GODINER, SAMUEL NISSAN

GODINER, SAMUEL NISSAN (Shmuel Nisn ; 1893–1942), Soviet Yiddish poet. Born in Telchan, Belorussia, Godiner moved to Warsaw as a teenager, became active in the Russian Social Revolutionary movement, was recruited into the Russian army in 1912, and was wounded in battle two years later. In 1918, he was taken prisoner by the Austrian army but escaped and rejoined the Russian army. From 1921 to 1923 he attended a Soviet literary institute in Moscow. His first short stories, published after 1921, dealt with the Russian civil war and employed the impressionistic symbolic style of the Kiev novelists Dovid *Bergelson and *Der Nister. His later short stories followed the requirements of socialist realism. Godiner's most popular novel was Der Mentsh mit der Biks ("The Man with the Rifle," 2 vols., 1928). He translated Russian novels into Yiddish and wrote a drama Dzhim Kuperkop ("Jim Coopercop," 1930). Godiner traveled to Birobidzhan several times and helped found Jewish schools and libraries there. In June, 1941, when the Germans invaded Russia, he left Moscow to fight with the partisans and died in battle. His short novel, Zaveler Trakt ("Blocked Highway," 1938), was reprinted post-humously in New York in 1950.

bibliography:

lnyl, 2 (1958), 3f.; Y. Levin, in: S.N. Godiner, Zaveler Trakt (1950), 5–8. add. bibliography: Y. Bronshteyn, Atake (1931), 194–218; A. Abtshuk, Etyudn un Materyaln (1932), 27–29, 50–51, 61.

[Sol Liptzin /

Marc Miller (2^nd ed.)]