Efim Levit Moldavian literary critic, literary historian. Date of Birth: 10.09.1921 Country: Moldova

1. Biography of Efim Levit
2. Early Life and Education
3. World War II and Academic Career
4. Contributions and Recognition

Biography of Efim Levit

Efim Levit was a Moldovan literary historian and scholar. He was born in 1921 in Kishinev, in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, David Levit, was a merchant who served in the Russian army during World War I and was captured by the Germans. His mother, Fanya Shuster, was the daughter of a tailor.

Early Life and Education

Levit attended the religious gymnasium "Mogen Dovid" and later studied at the Romanian high school named after Alexandru Donicha and the commercial high school in Kishinev. In June 1940, he passed the entrance exam for the Bucharest Commercial Academy, but a week later, Bessarabia was annexed by the USSR. Levit then enrolled in chemistry laboratory courses and was later sent to Kazaneshsky Vinsokhoz in the Teleneshtsky district. In April 1941, Levit was sent to advanced training courses, where he found himself when the Great Patriotic War broke out. On July 5, 1941, he joined the military and was later assigned to a construction battalion to build defensive structures near Dnepropetrovsk and in the Rostov region.

World War II and Academic Career

In January 1942, Levit suffered a concussion and frostbite, spending over six months in hospitals. He then participated in fortifying the defense line between Sochi and Tuapse and completed courses in sled instructor training at the headquarters of the North Caucasus Front. He was also involved in demining operations on the Taman Peninsula and fought as part of the First Ukrainian Front in the battles for the capture of Dresden and Berlin. Levit ended the war with the rank of senior sergeant in the medical service and was demobilized in 1946.

Upon his return to Kishinev, Levit enrolled in the Moldovan language and literature department at Kishinev University. He also worked as a senior laboratory assistant at the department. In 1947, he married his fellow student Ida Yakovlevna Roytman, who later became a Moldovan language teacher in Kishinev's secondary schools. After completing his university studies, Levit was appointed as a senior lecturer at the Beltsy Pedagogical Institute named after B.M. Glavan, where he later became the head of the Moldovan language and literature department.

Contributions and Recognition

In the late 1950s, Levit was accepted as a research associate at the Language and Literature Institute of the Moldavian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (since 1959 - Academy of Sciences of the Moldavian SSR). He defended his candidate dissertation on the works of George Asachi and dedicated his entire career to studying his works. Levit published his first monograph, "George Asachi," in 1966, based on his dissertation. Over the years, he published several monographs and scientific papers on the works of Alexei Mateevici, Victor Krassescu, Alecu Russo, and modern Moldovan writers. He also contributed to the compilation of textbooks on Moldovan literature for schools and universities and worked on encyclopedias such as "Literature and Art of Moldova" and "Brief Literary Encyclopedia" in 9 volumes. Levit edited and compiled the collected works of George Asachi, Alexei Mateevici, and Alecu Russo, as well as an anthology of Romanian/Moldovan poetry from the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1997, Levit, together with musicologist Efim Tkach and poet Anatol Gugel, founded the Anti-Fascist Democratic Alliance in Moldova. They compiled and published four volumes of documents related to the Holocaust in the country, under the bilingual Russian-Romanian journal "Nu vom uita! - We will not forget!" Levit was a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR (1975) and received the State Prize of the Republic of Moldova (1994) and the Order of Maestru al literaturii (Master of Literature, 1998). He was posthumously awarded the Order of Gloria Muncii (Glory of Labor, 2001) and the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Moldova Prize for his monograph "Gheorghe Asachi: The Novel of His Life."