Semyon Lipkin
{{Short description|Russian writer, poet and literary translator}}
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{{Infobox writer
| name = Semyon Lipkin
| image = Lisnyanskaya-30 5.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Lipkin and his wife, poet Inna Lisnyanskaya
| birth_date = {{birth date|1911|9|6|df=y}}
| birth_place = Odessa, Russian Empire
| death_date = {{death date and age|2003|3|31|1911|9|6|df=y}}
| death_place = Peredelkino, Russia
| occupation = Poet, writer, soldier
| period = 1911-2003
| genres = Poetry, fiction, memoir, translations
| subject = World War II, History, Philosophy, Literature, Folklore, Jewish heritage, The Bible
| movement = Neo-Acmeism
| notableworks = Kvadriga Memoirs, The Lieutenant Quartermaster (An epic poem)
}}
Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin ({{langx|ru|Семён Израилевич Липкин}}) (6 September 1911 – 31 March 2003) was a Russian writer, poet, and literary translator.{{Cite journal |last=Rayfield |first=Donald |date=2013 |title=Review of After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin; Regina Derieva: The Sum Total of Violations; Regina Derieva: Corinthian Copper |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24585306 |journal=Translation and Literature |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=133–137 |doi=10.3366/tal.2013.0106 |jstor=24585306 |issn=0968-1361|url-access=subscription }}
Lipkin's work gained wider recognition after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was supported by his wife, poet Inna Lisnyanskaya. Lipkin was a close friend of Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Lipkin's poetry explores themes of history and philosophy.{{Cite web |date=2003-05-13 |title=National voice unheard for decades |url=https://www.smh.com.au/national/national-voice-unheard-for-decades-20030513-gdgr28.html |access-date=2024-03-16 |website=The Sydney Morning Herald |language=en}}
His poems reference his Jewish heritage and the Bible, and draw on his experiences in World War II and the Great Purge. Lipkin's opposition to the Soviet regime became public in 1979-1980 when he contributed to the uncensored almanac "Metropol." Subsequently, he and Lisnyanskaya left the Union of Soviet Writers.{{Cite web |last=Meyer |first=Ronald |date=2015-10-01 |title=Cold War Dress Code: Remembering Inna Lisnyanskaya |url=https://pen.org/cold-war-dress-code-remembering-inna-lisnyanskaya/ |access-date=2024-03-16 |website=PEN America |language=en}}
Early years
Lipkin was born in Odessa to Israel and Rosalia Lipkin on September 6, 1911. He was of Jewish ethnicity.{{Cite book|chapter-url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315706474/chapters/10.4324/9781315706474-99|doi = 10.4324/9781315706474-99|chapter = Semyon Lipkin (1911–2003)|title = An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry|year = 2015|pages = 813–818|isbn = 9781315706474}} His father, a tailor,{{Cite web |title=Semyon Lipkin. 'Cardinal Points' literary journal |url=http://www.stosvet.net/12/lipkin/info.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190905090048/http://www.stosvet.net/12/lipkin/info.html |archive-date=2019-09-05 |accessdate=November 28, 2019 |website=www.stosvet.net}} was active in the Menshevik movement.{{Cite book|last=Shrayer|first=Maxim D.|title=Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature: An Anthology|date=2019-07-31|publisher=Academic Studies PRess|isbn=978-1-64469-152-6|language=en}} Lipkin's early education included Hebrew and Torah instruction. His education was interrupted by the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War. In 1929 he moved to Moscow, where he studied engineering and economics, graduating from the Moscow Engineering-Economic Institute in 1937. He also studied various languages, including Persian, Kalmyk, Kirghiz, Kazakh, Tatar, Tajik and Uzbek.
Military career
Lipkin's military career began with the German invasion in June 1941, when he was enlisted as a war correspondent with the rank of senior lieutenant at the Baltic Fleet base in Kronstadt. He later served with the 110th Kalmyk cavalry division and the Volga River Flotilla at Stalingrad. He participated in the Battle of Stalingrad and reported on it. He received four military orders and several medals.
Literary career
Lipkin published his first poem at 15, which was praised by Eduard Bagritsky. However, the Soviet regime prevented him from publishing until his sixties. Wider recognition came when he was 70. His literary circle, which included Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky, recognized his talent much earlier.
In the 1930s, Lipkin met influential figures like poets Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, and Marina Tsvetayeva, and prose writers Vasily Grossman and Andrey Platonov, whom he described in his memoir Kvadriga.
