Jean-Richard Bloch

Born May 25, 1884, in Paris; died there Mar. 15, 1947. French writer and social figure. Member of the French Communist Party (since 1921).

In 1910, Bloch wrote a play entitled The Restless Woman (staged in 1911) and in 1912, the collection of stories Lévy. Bloch’s revolutionary world view was formed during the years of World War I, which he spent at the front. He greeted the Great October Socialist Revolution and became a friend of Soviet Russia. In 1917 his novel ... and Co. was published (Russian translation, 1935, 1957), based on the life of three generations of French factory owners. Beginning in 1923, Bloch, together with R. Rolland, directed the journal Europe. As a result of his journey to Africa and the Near East there appeared documentary novellas drawn from the lives of marine pilots, nomads, and peasants, for example, On a Freighter (1924; Russian translation, 1926), A Night in Kurdistan (1925), Peanuts and Bananas (1929; Russian translation, 1934). In his commentaries on current events (for example, the collections Carnival Is Dead, 1920, and Fate of the Age, 1931), as well as in his novel Sybilla (1932; Russian translation, 1935), Bloch studied the relationships between art and society. Impressions of a trip to Spain were set forth in the anti-Fascist book Spain! Spain! (1936; Russian translation, 1937).

After the capture of France by Hitler’s army, Bloch took part in the Resistance press. During the spring of 1941 he arrived in the USSR, and his speeches over Radio Moscow were published in the book From Occupied France to France in Arms (published in 1949; Gold Medal of Peace, 1950). After the war Bloch became a member of the Council of the French Republic. He edited Europe and the newspaper Ce Soir.