google Video (Yiddish)
• About the visit of Otto von Habsburg to I. Burg: article , photo