Shaul Tchernichovsky

Shaul Tchernichovsky
Shaul Tchernichovsky, 1927
Born	(1875-08-20)20 August 1875 Mykhailivka, Taurida Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	14 October 1943(1943-10-14) (aged 68) Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine
Occupation	Poet, Essayist, Translator, Doctor
Nationality	Russian by birth, immigrated to Palestine
Genre	Lyrical-erotic Poetry, Epic Poetry

Shaul Tchernichovsky (20 August 1875 – 14 October 1943; Hebrew: שאול טשרניחובסקי‎‎; Russian: Саул Гутманович Черниховский), was a Russian-born Hebrew poet. He is considered one of the great Hebrew poets, identified with nature poetry, and as a poet greatly influenced by the culture of ancient Greece.

Shaul Tchernichovsky was born on 20 August 1875 in the village of Mykhailivka, Mykhailivka Raion, Taurida Governorate (now in Zaporizhia Oblast, Ukraine). He started at a reformed religious primary school. At age 10 he changed to a Russian school.

He published his first poems in Odessa where he studied from 1890 to 1892. The first poem he published was "In My Dream".

From 1899 to 1906 he studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg, finishing his medical studies in Lausanne. From then on, he mingled his activities as a doctor with his activities as a poet. After completing his studies he returned to Ukraine to practice in Kharkov and in Kiev. In the First World War he served as an army doctor in Minsk and in Saint Petersburg.

From 1925 to 1932 he was one of the editors of the newspaper Hatekufa. He also edited the section on medicine in the Hebrew encyclopedia Eshkol.

From 1929 to 1930 he spent time in America. In 1931 he immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine and settled there permanently. Besides being a poet, Tchernichovsky was known as an excellent translator. His translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey particularly earned recognition. He also translated Sophocles, Horace, Shakespeare, Molière, Pushkin, Goethe, Heine, Byron, Shelley, the Kalevala, the Gilgamesh Cycle, the Icelandic Edda, etc.