Di Chaliastre

Di Chaliastre or Khalyastre (די כאַליאַסטרע, from Polish "halastra" - gang[1]) was a Jewish avant-garde[2] expressionist-futuristic[3] group of poets, who worked in Warsaw between 1919 and 1924.

[4] Seth L. Wolitz divided the group's history into three periods: (1) the year 1919, with the Łódź group associated with Yung-yidish; (2) the transitional period 1921–1922, with the group surrounding Mikhal Vaykhert (Michał Weichert) and Alter-Sholem Kacyzne's Ringen; and (3) the golden period of 1922–1924, which spawned Di Khalyastre, Vog (The Scales; edited by Melech Ravitch), and Albatros, the most thoroughly avant-garde expressionist journal of Uri Tsevi Grinberg.

[4]The first edition of the almanac with the title "Khalyastre" was published in Warsaw in 1922; the editors were Peretz Markish and Israel Joshua Singer.

(We, the young, a happy, boisterous gang / We're trodding on an unknown path / through deeply melancholic days / through nights of fright / Per aspera ad astra!).

The books of the leaders of "Khalyastre" caused a wide resonance - "Nakete Lider" ("Naked Poems", 1921) by Melech Ravitch, "Mephisto" ("Mephistopheles", 1922) by Uri Zvi Greenberg, and "Di Coupe" ("Heap", 1922) by Peretz Markish, in which the theoretical propositions proclaimed by the group - the renewal of the poetic language, the exaltation that explodes verse and the "revolution of the spirit" - are expressed with vivid artistic force.