02.03.2025 · Yegor Vradiy

The Dream of Becoming a Writer

On this day — 1 March 1923 — Vladimir Gelfand was born

Vladimir Gelfand (1923–1983) was born on 1 March 1923 — a Ukrainian Jew, a direct participant in the Second World War, a teacher and a poet. His diaries are perhaps one of the most extensive views by an ordinary person of life, people and events in the period 1941–1945. In fact, until the beginning of the 2000s, V. Gelfand’s diaries remained a family relic. Thanks to the efforts of Vitaly Gelfand, the author’s son, the entries in school notebooks and notepads became books published in German, Swedish and Russian.

The Museum’s collections contain an enormous number of manuscripts, personal belongings and documents of Vladimir Gelfand. Today we would like to focus on one aspect of this remarkable “ordinary” man — his passion for literature and writing.

More details are available in the article on the Museum’s website.

Vladimir Gelfand, like many of his contemporaries whose childhood and youth fell in the 1920s and 1930s, was fascinated by the world of words. The digital era was still almost seven decades away. The prospect of travel beyond the Soviet Union was as remote as flights to other planets of the Galaxy. A book therefore remained the only means of discovering the world and, in part, offered a small hope of self-expression. One can only guess what else motivated the young man from the banks of the Dnipro [1] to compose his first youthful poems. In any case, at that age attempts at poetry are an integral part of many people’s lives, just like first love, dreams of a heroic future and ambitions for achievement.

As a schoolboy, Vladimir attended various literary events held in prewar Dnipropetrovsk — a city large in area and population, but provincial in character. From time to time he ventured to perform his own work and, with youthful sensitivity, reacted keenly both to positive reviews and to critical remarks about his writing.

We learn all this from his diary entries. The diary itself — dozens of school exercise books, notebooks and separate sheets — became for the young man, and later for the adult, both a kind of confidant and at the same time the magnum opus that he wrote throughout his life.

The pages of the diaries reflect every kind of human experience, achievement and defeat — everything familiar to each of us. Yet the background to this personal story was a harsh time: the beginning of the German-Soviet war, the abandonment of his native city and evacuation into the unknown, mobilization into the Red Army, and the terrible trials of war right up to its end. Even under such often inhuman circumstances, however, dreams of literary work and literary fame did not leave the young man.

After the end of the war and his delayed demobilization in 1947, Vladimir Gelfand entered the philology department of the Faculty of History and Philology at Dnipropetrovsk State University. The end of the 1940s is an exceptionally interesting period: the graduating class of 1941 was returning to student life — or, more accurately, sitting down in university lecture rooms for the first time. Many of them, like Vladimir, had been scorched by war and the experience of survival, by the emotions of victory and the loss of relatives and comrades-in-arms.

In 1946, Oles Honchar graduated from the university and, at the same time as defending his thesis, burst into Ukrainian literature with the first part of his frontline trilogy The Standard-Bearers. At the end of March 1948, describing a meeting of the university literary research circle, V. Gelfand recorded in his diary a teacher’s reaction to the news that Honchar had received a Stalin Prize (Second Class) for The Standard-Bearers:

“And Honchar is our student; he got 50 thousand too. He is glad he escaped from here. But he loves the university so much…” [2]

Vladimir judged the teacher’s reaction rather critically [3], believing that she was trying to warm herself in the rays of the talented graduate’s fame. It is also quite possible that he was offended by the materialistic way in which another previous year’s laureate, Ilya Ehrenburg, was assessed for his novel The Storm: “Ehrenburg received 100 thousand…” [4]

For Vladimir Gelfand, Ilya Ehrenburg was not merely a favorite author. He was a kind of literary deity with whom he had the good fortune to live at the same time, and simultaneously an unattainable ideal. The diary pages show how often Vladimir evaluated the work of other contemporary writers through comparison with Ehrenburg’s writing.

Literary readings and discussions were part of student life at the time. Incidentally, another gifted young man with an equally dramatic wartime fate was studying at the same faculty one year ahead of Gelfand — Pavlo Zahrebelnyi. A year younger than V. Gelfand, he nevertheless entered the university earlier. One may assume that they knew one another and met more than once. This assumption is supported, among other things, by address notes in V. Gelfand’s notebook from early 1948: “Dneprop. Karl Marx, 121, apt. 78. Zahrebelnyi Pavel Arkhipovich” [5].

No less interesting is a newspaper clipping pasted onto the first page of the same notebook — a quotation from Nikolai Gogol: “A person who writes must no more lay down the pen than a painter the brush. Let him write something, without fail every day. The hand must become accustomed to obeying thought completely” [6]. What is this if not a motivational motto for a young man striving so intensely for literary recognition?

In 1949, V. Gelfand married Berta Koifman, a young woman he had known since before the war and with whom he had remained in contact throughout the war, and transferred to the philological faculty of Molotov State University [7].

