Boris Gorelik

Boris Gorelik (1978-) is a Russian born writer and researcher

Biography

Born in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk (USSR) 25 June 197*, he has lived in Moscow since the age of eighteen, he studied at the A.M.Gorky Ural State University (Philosophy, 1995 – 1996), the Moscow State University (MA in Linguistics - English, Spanish; 1996 – 2001) and the Institut Afriki RAN (Institute for African Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2001 – 2004).

Contribution to SA cultural affairs, including theatre, film and media

In 2001 he published a comprehensive study of the Russian community in South Africa (Institute for African Studies, Moscow, 2001) and published much on South African history and culture since. This includes editing and translating an illustrated collection of Russian travellers' accounts of the Cape, published by the Van Riebeeck Society (An Entirely Different World': Russian Visitors to the Cape 1797-1870, Moscow, 2006), an illustrated biography of Russian-born South African artist Vladimir Tretchikoff (Incredible Tretchikoff. Cape Town; London, 2013) and the new authorised version of David Grinker’s account of Soweto in the 1960s-80s (Inside Soweto: Memoir of an Official, 2014).'

In 2010, the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research, University of Cape Town, brought out an overview of Gorelik’s survey of the Russian-Speaking Jews in South Africa as part of their Occasional Paper Series.

In 2019 he curated an exhibition for the Solzhenitsyn Centre for Russian Emigre Studies, Moscow, dedicated to Ossip Runitch, a Russian-Jewish actor who was among the pioneers of professional Yiddish theatre in South Africa and one of the country's first professional opera producers.