Jewish Odessa in the Works of Semyon Yushkevich

Yushkevich’s native town Odessa became a background in his literary imagination. The novel Prolog describes the port of Odessa and destiny of its workers, indicating the impact of E. Zola. The Sketches of Childhood portray the world of a child near the coast of the Black Sea. But the main theme that unites all stages of his creative work was the image of the Jewish residents of Odessa, in all their diversity and social groups. In the first novel Desintegration based on biographical details one can find important descriptions the urban life of that time. The poor Jewish neighborhoods of Odessa, its markets, tobacco workshops and small businesses, poor district Moldavanka appear in The Jews and stories The Tailor and Ita Haine. The contrast of Moldavanka and the main street Deribasovskaya is stressed in the socio-psychological novels The Street and Our Sisters, describing the life of the urban extremes – crime and prostitutions.

In 1910^th Yushkevich portrayed the world of the Odessa Jewish bourgeoisie, but his criticism provoked a stormy public debate (A. Gornfeld, I. Tsinberg). City structure of Odessa (streets, banks, parks, restaurants, the rich mansions, city trams and cars) depicted in satirical novel Leon Drey. The Episodes represents Jewish Odessa during the Civil War.

We will analyze the using of the Odessa language (the linguistic research by prof. Е.M. Stepanov ( 2004)), including examples from local odessizms and Yiddish forms and expressions.

Yushkevich’ picture of Odessa is described from his novels, stories, plays and articles.