Ansky, Shloime

Ansky, Shloime (shloi`mə än`skē) pseud. of Solomon Seinwil Rapoport, 1863–1920, Russian-Yiddish author. He extensively researched regional Jewish folklore and incorporated folk elements into his realistic stories of peasant life and Hasidism. His most famous work is Tsvishn Tsvey Veltn, oder der Dibuk (1916, tr. The Dybbuk, 1926), a play about demonic possession first staged by Vakhtangov in the Moscow Jewish theater (the Habimah) and by the Vilna Troupe. It was adapted into a major expressionist film by M. Waszynski in Poland in 1938. Ansky's Destruction of Galicia (1925–27, tr. 1992) is an important account of the onslaught on the region's Jewish communities in World War I, witnessed during an aid-bringing mission.

Bibliography

See D. Roskies, The Dybbuk and other Writings (1992).