# Joshua Kunitz

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'''Joshua Kunitz''' (December 18, 1896 – March 2, 1980) was an American professor and journalist.

== Biography ==
Kunitz was born in Russia, where he was educated at the Slonimskoye Realnoye Uchilishche.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=March 1949 |title=The Russian School |url=https://archive.org/details/mls_f6.03slscatalog.1949/page/n51/ |journal=Middlebury College Bulletin |volume=XLIV |issue=2 |pages=52}}</ref> After immigrating to the United States, Kunitz received his doctorate from [Columbia University](/source/Columbia_University), entitled ''Russian Literature and the Jew''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wald |first=Alan M. |title=Exiles from a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9781469608679 |pages=127}}</ref> By the 1930s, Kunitz was active in the [Communist Party](/source/Communist_Party_USA). He was briefly expelled from the Communist Party because of his opposition to the [Russian Association of Proletarian Writers](/source/Russian_Association_of_Proletarian_Writers), but was reinstated in 1932.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Gerald Stanton |title=D.S. Mirsky: A Russian-English Life, 1890-1939 |date=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780198160069 |pages=289}}</ref>He visited Moscow in the spring of 1930 and again five years later, describing his second trip as "one continuous gasp of wonderment"<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Aaron |first=Daniel |date=1961 |title=A Decade of Convictions: The Appeal of Communism in the 1930's |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/25086741 |journal=The Massachusetts Review |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=736–747 |jstor=25086741 |issn=0025-4878}}</ref> The first trip was as a participant in the 1930 Kharkov Conference of Revolutionary Writers, organized by the [International Union of Revolutionary Writers](/source/International_Union_of_Revolutionary_Writers).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coiner |first=Constance |title=Better Red : The writing and resistance of Tillie Olsen and Meridel Le Sueur |date=1998 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=0252066952 |pages=22}}</ref> He was part of a group of international writers touring Central Asia, with Kunitz and [Louis Lozowick](/source/Louis_Lozowick) the only Americans invited.<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Avant-garde frontier : Russia meets the West, 1910-1930 |date=1992 |publisher=University Press of Florida |editor-last=Roman |editor-first=Gail Harrison |pages=270 |editor-last2=Marquardt |editor-first2=Virginia Hagelstein}}</ref>

Kunitz taught courses in Marxism and literature at a school organized by the [John Reed Clubs](/source/John_Reed_Clubs).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Homberger |first=Eric |title=American writers and radical politics, 1900-39 : Equivocal commitments |date=1986 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=0333391764 |pages=130}}</ref> Kunitz was critical of the presence of party functionaries in the Clubs, who he thought did not contribute to the intellectual activities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kutulas |first=Judy |title=The Long War: The Intellectual People's Front and Anti-Stalinism, 1930-1940 |date=1995 |publisher=Duke University Press |pages=56}}</ref> Due to his academic background, Kunitz was regarded as the American Communist Party's expert on Russian literature.<ref>{{Cite book |last=David-Fox |first=Michael |title=Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the Soviet Union, 1921-1941 |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199794577 |pages=307}}</ref> He served on the editorial board of ''[New Masses](/source/New_Masses)''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wald |first=Alan M. |title=Exiles from a future time : The forging of the mid-twentieth-century literary left |date=2002 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9780807853498 |location=Chapel Hill |pages=121}}</ref> He covered the [Moscow Trials](/source/Moscow_trials) in a 1936 series of four articles for the magazine.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kraditor |first=Aileen S. |title="Jimmy Higgins" : the mental world of the American rank-and-file communist, 1930-1958 |date=1988 |publisher=Greenwood Press |pages=88}}</ref> In his reporting, Kunitz expressed some skepticism about the Trials, and the subsequent controversy lead to the expulsion of ''New Masses'' editor [Joseph Freeman](/source/Joseph_Freeman_(writer)) from the Party.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wald |first=Alan |title=James T. Farrell : The revolutionary socialist years |date=1978 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=0814791794 |pages=170}}</ref> Kunitz published ''Dawn Over Samarkand'' in 1935, a book based on his travels to Russia and describing the emergence of Communism in Central Asia and the Far East after the Russian Revolution.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kramer |first=Samuel J. |date=June 7, 1935 |title=Dr. Kuntiz Records the Birth of Communism in the Far East |url=https://newspapers.com/image/52611861/ |work=Brooklyn Daily Eagle |pages=28}}</ref> He was also a member of ''[Partisan Review](/source/Partisan_Review)''<nowiki/>'s editorial board on its first issue.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gilbert |first=James |title=Writers and partisans : a history of literary radicalism in America |date=1992 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=023108255X |pages=121}}</ref>

