Peretz Smolenskin

Born in Mogilev, Russian Empire (today Mahilyow, Belarus), Peretz Smolenskin was brought up in a Hasidic environment. When Smolenskin was a boy, his father died and his elder brother was conscripted into the tsar’s military. Smolenskin studied in yeshivas in Shklov and Lubavitch before turning to Russian literature and the Haskalah. While living in Odessa, he began his writing career, contributing to the Hebrew weekly Ha-Melits and beginning to compose novels. In 1868, he settled in Vienna, which became his permanent home city. There, he started the pioneering Hebraist journal Ha-Shaḥar, an outlet for his own essays and fiction as well as those of other writers involved in Hebrew culture of the day. Though earlier an active—if critical—proponent of the Haskalah, Smolenskin turned to nationalism later in his life, becoming a leader within Ḥibat Tsiyon and using Ha-Shaḥar to advance proto-Zionist positions. He died of tuberculosis while staying in a sanitorium.