Editing Odesa (section)

=== Literature ===
[[File:Одеса 189115.JPG|thumb|The [[School of Stolyarsky]], founded in 1933, has long been recognised as a centre of musical excellence.]]
Poet [[Anna Akhmatova]] was born in Bolshoy Fontan near Odesa,<ref name="anderson">{{cite book|last= Anderson|first= Nancy K.|author2=Anna Andreevna Akhmatova|title= The word that causes death's defeat|publisher=Yale University Press|year=2004|isbn= 0-300-10377-8}}</ref> however her further work was not connected with the city and its literary tradition. Odesa has produced many writers, including [[Isaak Babel|Isaac Babel]], whose series of short stories, [[Odessa Tales]], are set in the city.<ref>{{cite news|work=New York Times|title=They Invented a New Language for War|date=22 February 2025|last1=Gessen|first1=M|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/opinion/ukraine-war-poetry-poets.html}}</ref>
Edmund de Waal's best selling memoire, ''[[The Hare with the Amber Eyes]]'' is the story of his family, the Ephrussi, once a great banking dynasty based in Odesa.

Other Odesans are the duo [[Ilf and Petrov]]—authors of ''[[The Twelve Chairs]]'', and [[Yury Olesha|Yuri Olesha]], author of "[[The Three Fat Men]]". [[Vera Inber]], a poet and writer, as well as the poet and journalist [[Margarita Aliger]], were both born in Odesa. The Italian writer, Slavist and [[Anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] dissident [[Leone Ginzburg]] was born in Odesa into a Jewish family, and then went to Italy where he grew up and lived. The Hebrew author and poet Haim Bialik established a publishing house and worked in the city from the 1890s to 1911.<ref name="forward.com">{{Cite web |date=2017-05-18 |title=Insightful Biography of Hebrew Poet H. N. Bialik Misses Key Element |url=https://forward.com/culture/372334/insightful-biography-of-hebrew-poet-h-n-bialik-misses-key-element/ |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=The Forward |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-10-06 |title=Israel's national poet Bialik honored in Odessa |url=https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/jewish-features/israels-national-poet-bialik-honored-in-odessa-327989 |access-date=2024-05-17 |website=The Jerusalem Post {{!}} JPost.com |language=en}}</ref>

One of the most prominent pre-war [[Russian literature|Soviet writers]], [[Valentin Kataev]], was born here and began his writing career as early as high school (gymnasia). Before moving to Moscow in 1922, he made quite a few acquaintances here, including [[Yury Olesha]] and [[Ilf and Petrov|Ilya Ilf]] (Ilf's co-author Petrov was in fact Kataev's brother, Petrov being his pen-name). Kataev became a benefactor for these young authors, who would become some of the most talented and popular [[List of Russian language writers|Russian writers]] of this period. In 1955 Kataev became the first [[editing|chief editor]] of the ''Youth'' ({{langx|ru|link=no|Юность, Yunost'}}), one of the leading [[literary magazine|literature magazines]] of the [[Khrushchev Thaw|Ottepel]] of the 1950s and 1960s. {{citation needed|date=November 2011}}

These authors and comedians played a great role in establishing the "Odesa myth" in the Soviet Union. Odesans were and are viewed in the ethnic stereotype as sharp-witted, street-wise and eternally optimistic.{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} These qualities are reflected in the "Odesa dialect", which borrows chiefly from the characteristic speech of the Odesan Jews, and is enriched by a plethora of influences common for the port city.<ref name="auto1">{{cite book|last=Tanny|first=Jarrod|title=City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia's Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa|year=2011|publisher=Indiana University Press|location=Bloomington|isbn=978-0-253-22328-9|pages=13–22, 142–156|url=http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=650630|access-date=12 February 2016|archive-date=4 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304113836/http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=650630|url-status=live}}</ref>

The "Odesite speech" became a staple of the "Soviet Jew" depicted in a multitude of jokes and comedy acts, in which a Jewish adherent served as a wise and subtle dissenter and opportunist, always pursuing his own [[Quality of life|well-being]], but unwittingly pointing out the flaws and absurdities of the Soviet regime. The Odesan Jew in the jokes always "came out clean" and was, in the end, a lovable character – unlike some of other jocular nation stereotypes such as The Chukcha, The Ukrainian, The Estonian or The American.<ref name="auto1"/>