Belarusian poet, novelist, translator, journalist, member of the Writers' Union of the BSSR
Naum Zinovievich Kislik (September 26, 1925 — December 27, 1998) was a Belarusian poet, novelist, translator, journalist, member of the Writers’ Union of the BSSR (since 1954). A representative of the generation of front-line poets. A veteran of the Great Patriotic War, he was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War I and II degrees, medals “For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945”, “Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945”, etc.
Naum Zinovievich Kislik was born on September 26, 1925 in Moscow into a Jewish family. His parents were ordinary people: his mother Khaya Nokhimovna was a housewife, his father Zalman Simonovich worked as chairman of the Vitebsk Leather Workers Union. In the 1930s, the whole family moved to Vitebsk. Naum studied at a Belarusian school there. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the family evacuated to Naberezhnye Chelny (Tatar ASSR), where Naum worked as a handyman, a roofer at an elevator. In 1942, he volunteered for the front. Naum was seriously wounded on the Orel-Kursk bulge.
After being demobilized from the hospital in 1944, he returned to his family in Chkalov (Orenburg), where he worked for a while as a worker at a machine tool factory. He entered the Chkalov Pedagogical Institute. In 1946, the Kislikov family moved to Minsk, Belarus. Naum transferred to the Faculty of Philology of the Belarusian State University, after graduating from which he worked for 3 years as a teacher of Russian and Belarusian languages and literature at a secondary school in Drissa (now Verkhnedvinsk).
In 1952. Naum Zinovievich returned to Minsk and began his career in the newspaper “Literature and Art”. In 1958-1959 he worked in the editorial group of “Flame”. Since 1959 he has been engaged in creative work.
He began writing poetry during the war. He wrote in Russian. He was also published under the pseudonyms K. Naumov, Ovsey Ovsov. Throughout his career, his author’s collections were published: “Conversation with friends” (1956), “Search” (1959), “The Call of the Earth” (1961), “The Tale of Pressed Gunpowder” (poems 1964), “Branches” (poems, translations, 1969), “The Feast of Snowfall” (1972), “Memory of Railway Stations” (Moscow, 1976), “September River” (poems, 1978), “Snow White” (1980), “Different Years” (poems, 1984), “Winter Light” (Moscow, 1985), “Memory of the Gramophone” (1995). Books of his selected poems were published in 1975 and 1985.
Naum Zinovievich worked fruitfully with translations. He translated many Belarusian poets and prose writers into Russian: R.Borodulin, P.Brovka, Ya.Brylya, A.Velyugin, An.Vertinsky, S.Gavrusev, S.Dergai, A.Kuleshov, P.Panchenko, A.Rusetsky, M.Streltsov, M. Tank and many others. He translated I. Melezh’s novel “People in the Swamp” (1964), A. Karpyuk’s short stories “Danuta” (1963), “The Pushchanskaya Odyssey” (Moscow, 1966) and his book of prose “Along Forest Trails” (Moscow, 1964), V. Korotkevich’s “Christ Descended into Grodno” (1966), a collection of poems by Ya. Kupala (1979), works by Ya. Kolas, M. Bogdanovich, R. Baradulin, S. Dzergai, A. Pysin, M. Tank, Yu. Taubin. In 1982, the book of translations of Belarusian poetry “Ripe Pine” was published.
Poetry and prose translated by Kislik can make up a library. Kislik’s work as a translator was highly appreciated by his contemporaries. But above all, he is a talented poet, a war-born artist, and a master of his craft.
He lived in Minsk. He died on December 27, 1998.
