Celia Dropkin Biography | Poet

Celia Dropkin (December 5, 1887 [November 22 in the old Gregorian calendar] - Aug. 18, 1956) was a Yiddish poet. (In Yiddish her name was Tsipe, probably short for Zipporah, and later Tsilye Drapkin ). She was born in Bobruysk, Russian Empire to an assimilated Russian-Jewish family. Her father, a forester, died of tuberculosis when Dropkin was young. Dropkin, with her mother and sister, were taken in by wealthy relatives. Dropkin exhibited intellectual abilities at a young age. She attended Russian-language school and gymnasium (high school), after which she taught briefly in Warsaw. In 1907 she went to Kiev to continue her studies, and there came under the influence of Hebrew writer Uri Nissan Gnessin. Under his tutelage she wrote poetry in Russian. She returned to Bobruysk in 1908, and shortly thereafter met and married Shmaye Dropkin, a Bund activist from Gomel, Belarus. Because of his political activities, he fled to America in 1910, leaving Dropkin and their son to follow two years later.