ABSTRACT
The real revolution broke out in the Warsaw Writers’ Association after Peretz Markish’s arrival from Soviet Russia. Markish swept through Galicia, Polesie, Volhynia, White Russia and all other Polish provinces like a gust of wind. Markish was always responsive to the political and cultural realities of his current place of residence, whether revolutionary Kiev in 1919, vibrant Warsaw of the 1920s, Stalinist Moscow of the 1930s, or the wartime Soviet Union, when Jewish national expressions were supported by the state. Markish’s work was also in dialogue with and simultaneously shaped the aesthetics of his time, whether forward-looking futurism, the dark introspection of expressionism, or the heroic bravado of socialist realism. The State Yiddish Theatres produced Markish plays in earnest in the late 1930s and early 1940s, including Di Shvue (The Oath), which portrays Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, and The Banquet.
