Page "David Bergelson" Paragraph 2

Born in the Ukrainian shtetl of Okhrimovo ( also known as Okhrimovka, now Sarny ), near Uman, he first became known as a writer in the wake of the failed Russian Revolution of 1905.

From a Hasidic background, but having received both religious and secular education, much of his writing is reminiscent of Anton Chekhov: stories of " largely secular, frustrated young people …, ineffectual intellectuals …", frustrated by the provincial shtetl life.

Writing at first in Hebrew and Russian, he only met success when he turned to his native Yiddish ; his first successful book was Arum Vokzal ( At the Depot ) a novella, published at his own expense in 1909 in Warsaw.