Lev Ozerov was, in a number of ways, a typical Soviet Jewish man of letters. Born Lev Adol’fovich Gol’dberg in Kyiv, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire) on 10 August 1914, he adopted a Russian-sounding pseudonym in the middle of the 1930s, a common practice among Soviet public figures of Jewish origin. Trained at the prestigious Moscow Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History (MIFLI), he built an exceptionally productive career as a poet, translator, critic, editor and teacher. After the Second World War he was targeted in the anti-Semitic “anti-cosmopolitan” campaign, but won back the tolerance, if never quite the favour, of the authorities after Stalin’s death. Elements of this brief sketch can be mapped onto the careers of many other Soviet Jewish authors, born…

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Citation: Dralyuk, Boris. "Lev Ozerov". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 March 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=13317, accessed 04 December 2024.]

13317 Lev Ozerov 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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