Friendship of Peoples and Its Jewish Translator: Semyon Lipkin’s Visions of Multiethnic Space

• In Event: Literary Babel: The Multilingual Institutions of Soviet Jewish Writing

Abstract

My paper engages with the Soviet project of “friendship of peoples” as critically approached in the works of Semyon Lipkin (1911–2003), one of the most recognized Soviet translators from various languages, including Tatar, Persian, and several Caucasian languages. After being accused of “Zionism” in 1968, Lipkin was banned from official publishing and invested his linguistic experience into his unofficial poetry and prose that criticized the imperial Russian-centered policies behind the official “friendship of peoples.” As I will discuss, Lipkin’s works of the late Soviet period, building on the historic multilingualism of Jewish translators, attempt to reimagine the official project and to design instead a more inclusive, diverse, and democratic multiethnic space.

Author

• Marsel Khamitov, U of Wisconsin-Madison