There, as a student in the department of Russian philology, he looked at Ilya Ehrenburg’s work not only as a reader but also selected it as the subject of his student literary research. His graduation thesis was devoted to an analysis of the novel The Storm.

While working on it, V. Gelfand received permission to travel to Moscow State University to collect materials and work in libraries. Yet, looking ahead, one can say that this was not the trip’s only purpose. Somewhere deep inside, Vladimir cherished the hope of meeting his literary idol. There was, moreover, an excellent occasion: the writer’s sixtieth birthday.

In preparation for it, V. Gelfand unsuccessfully tried to offer articles devoted to Ehrenburg’s legacy to the editorial offices of both central Soviet newspapers and regional papers, including those in Dnipropetrovsk.

During the trip, however, he decided on a desperate step: to visit Ilya Ehrenburg’s Moscow apartment. We have not yet been able to establish exactly how the ambitious student managed to obtain the address of a living classic of the Soviet period. The fact remains that on 6 February 1951 a brief meeting took place.

Unfortunately, fate was not as kind to V. Gelfand afterward as it was on that day in early February. He never succeeded in fully realizing his literary aspirations, largely because of life circumstances. In 1955 he returned to Dnipropetrovsk, where he lived for the next 28 years. He worked as a teacher of Russian language and literature and later of history and social studies. He and his family repeatedly became targets of open antisemitic insults and even persecution. In the 1960s and 1970s, V. Gelfand published essays in Russian and Ukrainian in the local press. Yet he never managed to create the large, coherent work he had dreamed of since childhood.

Only thirty years after his death, thanks to the efforts of his son Vitaly, did the first edition of his father’s wartime diaries appear. To this day they remain among the most candid testimonies by an “ordinary” person about the horrors of war.

On Vladimir Gelfand’s birthday, we would like to offer our readers a fragment of a diary entry about his meeting with Ilya Ehrenburg — a meeting that meant so much to a 28-year-old man overflowing with dreams and plans for the future. This fragment is published here for the first time [8].

Yegor Vradiy

6/II — 1951

I walked mechanically, barely understanding where I was going, not feeling my legs, only the heaviness of my whole body. From Mayakovskaya station, which I had reached by metro. On the way I went into a shop to buy things: batteries, flashlights, photographic paper and so on.

Slowly and gradually I made my way toward my goal. I tried not to think about what lay ahead. But again and again I remembered and pictured the circumstances. The closer I came to the cherished building, the more nervous I became.

Downstairs there was some kind of workshop, a bindery, I think. I went in and my tongue became tied.

— Tell me, where is the housing administration here?
— What? — the worker looked at me with surprised eyes. — What? — he asked again.
— Excuse me, the construction administration?
— Ah, that’s different. Go in from the courtyard.

It was a day off. They were not working. By chance I found myself in some little living room. There they told me: second entrance, seventh floor.

I could not find an elevator anywhere. How does the poor fellow climb up to that bell tower of his? I have forgotten the apartment number now. Something like 48 or 68.

I approached the door and examined it. The arrangement on the landing was like this: two doors on the left, one on the right. That was Ehrenburg’s door. There was a box on it, as large as one at a post office, big and roomy. A runner lay on the floor. There was no nameplate on the door. I pressed the bell. A deep barking of dogs was heard.

A woman of about forty opened the door — Russian, stout, wearing an apron.

— I need Ilya Grigoryevich.
— Did you arrange to see him?
— No, but I have to see him.
— He is busy; he is unlikely to be able to receive you.

There was despair in my voice when I begged her to let me see Ehrenburg. From agitation I began to stammer and immediately caught myself thinking: “This is how I speak to the housekeeper. How am I going to speak to Ehrenburg?”

The woman shifted impatiently from one foot to the other.

— I’ll call the secretary.
— No, I need to see Ilya Ehrenburg himself.

But she did not listen to me. She went away, leaving the door ajar. It seemed to me that when the servant opened it, the barking of a shepherd dog came from inside. Then someone took it away. But when I entered, three shaggy lapdogs, alike in appearance but of different colors, rushed at my feet. Someone called them back and they became friendlier. They sniffed me cautiously and with great disdain, then dispersed with an air of importance.

Meanwhile I was already talking to the secretary. In my imagination, the concept of a “secretary,” when combined with the concept of a “writer,” was associated with a heavy, gray-haired man — most vividly from the painting “Voltaire Dictating to His Secretary” — someone made wise by age and life. How surprised I was when a 23- or 25-year-old young woman came out to me, with a thin Jewish face and an almost shy manner.

During our conversation it became clear that she was very intelligent and quick-witted. Her age and gentle gaze calmed me. I gradually recovered from the housekeeper’s unfriendly answer: “He is busy.”

