Samuil Lehtțir

Samuil Lehtţir (October 25, 1901, Otaci - 1937, Tiraspol) was Moldavian poet and literary critic.

Samuil Lehtţir (or Lehitser) was born in the Bessarabian town of Otaci to Rivn Lehtţir, a craftsman, and Dyna Akerman. He studied at the Chernivtsi University. In 1926, he moved to the USSR, where he was involved in literary activities in the Moldovan language. He worked at the Moldovan state publishing house. In 1927, he became one of the founders of the Reseritul, the Moldovan Writers' Union, and its official organ, the journal Moldova literară (Literary Moldova).

His first collection of poetry, Poems (1929), was met with negative criticism. Lehtţir was accused of decadence and of belonging to the Petite bourgeoisie. However, he continued to publish: in 1930 along with Iosif Vainberg, he published a book of literary criticism Întrebări literare (Literary Questions), and another collection of poems (In the flames) the following year. These were followed by three further volumes Sirenele zidirii (1932), De pază (1935) and Dezrobire (1935).

Lehtţir is the author of the first dramas of Soviet Moldavian literature: Codreanu (1930) and Biruinţa (Victory, 1933). He translated into the Moldovan language the poems of Sergei Yesenin, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Bezymensky, Sándor Petőfi and others.

Lehtţir also wrote textbooks on the Moldavian language and literature for middle schools.

From 1934, he was a ruling council member of the Writers' Union of the Moldavian ASSR, and a delegate of the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers.

He was arrested and executed in 1937 (according to other sources, October 15, 1943).