S. An-ski (Shloyme Rappoport).

Following World War I, Yiddish Nationalists increasingly focused their attention on the establishment of Yiddish educational institutions, which would be a sign of the “maturity” of Yiddish culture. To this end, the Central Yiddish School Organization was founded in 1921 and began publishing an education journal, “The New School,” shortly thereafter (see C.E. Kuznitz, YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture (2014) p. 28). Shloyme Rappoport (1863-1920), who wrote under the nom-de-guerre of S. An-ski, was a Russian and Yiddish writer, ethnographer, and revolutionary activist. Most well-known for his play The Dybbuk, his valuable folkloristic research included an extensive ethnographic expedition to the Pale of Settlement wherein he and his team collected thousands of artifacts representing Jewish folk culture, including valuable recordings of songs and oral stories (much of it now housed in the State Ethnographic Museum, St. Petersburg).