Kunitz was appointed as a Russian teacher at [Cornell University](/source/Cornell_University)'s Intensive Russian Language and Culture Program, a move that attracted criticism because of his Communist sympathies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Altschuler |first=Glenn C. |title=Cornell: A History, 1940–2015 |date=2014 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9780801471889}}</ref> He replaced [Vladimir Kazakevich](/source/Vladimir_Kazakevich) in the role, after Kazakevich was deported{{why?|date=March 2025}} to the Soviet Union.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keefer |first=Louis E. |title=Scholars in Foxholes: The Story of the Army Specialized Training Program in World War II |date=1988 |publisher=McFarland & Company |isbn=9780899503462 |pages=113}}</ref> In 1948, after breaking with the Communist Party, he was appointed to the [Middlebury](/source/Middlebury_College) Russian School as the assistant to the director.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Freeman |first=Stephen Albert |title=The Middlebury College foreign language schools, 1915-1970: The story of a unique idea |date=1975 |publisher=Middlebury College Press |pages=141}}</ref>In 1953, [Grace Lumpkin](/source/Grace_Lumpkin) testified that Kunitz had threatened to "break [her] as a writer" if she wrote anything the contradicted the Communist Party's line.<ref>{{Cite news |date=April 3, 1953 |title=Reveals State Department Library Has Pro-Red Book |url=https://newspapers.com/image/914616594 |work=The Roanoke Times |pages=20}}</ref> Kunitz died in Rochester, New York on March 2, 1980.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1980-03-07 |title=Dr. Joshua Kunitz Is Dead at 84; Authority on Russian Literature |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1980/03/07/archives/dr-joshua-kunitz-is-dead-at-84-authority-on-russian-literature.html |access-date=2025-02-05 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

== Personal life ==
Kunitz's sister Sarah was also involved in the Communist Party during the 1930s and inspired [Howard Fast](/source/Howard_Fast) to join the Party.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Reading the Postwar Future: Textual Turning Points from 1944 |date=2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9781350102590 |editor-last=Freedman |editor-first=Kirrily |pages=206 |editor-last2=Munro |editor-first2=John}}</ref> (She later married journalist [Alexander Kendrick](/source/Alexander_Kendrick)).<ref>{{Cite book |title=The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives |date=2001 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |isbn=0684804921 |editor-last=Jackson |editor-first=Kenneth T. |volume=3 |pages=300}}</ref> [Granville Hicks](/source/Granville_Hicks) described Kunitz as "quiet and scholarly, gentle and dependable".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hicks |first=Granville |title=Part of the Truth |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World |location=New York |publication-date=1965 |pages=120}}</ref> Kunitz was also the uncle of journalist [Edith Efron](/source/Edith_Efron).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chamberlain |first=John |title=A life with the printed word |date=1982 |publisher=Regnery Gateway |pages=96}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==

* ''Russian Literature and the Jew'' (1929)
* ''Voices of October: Art and Literature in Soviet Russia''. (1930) Co-editor, with Joseph Freeman and Louis Lozowick.
* ''Dawn Over Samarkand: The Rebirth of Central Asia'' (1935)
* ''Russia, the Giant that Came Last'' (1947)
* ''Russian Literature Since the Revolution'' (1948)

== References ==
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}

Category:1897 births
Category:1980 deaths
Category:Members of the Communist Party USA
Category:American Marxists
Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
Category:Columbia University alumni
Category:American Marxist writers
Category:20th-century American male journalists

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Joshua Kunitz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Kunitz) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Kunitz?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.