Elias Tobenkin ( born Elias Tobenkin ; February 11, 1882 , Slutsk , Minsk Province , Russian Empire - October 19, 1963 , Chicago , USA ) - American journalist, writer.
| Elias Tobenkin | |
|---|---|
| English Elias tobenkin | |
| Date of Birth | February 11, 1882 |
| Place of Birth | Slutsk |
| Date of death | October 19, 1963 (81 years old) |
| A place of death | Chicago |
| A country | |
| Occupation | journalist , prose writer |
Content
Biography
Born in 1882 in the family of Fanny and Marcus A. (Moshe Aron) Tobenkin. The family Bible with the records was lost, so only the estimated date of birth is known: February 2 or 11.
In 1899, the Tobenkin family emigrated to the United States , settling in Madison , the capital of Wisconsin . Here, Tobenkin graduated from high school, received a bachelor's degree (1905) and a master's degree in German literature and philosophy (1906) at the University of Wisconsin .
He began his career in 1906 as a journalist at Free Press ( Milwaukee ), but a year later he moved to Chicago , where he married Paradise Shvid and began working with the Chicago Tribune . The next three years he spent in New York as a freelance journalist. In 1912 he returned to Chicago and was enrolled in the Chicago Tribune , where he became one of the most prominent observers of the life of immigrants in the United States.
From 1916, he began writing economic articles for the Metropolitan Magazine , and also worked as a journalist for The San Francisco Examiner .
Following the approval of Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair, Lewis [1] publishes his first novel, Witte Arrives (1916). The novel, which tells about the life of Emil Witte, the youngest son in an orthodox Jewish family, from the time he arrived from Russia to the USA to becoming a famous journalist, is partially autobiographical. Besides the general resemblance to Tobenkin’s biography, one can find in the book the fictional city of Spring Water, bearing the features of Madison, and the unflattering characterization of Robert McCormick , owner of the Chicago Tribune . After publication, critics compared the novel with the autobiographical book of the Polish emigrant Mary Antin , published several years earlier, although Tobenkin’s work did not include the inherent praise of the “American dream” and immigration in general, and the focus was more on the description of journalistic work. Witte Arrives has been reprinted several times (1919, 1968) along with Tobenkin’s other successful novel God of Might (1925), which also talks about the Americanization of immigrants, in particular the problems of interethnic marriages.
In 1919-1920, as a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald, he traveled to Germany and Poland. The next ten years he spent combining the work of a correspondent, columnist and prose writer. In 1921 he interviewed Albert Einstein during his visit to the United States [2] .
In 1931 he lived and worked in Moscow , was a Moscow correspondent for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency [3] . The result of a 10-month stay in the USSR was the book "Stalin's Ladder: War and Peace in the Soviet Union" (1933).
In 1935 and 1936 he traveled around the world, after which he wrote the book "The Peoples Want Peace" (1938).
After the death of his wife, Rai lived in New York and Washington in 1938 with his only son Paul, a journalist for the New York Herald Tribune .
From 1943 he worked on the novel The Father, which was supposed to complete the immigrant trilogy launched by Witte Arrives and God of Might.
In 1961, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism established the Paul Tobenkin Prize, awarded to journalists "for outstanding achievements in the fight against racial and religious intolerance and discrimination in the United States" [4] .
He died in 1963 at his home in Chicago [3] .
The archives of Elias Tobenkin are kept at the University of Texas at Austin [1] .
Artwork
Novels
- Witte Arrives (1916)
- The House of Conrad (1918)
- The Road (1922)
- God of Might (1925)
- "In the Dark" (1931)
- City of Friends (1934)
- “The Father” (not published) [1]
Journalism
- "Stalin's Ladder: War and Peace in the Soviet Union" (1933)
- The Peoples Want Peace (1938)
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 Elias Tobenkin: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center . Harry Ransom Center.
- ↑ Tobenkin, Elias. How Einstein, Thinking in Terms of the Universe, Lives from Day to Day (Eng.) // New York Evening Post : newspaper. - 1921. - March 26.
- ↑ 1 2 Elias Tobenkin, Noted Author, Dead; Was JTA Correspondent in Moscow . Jewish Telegraphic Agency (October 22, 1963).
- ↑ Tobenkin Award (inaccessible link) . Columbia University Journalism School. Date of treatment February 11, 2015. Archived February 11, 2015.
Links
- Baldwin, Charles C. The Men Who Make Our Novels . - New York: Moffat, Yard & company, 1919. - P. 198-204.
- Hutner, Gordon. What America Read: Taste, Class, and the Novel, 1920-1960. - Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. - P. 33-35.