Bialik, Hayyim Nahman

Bialik, Hayyim Nahman (hī`yəm nä`mən byä`lēk), 1873–1934, Hebrew poet, publisher in Odessa, Berlin, and Tel-Aviv, b. Volhynia, Russia. As an editor and publisher Bialik spread the ideas of the enlightenment (Haskalah). His fame began with the publication (1903) of his poem "In the City of Slaughter," inspired by a pogrom in Kishinev. Bialik's style is sometimes biblical, prophetic, and majestic, sometimes simple and lyrical; he had a great effect upon modern Hebrew literature. He wrote novels, humorous songs, and sketches; some of his work is in Yiddish, but his most important writings are in Hebrew. They have been widely translated (English translations of his poems were published in 1924, 1926, and 1948). Bialik translated into Hebrew Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Cervantes's Don Quixote, Schiller's Wilhelm Tell and Heine's poems.