About Event
Lionel Trilling wrote in 1955 that “no event in the history of Soviet culture is more significant than the career, or, rather, the end of the career, of Isaac Babel.” Notoriously secretive and evasive, a genius of style and literary compression, a Jew with spectacles who rode with the Cossack army of Semyon Budyonny in 1920, friend of André Malraux and protege of Gorky, and the lover of the wife of Nikolai Yezhov (the Head of the NKVD), Babel is one of the great writers of the modern period whose life and work presents enduring enigmas. Arrested in 1939, Babel was shot in January, 1940. His manuscripts, diaries, journals, and letters were confiscated and have never been discovered in post-Soviet Russia.
Join prominent Russian poet, writer and journalist Dmitry Bykov and Jonathan Brent, Russian scholar and the Executive Director of the YIVO Institute, for an intimate conversation about Isaac Babel’s Russian Jewish identity, his life, the myth of Babel, and his contribution to literature.
June 7, 6:30 pm – 8 pm
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
Admission: $25 General | $20 YIVO Members
Presented by YIVO, the Russian American Foundation and RTVi (Independent Russian TV Network), as part of the 13th Annual Russian Heritage Month®.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council.
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