Peretz Markish’s <i>Chatyrdag</i>: The Jewish Search for Romantic Poetry
Journal: East European Jewish Affairs
Year: 2021

Chatrydag (1919), a poem cycle of 36 sonnets, is an early masterpiece of Peretz Markish. Offering one of the first descriptions in Yiddish of the Crimean Peninsula, it can be read as a counterpart to Adam Mickiwicz’s Crimean Sonnets. Markish makes innovative use of modernist poetics within the classical format of the sonnet. As is the case with a number of Russian poets, he presents a romanticized, “Middle Eastern” Crimea, filled with details of Muslim life. Although none of the sonnets depict J