13 Facts About Semyon Lipkin

Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin was a Russian writer, poet, and literary translator.

Semyon Lipkin was supported by his wife, poet Inna Lisnyanskaya.

Semyon Lipkin was a close friend of Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Semyon Lipkin was born in Odessa to Israel and Rosalia Semyon Lipkin on September 6,1911.

Semyon Lipkin's education was interrupted by the Bolshevik Revolution and the Russian Civil War.

Semyon Lipkin studied various languages, including Persian, Kalmyk, Kirghiz, Kazakh, Tatar, Tajik and Uzbek.

Semyon Lipkin later served with the 110th Kalmyk cavalry division and the Volga River Flotilla at Stalingrad.

Semyon Lipkin participated in the Battle of Stalingrad and reported on it.

Semyon Lipkin published his first poem at 15, which was praised by Eduard Bagritsky.

Semyon Lipkin was a renowned literary translator, often working from languages suppressed by Stalin.

Semyon Lipkin immersed himself in the cultures of the languages he translated, including Abkhaz, Akkadian, Buryat, Dagestani, Karbardinian, Kalmyk, Kirghiz, Tatar, Tadjik-Farsi and Uzbek.

Semyon Lipkin famously hid a typescript of Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate from the KGB, initiating its journey to the West.

Semyon Lipkin hid a copy at his dacha and later gave it to Elena Makarova and Sergei Makarov for safekeeping.