Razumny Mark Abramovich (1896-1988)

Razumny Mark (Movshe) Abramovich (1896, Zhagory, Shavelsky Uyezd, Kovno Gubernia — 1988, Riga) — writer, poet, and playwright.

Mark Razumny received a traditional Jewish religious education and graduated from a gymnasium in Riga. From 1919 he lived in Germany, where he worked as a bank employee in Hamburg. In 1921 he was expelled from Germany and returned to Riga.

He was a contributor to the newspaper Dos Folk, where he published short stories, reports, and reviews. In 1926–1934 he was a correspondent for the newspaper Frimorgn. From 1937 he served as editor of the journal Yidishe Bilder. He wrote his first novella in German. His works were published in Jewish, Russian, Latvian, and other periodicals.

He translated into Yiddish the works of Russian, Latvian, German, and English writers, including Nikolai Garin, K. Zh. Svirsky, Lion Feuchtwanger, Erich Maria Remarque, and Jānis Rainis.

In the 1930s, his plays Doctor German Meerovich and Motke Chabad, as well as his dramatizations of works by Mendele Mocher Sforim and Sholem Aleichem, were staged in Jewish theatres in Latvia and other countries.

In 1946–1948 he was the Riga correspondent for the newspaper Eynikayt. He returned to active literary work in the early 1960s, publishing fables and novellas in the journal Sovetish Heymland.

Works:

So That the Heart Would Not Ache (Чтобы сердце не болело). Riga, 1963;

The Golden Dove (Золо­той голубь) Riga, 1975;

Trees Bloom Even in Autumn (И осенью цветут деревья) [n.p.], 1980.