Stempenyu

Stempenyu (; 1822–1879) was the popular name of Iosif Druker , a klezmer violin virtuoso, bandleader and composer from Berdychiv, Russian Empire. He was one of a handful of celebrity nineteenth century Jewish folk violinists from Ukraine; others included Aron-Moyshe Kholodenko "Pedotser" (also from Berdychiv) and Yechiel Goyzman "Alter Chudnover" from Chudniv. Sholem Aleichem loosely based his 1888 novel Stempenyu: A Jewish Novel on the real-life Stempenyu; it was adapted into various stage and film versions in the twentieth century.

Biography Iosif (Yossele) Druker was born in Berdychiv, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire in 1822 (now located in Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine). Sholem Aleichem traveled to Berdychiv in the 1880s (after Stempenyu had already died) to collect information for his novel. He claimed to have been mostly faithful to the facts he gathered about Stempenyu from older people and fellow musicians in Berdychiv. However, Stutschewsky and others have said that it is difficult to know which parts of the novel were true to the historical figure and which were artistic license. Even Moisei Beregovsky, who visited Berdychiv during the Soviet period, found that Druker's grandchildren took the novel as a factual account of their ancestor's life.

After Druker died, his klezmer ensemble was led by his relative Wolf Cherniavsky (himself a relative of Joseph Cherniavsky and other American musicians). Although his compositions were never published in his lifetime, and Druker died before the age of sound recording, some of his works were passed on and written down by other musicians. A number of these manuscripts have ended up in the collection of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.