Osher Markovich Shvartsman

Born Oct. 6 (18), 1889, in the village of Vil’nia, near Zhitomir; died August 1919, in the stanitsa (large cossack village) of Palitsa, near Sarny. Soviet Jewish poet.

Shvartsman served in World War I, and in late 1918 he joined the Red Army as a volunteer. He was killed in a skirmish with the White Poles. Shvartsman was first published in 1913. His poetry is characterized by optimism and revolutionary romanticism. His best postrevolutionary poems are “Youth” (1917), “Vision” (1918), “My Brother” (1919), and “The Gray Mother-Night” (1919). Shvartsman’s poetry is pervaded by a love for working people and for his native countryside. Considered the first Soviet Jewish poet, he deeply influenced the development of Soviet Jewish poetry. Some of Shvartsman’s poems have been translated into Russian, Ukrainian, and other languages.