ZUCKERMANN, HUGO

ZUCKERMANN, HUGO (1881–1914), Austrian translator and poet. Zuckermann was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Eger (Cheb), Bohemia. Austrian antisemitism and the emergence of the Zionist movement led him to rediscover his Jewish heritage. Turning to Jewish literature, Zuckermann translated the Song of Songs and works by leading Yiddish writers, notably peretz 's dramas. After the death of Theodor Herzl, he founded a Jewish student society in his honor and became an active Zionist. Zuckermann also worked to establish a Jewish theater in Vienna. A lieutenant in World War I, Zuckermann regarded his part in the war as revenge for the kishinev Pogrom. He was one of the first Austrian casualties on the Eastern front. His Gedichte, a slender volume of lyrics, appeared in 1915 (ed. by C. Abeles with a biographical sketch on pp. 7–12). It included the most popular of his war poems, "Das Reiterlied," written in the form of a folksong and expressing readiness to die for the national cause. It has often been reprinted in German anthologies. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Friedmann, Hugo Zuckermann (1915).