Mordekhai Batchaev (Hebrew: מרדכי חיא בצ'איב, 1911-2007), known by his pen-name Muhib, was a Bukharan Jewish poet.[1]
He was born in Mari (present-day Merv, Turkmenistan).[1] His father Khie Batchaev was the correspondent of the newspaper Raḥamim in their hometown.[2][3] The family soon moved to Samarkand where Mordekhai Batchaev attended Jewish religious school and Russian secondary school.[4] In 1927 his first poems were published in the periodical Roşnaji.[4]
Between 1928 and 1938 he was active in Bukharan Jewish periodicals.[5]In 1930 he became the managing secretary of the newspaper Bajroqi Miⱨnat ('Banner of Labour').[4][6] He authored collections of poems, Bahori surkh ('Red Spring', 1931), Kuvati kolektiv ('Collective strength', 1931) and Sadoyi miⱨnat ('Voice of Labour', 1932).[4] He studied at the Faculty of Literature at the Central Asian State University in Tashkent.[5] He was arrested on charges of bourgeois nationalism in early July 1938.[4][5][6] He was released in 1945, but prohibited from residing in major cities.[5] He was rehabilitated in 1953 and settled in Dushanbe.[4][5] He worked as a Russian-Tajik translator from 1954 onward, and retired in 1972.[5]
In 1973 he moved to Israel.[5] 1974-1975 Batchaev authored a two-volume autobiographical prose work, titled Dar Juvoli Sangin ('In a Stone Sack').[4][7] He died in 2007 in Petah Tikva.[1] In 2007 the collected works of Batchaev, in seven volumes, were published.[4]
References edit
- ^ a b c Bibliothèque nationale de France. Mordekhai Batchaev (1911-2007)
- ^ Меер Рахминович Беньяминов. Бухарские евреи. с.н., 1983. p. 14
- ^ Muḣib. La vie de Yaquv Samandar, ou, Les revers du destin: nouvelle en tadjik. Indiana University, Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1992. pp. 2-3
- ^ a b c d e f g h Электронная еврейская энциклопедия (ЭЕЭ). Бачаев Мордехай
- ^ a b c d e f g Муҳиб. Куллиёт: иборат аз ҳафт ҷилд, Vol. 6. Изд-во "Цур-От". p. 371
- ^ a b Rafael Nektal. Елена Коровай: иной взгляд. Бухарские евреи в русской культуре. Litres, 2022. p. 255
- ^ Greeted With Smiles: Bukharian Jewish Music and Musicians in New York (New York, 2014; online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Dec. 2014)