Lipkin was a renowned literary translator, often working from languages suppressed by Stalin.{{Cite journal |title=World Literature as a Communal Apartment: Semyon Lipkin's Ethics of Translational Difference |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262087893 |website=researchgate.net |pages=404}} He also immersed himself in the cultures of the languages he translated, including Abkhaz, Akkadian, Buryat, Dagestani, Karbardinian, Kalmyk, Kirghiz, Tatar, Tadjik-Farsi and Uzbek.{{Cite web|title=Yvonne Green. Finding a Path. Translating Lipkin|url=http://www.stosvet.net/12/green/index.html|access-date=2021-02-18|website=Cardinal Points Journal}} He famously hid a typescript of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate from the KGB, initiating its journey to the West.{{Cite book|last=Grossman|first=Vasily|title=The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays|publisher=New York Review of Books|year=2010|isbn=978-1-59017-409-8|language=en}}{{Cite book|last=Toker|first=Leona|title=Gulag Literature and the Literature of Nazi Camps: An Intercontexual Reading|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=2019|isbn=978-0-253-04351-1|location=Bloomington|pages=72}} Lipkin's translations and literary work earned him numerous accolades, including the title of Kalmykia National Poet (1967) and Hero of Kalmykia (2001).{{Cite web |title=The Novel of S. Lipkin "Decade"; the Fate of Eastern Culture in the Soviet Culture and Historical Context – Student Theses – Higher School of Economics National Research University |url=https://www.hse.ru/en/edu/vkr/342824986 |access-date=2024-03-16 |website=www.hse.ru}}{{Citation |title=Semyon Lipkin (1911–2003) |date=2019-12-31 |work=Voices of Jewish-Russian Literature |pages=611–614 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/9781618117939-069 |access-date=2024-03-16 |publisher=Academic Studies Press|doi=10.1515/9781618117939-069 |isbn=978-1-61811-793-9 |url-access=subscription }}
= Poetry =
{{ordered list|type=lower-alpha
- Ochevidets [Eyewitness: poems of various years]. Elista: Kalmyk Book Publishers, 1967; 2nd Edition, 1974.
- Vechnyi den’ [Eternal Day]. Moscow: Sovetskii Pisatel, 1975.
- Volia [Free Will]. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1981; Moscow: O.G.I., 2003.
- Kochevoi Ogon’ [A Nomadic Flame]. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1984.
- Kartiny i golosa [Pictures and Voices]. London: Overseas Publications Interchange, 1986.
- Lira. Stikhi raznyh let [Lyre. Verses of Various Years]. Moscow: Pravda, 1989.
- Lunnyi svet. Stikhotvoreniya i poemy [Moonlight. Verses and Poems]. Moscow: Sovremennik, 1991.
- Pis’mena. Stikhotvoreniya i poemy [Letters. Verses and Poems]. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia Literatura, 1991.
- Pered zakhodom solntsa. Stikhi i perevody [Before the Sunset. Verses and Translations] Paris-Moscow-New York: Tretya Volna, 1995.
- Posokh [Shepherd's Crook]. Moscow: CheRo, 1997.
- Sobranie sochinenii v 4-kh tomakh [Collected works in 4 volumes]. Moscow: Vagrius, 1998.
- Sem’ desyatiletii [Seven Decades]. Moscow: Vozvrashchenie, 2000.
- Vmeste. Stikhi [Together, Verses. (Together with Inna Lisnianskaya)]. Moscow: Grail, Russkiy put’, 2000.
- Ochevidets [Eyewitness: selected poems]. Moscow: Vremia, 2008.
}}
= Prose =
{{ordered list|type=lower-alpha
- Stalingradsky korabl' [The Stalingrad Ship]. 1943.
- Dekada [Decade]. 1983.
- Stalingrad Vasiliya Grossmana [Stalingrad of Vasily Grossman], 1984.
- Zhizn' i sud'ba Vasiliya Grossmana [Life and Fate of Vasily Grossman]. 1990.
- Ugl' pylayuschiy ognyom [The Flaming Coal]. 1991.
- Zapiski zhil'tsa [The Notes of a Lodger], 1992.
- Vtoraya doroga [The Second Road], 1995.
- Kvadriga [Quadriga], 1997.
}}
= Translations by Semyon Lipkin =
{{See also|List of works translated by Semyon Lipkin}}
= English translations of Semyon Lipkin’s work =
- After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin, translation by Yvonne Green. London: Smith/Doorstop, 2011.
- Testimony from the Literary Memoirs of Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin translation by Yvonne Green. (Hendon Press, 2023) {{ISBN|978-1-739778-51-4}}
- A Close Reading of Fifty-three poems by Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin translation by Yvonne Green.(Hendon Press, 2023) {{ISBN|978-1-739778-52-1}}
= French translations of Semyon Lipkin’s work =
- Le Destin de Vassili Grossman (L'Age d'Homme 1990) tr Alexis Berelowitch
- L'histoire d'Alim Safarov, écrivain russe du Caucase (Dekada [Decade]). La Tour-d'Aigues: Editions de l'Aube, 2008.
Friendship with Vasily Grossman
In 1961, the manuscript for Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate was confiscated by the KGB. Semyon Lipkin hid a copy at his dacha and later gave it to Elena Makarova and Sergei Makarov for safekeeping.{{Cite book |last=Popoff |first=Alexandra |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvd1c9fm |title=Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century |date=2019 |publisher=Yale University Press |doi=10.2307/j.ctvd1c9fm |jstor=j.ctvd1c9fm |isbn=978-0-300-22278-4}} (Elena Makarova was Lipkin's stepdaughter, and Sergei Makarov her husband.){{Cite magazine |last=Gessen |first=Keith |date=2006-02-26 |title=Vasily Grossman's Path to Dissent |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/03/06/under-siege |access-date=2024-03-16 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}} In 1975, Lipkin enlisted Vladimir Voinovich and Andrey Sakharov to smuggle the manuscript to the West, leading to its publication in 1980. In 2013, Grossman's manuscript was released from the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.{{Cite web |last=Chandler |first=Robert |title=Vasily Grossman |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/57426/vasily-grossman |access-date=2024-03-16 |website=www.prospectmagazine.co.uk |language=en}}
Chronology of historical events impacting Lipkin and his writing
{{See also|Timeline of Semyon Lipkin's life and related historical events}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
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Category:20th-century Russian male writers
Category:Soviet military personnel of World War II
Category:Russian male journalists