Raysn by Moyshe Kulbak

Translated by Jason Wagner 

In Raysn, Moyshe Kulbak reclaims the landscape of present-day Belarus as a mythic homeland for Jewish culture. First published in 1922, Raysn blends biblical allusion, folk imagery, and modernist poetics to imagine a shared past between Jews and Belarusians - a symbolic union rooted in forests, rivers, and ancient ties. Kulbak's poem lives as both a literary epic and a political vision. Writing in the wake of war, revolution, and the brief independence of the Belarusian People's Republic, Kulbak situates Yiddish in the heart of European literary tradition and stakes a claim for Jewish belonging in the region's cultural history. Drawing on Romantic forms and his own ideals, Raysn offers a poetic response to the national movements reshaping Eastern Europe. Set against the backdrop of early Soviet indigenization policies and the flourishing of Yiddish culture in 1920s Belarus, Kulbak's work stands as a hopeful vision of multicultural coexistence. Jason Wagner's lively translation invites readers to rediscover Raysn as a modern epic of memory, identity, and imagined futures.