He left his home and moved to Liozno in his late-teens, and worked as a tutor; he was ostracised by his community for "disseminating radical ideas".

In 1880s, in the spirit of Going to the People movement,[3] popular among populists, he moved to Ekaterinoslav region, where he worked as a tutor and in the "salt- and coal-mining industry".

He believed in the importance of education of Russia's peasants and participated in activities such as collecting workers' songs and giving public readings, which led to his arrest in 1888.

After Lavrov's death, An-sky movet to Switzerland, where, together with Viktor Chernov, he founded a populist Agrarian Socialist League.

From 1908 to 1918, he traveled extensively, lecturing on Jewish cultural topics while remaining involved in Socialist Revolutionary politics.

[2] In 1912-1914, An-sky with a small team went for an ethnographic expeditions to the Pale of Settlement, collecting thousands of photographs, folk tales, songs, and artefacts.

They documented the oral traditions and customs of the native Jews, whose culture was slowly disintegrating under the pressure of modernity.

[6] Historian Nathaniel Deutsch suggested he also drew inspiration for The Dybbuk from the Maiden of Ludmir, who was also rumored to have been possessed, thus explaining her perceived inappropriate manly behavior.

The play was first staged in the Elyseum Theatre in Warsaw, on December 9, 1920, one month (at the end of the 30-day mourning period) after the author's death.

The other three plays have revolutionary themes, and were originally written in Russian: Father and Son, In a Conspiratorial Apartment, and The Grandfather.

[17] An-sky was also the author of the song Di Shvue (The Oath), which became the anthem of the Jewish Socialist Bund party.