Sacvan bercovitch biography sample

BERCOVITCH, SACVAN (1933– ), U.S. literary scholar. Bercovitch was born in Montreal of poor Ukrainian immigrant parents, both of whom were idealistic communists. His mother, Bryna, enlisted in the Red Army in 1917 and fought in the civil wars following the Revolution; his father, Alexander, an artist who had studied in Palestine, St. Petersburg, and Munich, had been conscripted into, and deserted from, the Russian Army during World War i. They immigrated to Canada in 1926. Bercovitch, who spoke Yiddish and French in childhood before learning English, was named after Sacco and Vanzetti.

Bercovitch began his higher education at the New School in New York and at Reed College in Oregon, but dropped out to live for four years in a left-wing kibbutz in Israel, where he met his first wife. He returned to Canada in 1958 and while working at a supermarket in Montreal attended night classes at Sir George Williams College (today Concordia College), where he earned his B Free biography sample!