Film and televisionגריגורי כנוביץ'

Grigorijus Kanovičius

Grigory Kanovich was a Lithuanian-born Jewish writer who lived in Israel from 1993 and won the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Arts for 2014.

1929 to 2023Novels on Eastern European JewryShtetl Love SongLeading Lithuania's Jewish community

Born: 9 June 1929, Jonava
Died: 20 January 2023, Tel Aviv
Occupation: film director, politician, translator, journalist
Education: Vilnius University

Grigorijus Kanovičius was born in 1929 in Jonava

Kanovich was born in 1929 in the Lithuanian town of Jonava to a traditional Jewish family. His father was a shoemaker, and the family spoke Yiddish at home. When the Second World War reached the Eastern Front, his father was drafted into the Red Army, and he fled with his mother through Latvia to the Urals.

He returned to Lithuania in 1945 and settled in Vilnius. He studied at Vilnius University and finished in 1953.

He published the verse collection Good Morning in 1955 and Spring Thunder in 1960. He then turned to prose and to writing for stage and film, including the screenplay Ava Vita with Vytautas Žalakevičius. He wrote more than 10 novels on Eastern European Jewish history, among them the trilogy Candles in the Wind and Shtetl Love Song, which won Book of the Year in Lithuania.

In 1989 he became a member of the last Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union for the Lithuanian reform movement Sąjūdis. From 1989 to 1993 he chaired the Jewish Community of Lithuania.

He moved to Israel in 1993 and lived there until his death in 2023. He was a member of PEN in Israel and Russia. His wife Olga edited most of his novels, and they had 2 sons.