MOYSHE LURYE

MOYSHE LURYE (August 28, 1897-1936?)

            He was born in a village near Bobruisk, Byelorussia.  He studied in religious elementary school and with his father, a school teacher.  He left home at age thirteen, and later lived in Lodz and Vilna.  In his free time he turned his attention to self-education.  From 1920 he was studying Oriental and ancient history in Berlin and in Göttingen; he received his doctoral degree in 1924.  Around 1920 he wrote political articles in Veker (Alarm) in Vienna and Arbeter-tsaytung (Workers’ newspaper) in Kovno, and he published a historical work in Milgroym (Pomegranate) (Berlin) 2 (1922-1924).  For the “Yidisher kultur-farlag” (Jewish culture publishers) in Berlin, he translated: Goethe, Di yesurim fun dem yungn verter (The sorrows of young Werther [original: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers]) (Berlin, 1922), 155 pp.; and the first three parts of Dostoevsky, Di brider karamazov (The brothers Karamazov [original: Brat'ya Karamazovy]) (Berlin, 1923).  In 1925 he moved to Soviet Russia, where he received a position at the University of the Peoples of the West in Moscow.  From that point, he published from time to time in Soviet Yiddish periodicals and collections of articles and essays on historical topics, among them: “Di sotsyale farheltenishn un di sotsyale bevegung in folk yisroel” (The social relations and the social movement among the Jewish people), Tsaytshrift (Periodical) (Minsk) 1 (1926); and “Materyalistishe fragn tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher religye” (Materialist questions of the history of the Jewish religion), Visnshaftlekhe yorbikher (Scholarly annuals) (Moscow) 1 (1929).  According to Emes, he was “liquidated” in 1936.

Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 2; Emes (Moscow) (August 24, 1936).

Borekh Tshubinski

[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 327.]