Jason WagnerMoyshe Kulbak (1896-1937), one of the great virtuoso poets of the modern explosion of Yiddish creativity in the early twentieth century, was born in Smogon, in the Vilna Province of the Russian Empire (today in Belarus). The author of six volumes of poetry, he was also a successful playwright, novelist, and translator. Committed to the ideals of the revolution, he left Poland for the Soviet Union in 1927. He settled in Minsk where he lived for the next decade until his arrest in September 1937 on charges of disloyalty to the state at espionage. He was executed the following month. Read More Read Less