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# I Once Came Across a Remarkable Letter from the Jewish Writer Vergelis to the Party Bureau of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR on the "Vicious Peculiarities" of Jewish Literature
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/kak-to-popalos-na-glaza-udivitelnoe-pismo-evreiskogo-pisatelia-vergelisa-v-partiinoe-biuro-soiuza-sovetskikh-pisatelei-sssr-o-porochnykh-osobennostiakh-evreiskoi-literatury/
- Published: 2018-05-10T22:00:56.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:44:36.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Observations, Society, Humour

I once came across a remarkable letter from the Jewish writer Vergelis to the Party Bureau of the Union of Soviet Writers of the USSR on the "vicious peculiarities" of Jewish literature. The author surveys the work of several Jewish writers: Hofstein, Albirt, Fefer, Der Nister, Bergelson, Dobrushin, Shturman and a number of others. Comrade Vergelis writes, for example: "If anyone should wish to form an idea of the life and struggle of the Soviet people from Jewish literature, which I do not advise him to do, he will think that in the USSR socialism was built mainly by people of Jewish nationality alone."

But my own favourite quotation is a different one: "What is there to write about Shturman? What is there to write about a poet who has not functioned in print literature for many years, and is known only for his zealous attendance at the House of Writers?" In short, it seems that Shturman is me.