Vladimir Pozner

Vladimir Solomonovich Pozner (Russian: Влади́мир Соломо́нович По́знер, January 5, 1905 in Paris – February 19, 1992 in ibidem) was a French writer and translator of Russian-Jewish descent. His family fled the pogroms to take up residence in France. Pozner expanded on his inherited cultural socialism to associate both in writing and politics with anti-fascist and communist groups in the inter-war period. His writing was important because he made friends with internationally renowned exponents of hardline communism, while rejecting Soviet oppression.

Born in Paris to Russian-Jewish parents in 1905, after the first failed Bolshevik revolution, his father, Solomon Pozner, was a historian and an active emancipationist. A comrade of Rosa Luxemburg's group, he encouraged participation of Jews in Russian society, where possible. He joined the Society for Artisan Labour (better known as ORT, the acronym of its Russian name) and the Society for the Spread of the Enlightenment. His mother was Esther Siderski, who also joined these groups. A brother, George was born in 1908, later a Professor of Egyptology. The following year an amnesty allowed the family to return to St Petersburg, which in their absence was renamed Petrograd.

Pozner studied in Leningrad where he started working as a translator and journalist. On the outbreak of the Great War (World War 1) Russia's borders were closed, and the Jews trapped inside the pale of settlement. Little progress had been made by the Duma on civil and political rights for Jews in the early part of 20th century. In 1917 the October Revolution passed by Victor's windows as a student, as he watched the streets below. A literary group known as 'The Brothers of Serapion' would gather in his parents' apartment in the city to read and discuss poetry. Frequent visitors were Victor Shklovsky, Alexander Blok, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Anna Akhmatova, the youngest of a famous conclave.

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