I explained the purpose of my visit in detail and warned her that I was leaving the next day and absolutely wanted to see Ilya Grigoryevich before I went. Understanding Ehrenburg’s importance to her, I spoke with undisguised reverence — genuine inside and a little demonstrative.

— Let me pass the manuscript to him, she suggested.
— No, I want to give it to him personally.
— All right then.

She smiled and went into his study. The door closed, and I automatically took off my galoshes although I had not yet been given permission to enter the room. While she was gone I examined the entrance hall from the corridor. Just inside the door stood a telephone on a small table. On the other side was a little coat rack completely covered with coats — nowhere even to put mine. I remember nothing else. An ordinary home, modest and unpretentious.

A minute later she returned.

— Take off your coat and wait a little.

I undressed. I put my string shopping bag with my purchases beside the telephone. I had not even had time to smooth my hair and make myself at least somewhat presentable when, as if in a fairy tale, Ehrenburg himself came toward me. He was quite unlike the man I had imagined from portraits: considerably taller, more massive and older. His face had no wrinkles; a broad high forehead; his whole head, down to the last hair, gray! His eyes were tired and inattentive, but intelligent and eloquent. Taller than average. He wore a light-brown loose house suit, like a robe, without a tie… Yet compared with his latest photographs he was, despite everything, slower in life, almost elderly.

— Good afternoon! — I said simply, holding out my hand and humbly shaking his soft, large palm.
— Let us go into the study, he invited me.

There stood a man of about thirty-five, lean, of medium height, wearing glasses. He jerked his hands nervously — I had clearly interrupted him.

— Go into that room and look at the paintings, Ehrenburg told him.

The man silently left.

— Sit down, the host offered.

I sat in a soft armchair opposite his desk. He sat on the sofa. He looked at me attentively and expectantly, as if to say, “Well, tell me.” I did not keep him waiting long. I said who I was and why I had come.

— I am a student at Molotov University — a man of letters. I have decided to devote my work to studying your writing. For your sixtieth birthday I prepared a paper on The Fall of Paris. I wanted to present it to you, but I was a little late for the anniversary. Allow me to give it to you now.

He accepted it, thanked me, looked at the inscription, leafed through it, then took it in both hands and slowly carried it down the corridor into another room.

I was left alone. I looked around. The study was small, about four by three meters. Near the window, set at an angle, stood a semicircular, bow-shaped writing desk under glass. Papers, pencils and pens lay on the desk — traces of work. Small paintings hung on the walls, hunting scenes. There was a little shelf from which pipes of various shapes stuck out — seven or nine of them. Beside the desk was a soft armchair where he probably sat himself. Similar armchairs stood at the sides. In the opposite corner was a sofa with the same upholstery. Books and paintings were scattered everywhere. Right by the door was a stack of new books. I did not have time to see and remember which ones they were. One caught my eye especially — The Storm by Vilis Lācis [9].

I had long wondered whether he read works on subjects close to his own, Lācis in particular. Now I was convinced that he did. So he compares, he senses their value. This was an observation of extraordinary importance to me.

Then Ehrenburg returned and again sat opposite me on the sofa.

— And what are you reading now?
— I am working on The Storm. I plan to write my graduation thesis on it.
— Liza (I think that was her name), he called to the secretary, — do we have The Storm?

I did not hear the answer. He went out again. He returned with The Storm.

— If you could, please sign it, I asked as I received the gift.
— I have already signed it.

I thanked him.

— I cannot keep you any longer. May I go?
— Please.

He accompanied me to the coat rack. While I was putting on my things, he went into another room. The door remained open. In the room stood several tall, thin women with long noses; with them were the secretary and the same man I had met in the study. They had all lifted their heads and were examining the paintings. There were many paintings. The whole large room was covered with them, like the Tretyakov Gallery. I had no time to take in the furnishings.

As I dressed, I kept looking at them with undisguised interest, while they, as it seemed to me, paid no attention to me at all. Only the little fluffy lapdogs that had greeted me so inhospitably at first now jumped down and amiably sniffed my legs. I was fastening my belt without taking my eyes off everyone in the room. Ilya Grigoryevich came out and walked toward his study. Again I devoured him with my eyes. He saw it. Without smiling, he looked at me attentively. He said, “Good-bye,” and, like a god, walked softly back into his study.

The secretary saw me out.

[...]

I do not remember how I went down the stairs or how I found myself outside. In my hands was a precious book, and in my imagination stood the image of a dear, great man whom I had managed to see at home in the days of his sixtieth birthday: the tired gaze, soft but overworked eyes, the stocky, massive figure and a slightly clumsy gait.

Vladimir Gelfand’s diary (29 January – 19 February 1951) — Museum “Memory of the Jewish People and the Holocaust in Ukraine,” M-10270, fols. 2–6.

Notes

© Museum “Memory of the Jewish People and the Holocaust in Ukraine” · © Yegor Vradiy