72 postcards and letters, sent to the author and editor Ya'akov Cahan, by leading Jewish-Israeli authors and poets, between 1902 and 1951 (most of the letters are from the 1910s and 1920s).
Including: postcards from Haim Nachman Bialik (1907), three postcards from Zalman Shneour (1910), two postcards from Ya'akov Steinberg (1909), postcards from Yossef Haim Brenner (1908), letter from Nahum Sokolow, four postcards from Ya'akov Fichman (1910), a letter from David Frishman (1910), a letter and two postcards from Shaul Tchernichovsky (1928-1929), five postcards from Asher Barash (1910), a letter from Avraham Yossef Stybel (1910), a letter and two postcards from David Vogel (1936-1939), and a letter from Reuven Breinin (1894, to another recipient). The archive also contains letters and postcards from Max Brod, Ben-Ami, Gershon Shofman, Uri Zvi Greenberg, David Shimonovitch, S. Perlman, Yossef Klausner, Yitzchak Lamdan, Fishl Lachover (with whom he edited "HaTekufah"), Aharon Michal Borochov, Haim Hazaz, and other authors and poets.
These interesting letters focus on matters of literature, translation and editing, mostly concerning the literary periodicals that Cahan founded and edited.
Ya'akov Cahan (1881-1960) – poet, editor, playwright, translator, author and Hebrew linguist. His first poems were sent to "HaShilo'ach" (edited by Ahad Ha'am), but were rejected. Following the Kishinev pogrom, Cahan wrote the poem "Shir HaBiryonim" (Hebrew, Poem of Hooligans), which became the slogan of “Hashomer” and later a well-known Revisionist song. The first two of Cahan’s poetry anthologies, published in 1903 and 1905, cemented his status among young poets and Bialik, in his essay “Shirateinu Hatze’ira” (young poetry), mentioned him as one of the three prominent poets of the period (more esteemed than Steinberg and Shneour) and defined him as “the beautiful and gentle. Light…like silk and a morning breeze…”
Cahan edited the literary miscellanies “HaIvri HeChadash” (1912) and “HaOgen” (1917), and in 1918 he joined the Stybel Publishing House in Moscow. He later arrived in Warsaw where he edited the important literary quarterly “HaTekufah”; Cahan also edited “Knesset” in Warsaw and tried to found a Hebrew-National literary periodical named “Sneh” (one volume was published in 1929). At the same time he served as teacher of New Hebrew literature and medieval literature in “The Institute for Jewish Studies”. Cahan immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1934, retired from public (Revisionist) activities and was involved only in literature and culture; wrote poetry, children’s poems, stories, linguistic studies and nearly 30 plays; also translated from German, mainly Goethe and Heine. Won the Prize of Israel for Literature twice, in 1953 and in 1958.
Total of 72 items. Size and condition vary. Overall good condition.