The Old and the New Together: David Bergelson's and Israel Joshua Singer's Portraits of Moscow Circa 1926–27

In the spring of 1926, David Bergelson changed his affiliation, breaking with Abraham Cahan's Forverts and joining the writers who grouped around the pro-Soviet Frayhayt. By the end of the same year, Bergelson (a Berlin resident in 1921–33) was dispatched to the Soviet Union to report the achievements of the Communist country. In the meantime, the Forverts sent its Warsaw-based corresspondent I. J. Singer to the Soviet Union. The article introduces and analyzes Bergelson's and Singer's Moscow travelogues, translated for this publication.