Galkin, Shmuel Zalman (1897-1960)
Poet, dramatist. In his youth, he wrote verses in Hebrew, since 1921 - in Yiddish. By 1930, he had published 2 collections of his verses in Yiddish. In the early Thirties, he was criticized for his "pessimism, lack of ideological content and fondness to Biblical symbols". In the late Thirties and the early Forties, Moscow GOSET produced his plays "Bar-Kokhba" and "Sulamyth" as well as "King Lear" by Shakespeare in Galkin's translation to Yiddish. In 1945, he published his collection of verses "Earthly Ways" that combined the pain of the people and the pride of their heroism and courage. During the war, he wrote his play "Song-Bird" and "The Rebellion in the Ghetto". Galkin was a member of EAK, of editorial board of Einikait newspaper and Geimland almanac. He directed many efforts to bring up young Jewish literary men. In 1950, he was arrested during the campaign of "the struggle with cosmopolitanism". He came back from the camp in 1955. The verses written in the camp were published after his death (the collection "My Treasure", 1966).He translated to Yiddish "The Little Tragedies" by A.S. Pushkin ("The Miserly Knight", "Mozart and Salieri" and "The Feast During The Pest"), verses by V.V. Mayakovsky, by A.A. Blok, S.A. Esenin and prose by M. Gorky and by D.A. Furmanov. The translations of his works to Russian were repeatedly published.