MORTKHE NAYDIN (NEYDIN)

MORTKHE NAYDIN (NEYDIN) (1896-1941)

            He was born in Levertov (Lubartów), Lublin district, Poland.  His father had come from Kiev and died when Naydin was young.  His mother was native to Lubartów, where she and her son and daughter ran a newspaper shop.  In 1925 he studied to be a typesetter in a print shop and worked in this trade in Pulavi (Puławy), later in Brisk (Brest).  He subsequently translated works of Russian literature into Yiddish.  In 1929 he came to Warsaw and in 1931 returned to Lubartów.  Naydin belonged to the so-called “Puławy Academy” (with Sh. Rozenberg, Sh. Tenenboym, and Sh. L. Shnayderman) and, between 1928 and 1939, published a series of translations from Russian into Yiddish.  In 1941 he was shot by the Nazis in Brest.  In book form he published the following translations: Maxim Gorky, Zikhroynes (Memoirs) (Warsaw: Koykhes, 1928), 212 pp.; Gorky, Dos gesheft fun di artamonovs (The Artomonov business [original: Delo Artamonovikh]) (Warsaw: Koykhes, 1928), 240 pp.; Gorky, Dos lebn fun klim samgil (The life of Klim Sangin [original: Zhizn’ Klima Samgina]), 3 vols. (Warsaw: Koykhes), vol. 1 (1928), 399 pp., vol. 2 (1929), 405 pp., vol. 3 (1939), 417 pp.; and Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, A duel un andere dertseylungen (A duel [original: Duel’] and other stories) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige, 1928), 239 pp.

Sources: Y. Rapaport, in Bikher-velt (Warsaw) (June 1928; September 1928); Kh. Sh. Kazdan, in Bikher-velt (October 1928; July 1929); N. Mayzil, Geven amol a lebn, dos yidishe kultur-lebn in poyln tsvishn beyde velt-milkhomes (There was once a life, Jewish cultural life in Poland between the two world wars) (Buenos Aires, 1951), p. 193; oral information from Shloyme Rozenberg in New York.

Leyb Vaserman