Maurice G. Hindus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maurice Gerschon Hindus (Born:1891, Died: 1969), was born in Bolshoye Bikovo, Russia on February 27, 1891. He was a writer, and an authority on Soviet affairs. He spent three years in the Soviet Union as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. He also wrote four novels, and travelled to Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine. He wrote several books throughout his lifetime about Russia before his death on July 8, 1969.

Contents 1 Family life 2 Education 3 Russia and Writings 4 Writings 5 References

[edit] Family life

Maurice Hindus's father Jacob Hindus was a kulak. His mother's name was Sarah Gendeliovitch. When his father died, the family became economically poor. In 1905, Hindus, his mother, and his siblings came to America and settled in New York City. He worked as an errand boy while attending night classes. He became a naturalized citizen around 1910. In 1957 he married Frances McClernan. He died in New York City.

[edit] Education

After two years at Stuyvesant High School, Hindus attended Colgate University. He graduated in 1915 with honors, and a year later earned his M.S. He also furthered his education with a year of graduate study at Harvard University.

[edit] Russia and Writings

Maurice Hindus started as a freelance writer. His first book, The Russian Peasant and the Revolution was published in 1920. He spent several months in 1922 among Russian émigrés, and then wrote several articles about them for Century Magazine, whose editor asked him to go to Russia to study the farm life and system. Several books were written from that experience, including Humanity Uprooted (1929) and Red Bread(1931).

Most of Hindus' writings are about Soviet life and current events. He visited his home country several times, staying three years during World War II. After this time, he wrote Mother Russia (1943), an account of wartime conditions there. During the Cold War Hindus was very critical of the Soviet Government, though he always distinguished between the Kremlin and the Russian People. He wrote Crisis in the Kremlin (1953) in response, painting the peasants in a sympathetic light. Hindus helped increase American understanding of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, and as an ally in World War II. Hindus also wrote four novels during his career.

[edit] Writings

The Russian Peasant and the Revolution (1920)
Humanity Uprooted (1929)
Red Bread (1931)
The Great Offensive (1933)
Moscow Skies (1936)
Green Worlds: An Informal Chronicle (1938)
Sons and Fathers (1940)
To Sing with the Angels (1941)
Hitler Cannot Conquer Russia
Russia and Japan (1942)
Mother Russia (1943)
The Cossacks - The Story of a Warrior People (1946)
In Search of a Future (1949)
Magda (1951)
Crisis in the Kremlin (1953)
House Without a Roof (1961)

[edit] References

1. W. F. Mugleston, "Hindus, Maurice Gerschon (1891-1969)," Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Eight: 1966-70 (New York, 1988): 260-1.

A Traveller In Two Worlds (1971)