Memoir of Mark Josevich Sirota

Copyright Holder: Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry (Judaica Center) of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, Ukraine The collection includes a memoir of Mark Sirota, a renowned Ukrainian Jewish actor and theatre director. The memoir, completed in 1970, only covers the author's life from 1901 to 1939. The work is divided into 12 main chapters. Sirota provides interesting account of his childhood in Zitomir ( Zhytomyr) , beginning of his theatrical career with traveling Jewish theatre, travels trough Ukrainian, Polish and Romanian provincial towns. The memoirs offer rich and detailed information about Jewish life, history of the Jewish theatre in the background of the Russian revolution, civil war establishment of the Soviet authority in Ukraine. The major part of memoirs covers 1920. In 1936 Mark Sirota was transferred to Birobidzhan, capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region, where he served as Deputy Director of the local Jewish theatre till 1939. In the two last chapters of his memoirs, Mark Sirota provides a detailed account of the life and theatrical activities in Birobidzhan. The narrative ends in 1939. Mark Sirota was born in 1901 in Zhitomir, Ukraine. He was an actor in a traveling Jewish theatrical group and deputy Director of a local Jewish theatre until 1939. He completed his memoir in 1970, the details of which end in 1939.