S. Ansky
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Shloyme Zanvl Rappoport (1863–1920), better known by the pseudonym S. Ansky, was a scholar who documented Jewish folklore and mystical beliefs.
He was born in Vitebsk, Russia, but travelled around much of the western part of the Russian Empire. Initially writing in Russian language, since 1904 he also became known as a Yiddish author. Initially under heavy influence of the Russian narodnik movement, Ansky was soon interested in ethnography. Between 1911 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 he even headed an ethnographical expedition to various Jewish towns of Volhynia and Podolia. He is best known for authoring the Yiddish language and Russian (wrote both versions simultaneously) play On Border of Two Worlds, better known under the sub-title The Dybbuk. It was first staged in Teatr Elizeum in Warsaw two months after the author's death on November 8, 1920 in Otwock. Ansky was also the author of a song Di Shvue (Oath), the anthem of Bund party, and several other pieces of literature, both in Russian and Yiddish.
Dybuk was first converted to opera and then screened in Poland in 1938.