User:Copper Dreamer/ans

Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport (1863 – November 8, 1920), known by his pseudonym S. Ansky (or An-sky),

Childhood and adolescence
Ansky was born in Vitebsk to Aron and Chaya Rappoport. Aron had a job buying and selling land, while Chaya ran a tavern and raised Ansky and his two older sisters, Sora-Rysia and Basya. His early life inspired several tavern-based short stories written during his 20s, and his role there - observing the customers, and their interactions with his mother and each other - is cited as one possible inspiration for his later work as an ethnographer. Due to his family's poverty, his only education as a child was attending cheder, although he later learned Russian at home with the assistance of Chaim Zhitlowsky, a childhood friend.

With this knowledge, Ansky spent much time reading Haskalah, the works of Victor Hugo, and Ludwig Börne. This led inexorably to modern, radical Russian-language works, and a rejection of of traditional Jewish culture. He began publishing a Yiddish-language journal, Vitebsker Gleklekh, that drew inspiration from (and was named after) the radical newspaper Kolokol. Moving to Liozno in 1881 he became a private tutor, "hiding his radicalism from the Jewish leaders of the town while doing his best to lead their children astray".