1903 - 1956, Binyamin Gutianski studied music in Odessa, then literature at the Yiddish Pedagogical Teknikum in Kiev and finally mathematics at the Kiev State University. His many talents found expression in his many books for children, in his dramas, as for instance his famous "Leyzer der beyzer" played in the 1930s first in Ukrainian and later in Yiddish. He was also a teacher of mathematics and wrote many school books. During WWII he was evacuated in Baschkirien, later he went back to Kiev. In 1950 he was arrested and sent to a gulag, he was freed and rehabilitated in 1956, he died in the same year.