Avraham Shlonsky: Encyclopedia II - Avraham Shlonsky - Life

Avraham Shlonsky - Life

When he was 13, he was sent to Israel to study at the prestigious Herzliya Hebrew High School in Tel Aviv. When the First World War broke out, he returned to Russia.

Shlonsky published his first poem in 1919 in the newspaper Ha-Shiluah. In 1921 he relocated to the Land of Israel as a development worker, working in road paving and building construction. At the same time, he contributed to Jewish cultural life in the form of pop songs for the satirical stage productions of the time, and for the balls that were a tradition in early Tel Aviv for the Purim holiday. Even then, he showed a tendency to witty writing, incorporating linguistic inventions. In addition, he edited the literature columns in a few newspapers.

Gradually he became the representative of the "rebel" group against the poetry of Bialik and his generation, particularly their characteristic clichés. His group tried to create a youthful, new and lively poetry, not handed down by the literary establishment. This fact was evident in that, for years, Shlonsky's poetry was not taught in school alongside the poems of Bialik, Shaul Tchernichovsky, David Shimoni, and others.

In 1933 Shlonsky founded the literary weekly Turim, which was identified with the "Yachdav" society in which Natan Alterman and Leah Goldberg were also members. As an editor, Shlonsky gave poets just starting out an opportunity to publish their poems. Dalia Rabikovich merited one such opportunity when her first poem was published in the literary quarterly Orlogin that Shlonsky edited.

His sensitive activity on behalf of Boris Gaponov is especially remembered to his credit. Gaponov, as editor of the Communist Party daily in an auto plant in Soviet Georgia, translated the Georgian epic The Knight in the Panther's Skin by Shota Rustaveli into Hebrew. (Shneiderman 1970) Shlonsky orchestrated the publication of the translation in Israel, and was among those working to enable Gaponov to immigrate to Israel. Gaponov, who had learned Hebrew by listening to Israel Radio broadcasts, finally immigrated when he was very sick and his days were numbered. Israeli television viewers of the time remember the image of Shlonsky stroking Gaponov's head in a loving, fatherly manner, as the latter lay on his sickbed.

Despite his reputation for comic wit, Shlonsky did not shrink from the tragic situation around him, but rather expressed it in his works. In the poem "Distress" he laments the fate of the victims of the First World War and of the Jews who suffered from pogroms in Ukraine during the Bolshevik revolution.

During the Holocaust, he published a collection of verse titled ממחשכים (from concealing shadows) in which he expressed his feelings from that darkest period in human history. He particularly lamented the fate of the Jews in a diseased Europe.

In 1967 Shlonsky won the Israel Prize for literature.

Avraham Shlonsky passed away in Tel Aviv in 1973.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki