"Find a Jew"

Anna Narinskaya and Anatoly Golubovsky about why the "Jewish question" hid in the USSR in the USSR

• The history of Jews in the USSR was a taboo theme, and the very word "Jew" sounded almost as an insult. Jews were discriminated, turning into second -class citizens.
• The tradition of state anti -Semitism has existed since the time of pre -revolutionary Russia, it continued later, then silent for a while, then reinforcing again.
• The Jew personified the image of the "universal other." It is difficult to live without an enemy unenlightened society.

Sergey Medvedev: Jews were called the "main secret of the Soviet Union." It seemed that the word itself was banned: it could not be pronounced aloud. At the same time, Jews were discriminated against in society, in politics. What are the roots of Soviet anti -Semitism? And how did Jewish culture and tradition break out from under the oppression of censorship? This is told by the exhibition "Find a Jew", which opened in the Graunda Solyanka gallery in Moscow.

Correspondent: From September 15 to October 11, an exhibition-book “Find a Jew” is held in the Gallera-Mastership “Graunda Solyanka”. The curators of the exhibition Anna Narinskaya and Ekaterina Bochavar answer the question: who is the Soviet Jew, where and how can it be discovered? The exhibition consists of the chapters of the book, each of which is devoted to a separate room with illustrations and artifacts of Soviet post -war culture.

Video version of the program

For a long time, the history of Jews in the USSR has been the topic of taboo, and the very word "Jew" sounded almost as an insult. It all started in 1949, after the defeat of the Jewish anti -fascist committee. The task was set - to make Jews less noticeable, the so -called "purges" of creative unions, theaters, the media from Jews were carried out. All ministries submitted to the Central Committee reports on personnel work with the obligatory indication of the nationality of leading employees. During the Cold War, the persecution of Jews intensified. According to the propagandists, Israel and the USA stood behind the Jews, and Jewish nationalists are all spies! The country has formed the image of a new internal enemy: it is enough to recall the terrible business of “pest doctors” when the real hysteria of anti-Semitism began.

Today, many historians are trying to understand what caused anti -Semitism in the post -war USSR and why the Jewish theme was so carefully taboo.

Sergey Medvedev: We guest from Anna Narinskaya , literary critic, curator of the exhibition "Find a Jew", and Anatoly Golubovsky , sociologist, historian, art critic, consultant of this exhibition.

The word "Jew" still carries some kind of information explosion

The exhibition is wonderful. She has a very good name, because the word "Jew", in my opinion, still carries some kind of information explosion. And it is still unusual, especially for the people of our generation that grew up in Soviet culture. It was generally taboo, there were "people of Jewish nationality." I remember how in one company someone said this: “Well, the faces of Jewish nationality are there,” the man jumped up here and says: “And you say-“ Jew ”! I am a Jew!” And it sounded like a certain news.

Anna Narinskaya: This name describes exactly what is happening at this exhibition, in this study. But as Tolya very correctly remarked in one of our conversations, because not only a Jew was taboo, anti -Semitism was also taboo: “there were no Jews or anti -Semitism. Roughly speaking, when the Soviet Union had to show that “we have a multinational state, a constitution of flowers”, some Jews were suddenly produced, although not at all like other people who had real union republics and so on. Why does this exhibition impress? Because, in my opinion, she speaks of things that many people of our generation remember well. There were people who cried when the story began that the cat Leopold Jew (and this is not speculation, unlike conversations about Cheburashka, this was meant by the authors, the first series of the cartoon was based on the performance of the Shalom Theater).

This is a Jewish botanik boy and two gopniks. This was meant. I quote the Israeli researcher Alexander Barash, who wrote a very good article about Leopold: at the moment he accepts Posveryn, he becomes a Jew to Zabotinsky, that is, at that moment he stops being not only a victim, but a well -mannered person.

Sergey Medvedev: Say, a Jew on Tarantino.

Anna Narinskaya: Yes, he turns from a Jew to Woody Allen into a Jew from "inglorious bastards", but for a short time of the drug. But for so many, this is a childhood. And in this sense, of course, this is also a conversation about the childhood of many now adults and a little aging people. Do not think that we all know something together: for example, we say the "case of doctors", and absolutely everyone understands what it is. But this is not so! My students do not know about the "case of doctors." Therefore, at the exhibition are QR codes that say what the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee is, what is the Politburo and so on.

Sergey Medvedev: Or even such a thing as the Fifth Point: Now, I think, many will not even understand what it is.

Anna Narinskaya

Anna Narinskaya: There is about hiding the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, and about other serious things. After all, the Holocaust was almost completely extracted from the Soviet military narrative. There were exceptions such as the publication of Anna Frank's Diary ...

Anatoly Golubovsky: Which was extracted with the Black Book.

Anna Narinskaya: But basically it is a game of the Soviet mainstream and such a Soviet woven myth: this is a lightweight version of the possibility of talking about this. But I wanted to talk more about the suffering of Jews, but about how to live past anti -Semitism. What is Jewry, Jewish identity in the post -war Soviet Union? After all, the Jews, which we are talking about, were basically not religious, did not know the language.

Sergey Medvedev: What are the roots of this late Soviet, post -war anti -Semitism? After all, this, I think, is far from only the immanent Russian anti -Semitism, which can be compared with the East European, with the Polish.

Anatoly Golubovsky: And with French.

Sergey Medvedev: He is some other social shade.

Anatoly Golubovsky: Yes! The conclusion from the public everyday life of the entire Jewish is a phenomenon associated with the fact that we still lived in a totalitarian country where we could take and remove the culture of the whole people along with the nominations that exist in it, and it seems like it is not.

Sergey Medvedev: But why Jewish? This is after the 48th year: the Stalinist resentment of Israel, who did not become an agent of Soviet influence?

Anatoly Golubovsky: No. The exhibition "Find a Jew" received a grant of the Russian Jewish Congress. I advised this exhibition exactly from this grant competition. And in an amazing way, several such projects appeared in the first competition, as if continuing one another. And another exhibition, which was opened earlier, even before the pandemic: the exhibition in the Society "Memorial", which is called "Bromberg Violin" , can answer your question. She also works now. Bromberg - this was such an active Zionist who died in Kolyma in 1942. This exhibition is devoted to persecution of belonging to various cultural, religious, political organizations, mainly Jewish. “Find a Jew” is already a Jew-Mif, jokes, jokes and such an “unbearable ease of being”. But this exhibition explains how we have reached the life of this: there is total destruction, the seizure of culture, art, identity, and so on, with tough methods, up to the physical destruction of the carriers of all this. For example, until now, almost no one knows anything about state anti -Semitism during the Second World War. Already in 1942, there was a report by the plant department of agitation and propaganda of the Central Committee of Aleksandrov, who in 1954 became the Minister of Culture of the USSR, that we need to observe balance, purify cultural institutions and higher educational institutions from Jews. And in 1944, the famous Malenkovsky circular appeared, which also called for limiting Jews to universities. There is a tradition of state anti -Semitism, which has never been interrupted. It was in pre -revolutionary Russia, and then continued.

Sergey Medvedev: But still, this was not a short period after the revolution: say, in the Leninsky period.

Anatoly Golubovsky: That's right! But Lev Davydovich Trotsky said that he was not a Jew. And already immediately after the revolution, persecution began on belonging to these very organizations - religious and cultural. What is the meaning of this exhibition and "Bromberg violin"? Any manifestation of self -organization, attempts to independently search for identity have always caused the resistance of the state.

Sergey Medvedev: That is, this is probably the core: the Jews were more actively aware of their identity or at least tried to do it.

Anna Narinskaya: It seems to me that they were more likely to expect this from them, especially at that time I am talking about. As a child, I remembered the Jewish Moscow environment very well. Then people suddenly began to contact Judaism, decided to leave, but initially I do not remember anyone belonging to the Jewish tradition.

Sergey Medvedev: Yes, she was not religious, Zionist, she was more likely sociocultural.

Anna Narinskaya: I have a correspondence of Astafyev and Eidelman, where Astafyev (this is 1984) exclaims in writing: "When the time comes, we ourselves will comment on Dostoevsky!" This year, the Writer’s Diary in the Great Green Works, the most anti -Semitic work of Dostoevsky, which was commented on by a very famous Jew with a Jewish surname. All these Jews adored Russian culture, engaged in it.

Sergey Medvedev: And there Astafyev writes: "When our Pushkinoists and Lermontovs will be Russians ..."

Anna Narinskaya: A Jew, even the most secular, even a member of the party, whatever it may be, was perceived as a person with double loyalty. It was clear that, of course, they were Soviet people, moreover, precisely because there is a presumption of "Jews made a revolution", they are even more Soviet people than some others. But then scrape, and they have some kind of peculiarities, some, as Brezhnev said, “their Aunt Sonya” ... At a meeting of the Politburo, when after the closing of the Mikhoels Theater they decided to open the Jewish theater again, Brezhnev said: “Well, let's give them the theater for 500 places. Let the aunt Sonya sings wedding songs there.” Brezhnev had the idea of the Jewish theater.

Sergey Medvedev: At the same time, he was a large fan of Arkady Raikin.

Anna Narinskaya: Yes, and Utesova patronized. But the myth that he himself is somewhere Judaist, of course, very funny.

From the Jews they were expected that they were not completely Soviet: this is in all memories. There is a memorial book of Nicholas Erdman, who, despite his last name, is not a Jew, but a German, it tells about how he talks with some bump from Moscow State University. They walk along the Pakhra, where he has a summer house, and discuss: why are the Jews not taken to technical faculties? He knows very talented boys who were not taken. This person replies: "But this is very fair. They will use our knowledge for something not ours." "Something is not ours" is a very vague thing. I am sure: the question is not even that the Jews were necessarily organized in some committees there or suddenly all began to study Hebrew, but it was still expected.

Sergey Medvedev: On the other hand, maybe the business in the professional and cultural status of Jews?

Anatoly Golubovsky: Of course!

Sergey Medvedev: Six months ago, we did the air with Yuri Slovkin according to his book "Era of Mercury". And so he says that people who grew up in a certain culture of writing naturally occupied cultural niches. And that’s why, in fact, a Jew in the Soviet mass consciousness was perceived as a musician, a doctor, a person of “pure” professions.

Anatoly Golubovsky: statesman, Chekist.

Sergey Medvedev: Yes, but he was despised as an intellectual, as a person in a hat and glasses.

Anatoly Golubovsky: On the one hand, as an intellectual, on the other hand, as a source of some danger emanating from the state.

Anna Narinskaya: But this is in the early stages.

Sergey Medvedev: Still, after the war, the Jew was not perceived as a Chekist.

Anna Narinskaya: But in the official Soviet narrative, the Chekist was not something bad, on the contrary. See what films went on television! These were beautiful guys, worthy Chekists.

The injury inflicted by the country by the Chekists was so powerful that it still exists

Anatoly Golubovsky: An injury inflicted by the country by the Chekists was so powerful that it still exists. For example, in the Baltic countries, the anti -Semitic background is largely associated with the mass repressions that took place there. With all these dramatic circumstances of the first half of the twentieth century, Jews were put in the following conditions: in addition to the fact that they are "with a double bottom", they are forced to make excuses from all sides.

Sergey Medvedev: For the revolution, for Israel, for a six -day war.

Anatoly Golubovsky

Anatoly Golubovsky: Yes! All the Council of People's Commissars are Jews. And the Jews say: "Let me! Let's count: a maximum of one, two, three people's commissars - Jews, and then not the main ones!" Or there is such a myth that all the Jews sat behind the Urals. And then another story immediately begins: and let's calculate how many Jews are the heroes of the war, how many Jews participated in the Battle of Stalingrad?! This monstrous, humiliating, absolutely anti -Semitic calculation comes from the Jews themselves.

Anna Narinskaya: At the same time, there are many examples: some kind of artist, very beloved by the people, has always been a Jew: Gerdt, Rolan Bykov.

Sergey Medvedev: The Jew was a “universal other” in the Soviet Union, and this, of course, formed a certain attitude. In my opinion, very many at school for the first time realized their Jewry and Stigma, which they carried. For me, it was one of the strongest impressions of childhood. In the third or fourth grade, we suddenly began to ask for nationality. There was a new girl in the class, Anya. She got up and fell silent, and then out of the gut of the word "Jewish", and the class gasped! Everyone looked at her, and she stood and flooded with paint. The stigmatization of this word is completely terrible!

The exhibition reads things that I did not know at all. For example, there was a myth that there were four “books” houses on Kalininsky Prospekt, and there should have been the fifth: such a Pentateuch Moses. And only the wise Suslov stopped this.

Anna Narinskaya: Yes, but there are still five of them, because the CMEV stands on the other side: not in a row, but still "the Jews have achieved their own!" There is a wonderful joke - "Will Jews under communism? - Do not worry, Jews will get out." And so the Jews got out. This is one of the most common myths. A great revelation for me was the book of Alexandra Arkhipova and Anna Kirzyuk "Dangerous Soviet things", which talks a lot about Soviet fears that always arose at the site of silence and censorship. For example, on some bill, which was then seized, people began to see Trotsky’s profile.

Anatoly Golubovsky: And everything becomes clear.

Anna Narinskaya : Yes, that "these are all Jews." It is terribly interesting that people who are accustomed to read between the lines begin to read this Jewry everywhere, and you cannot distinguish - is it anti -Semitic, Zionist or Philosemite?

Anatoly Golubovsky: A blow that was inflicted by identity, self -organization and culture before, during and after the war, led to the fact that people stopped identifying a Jew. For example, when in the 30-40s people watched the film "Circus", where Mikhoels sings "Lullaby", and for them there was no doubt that a person sings in this language-he is a Jew. But already in the 70-80s, not everyone identified Mikhoels as a Jew, especially since this episode was returned only in the 60s. On the other hand, from the mid-90s, regular sociological measurements of anti-Semitism have been held. And in the very first studies, it suddenly became clear that that part of the respondents who identify itself as anti-Semites cannot understand who the Jew is, and who is not, nor by last name, nor for some kind of physiognomic signs. They do not know who the Jews are, but at the same time are anti -Semites.

Anna Narinskaya: Because a Jew is such a mythical creature as in the "Cheburashka" - a beast unknown to science.

Sergey Medvedev: Why Cheburashka Jew?

Anna Narinskaya: Cheburashka was placed in myths, since I am personally sure that its creators had this in mind, but they never recognized this. First of all, he arrives in a box with oranges, and there we even have a small photo - a very famous protocol about an orange transaction. In 1967, they began to negotiate, and then a six -day war. But the oranges were needed, there were not enough Moroccans, and now they decided not to cancel this deal despite the fact that everything was torn with Israel, and trade relations too. And so - this is absolutely true! - There were special people at customs, who from morning to evening crossed black rhombuses from Jaffa to Morocco.

And now Cheburashka comes in a box with oranges. Well, who is he? You yourself said: a Jew is a quintessence of another. And Cheburashka is the quintessence of another. He is brought to the zoo, and there they say: "No, he does not apply to us, we do not know him. Who is this?!" – именно так и ощущал себя еврей в советском обществе.

Сергей Медведев: Я понимаю, когда это народные мифы, о которых рассказывает Александра Архипова, городской фольклор, но когда государство играет в эту игру!.. Совершенно потрясающая история с юбилейным рублем 1977 года, где как сила советской атомной промышленности изображен элемент литий, и там три орбиты электрона, которые так сочетаются, что получается звезда Давида. И что, был уничтожен весь тираж монет?

Анна Наринская: Весь! Они уже подготовили эскиз и публикуют его в газете "Правда": будет такой рубль. Бдительные граждане начинают писать в газету "Правда". Муссировалась идея о том, что Ленин еврей (он действительно на четверть еврей), но это тоже замалчивалось: наш великий вождь не может быть евреем! И люди начинают писать: "Какое безобразие, не намекаете ли вы на это?" И ночью, когда этот рубль уже был доставлен во все сберкассы, его отозвали. Но в каких-то местах кто-то уже положил эти рубли в кассу. Сейчас на аукционах этот рубль стоит, по-моему, около двух миллионов рублей.

Сергей Медведев: А картинку изменили на бериллий: там четыре орбиты электрона – звезду Давида уже не сделаешь.

Анна Наринская: С чем это рифмуется? Сейчас у нас дана воля этим самозабвенным безумцам: какие-то казаки, которые кого-то хлещут, какие-то верующие, оскорбленные на каком-то месте, где ты никогда не догадаешься, чем оскорбляться.

Анатолий Голубовский: Датчане, насилующие черепаху.

Анна Наринская: У нас это идет по линии свобода слова. Возможность злобного сумасшедшего человека сказать какую-нибудь гадость понимается как свобода слова. А сказать, что нужна свобода слова – это не свобода слова, а молчи и садись за перепост!

Сергей Медведев: Такая советская свобода слова. Там много мифов. В частности, была найдена звезда Давида на пороховнице одного казака в Запорожье ("Запорожцы пишут письмо турецкому султану"). И масса таких вещей. Вот они, плоды свободы слова!

Рассуждает поэт-сатирик Владимир Вишневский .

Владимир Вишневский

Владимир Вишневский: Деятелей искусства не остановишь: при всех ограничениях они все равно становились и народными артистами, и признанными, и знаменитыми, будь то известные пианисты-исполнители, будь то ученые. Как говорят сами противники, "без вас никуда не денешься". Известно гениальное выражение Жванецкого: "в каждой нации в меньшинстве, в каждой отрасли в большинстве". Говорилось, что всегда был ученый еврей при губернаторе, он был необходим. У каждого влиятельного или высокопоставленного антисемита был свой любимый еврей.

Известно гениальное выражение Жванецкого: "в каждой нации в меньшинстве, в каждой отрасли в большинстве"

Я уж не говорю про вот это с детства мне знакомое – "ты еврей, но хороший", или доныне имеющее место в любой подвыпившей компании "а что, у меня самого много друзей евреев". Причем человек говорит это, пытаясь выглядеть цивилизованным. На самом же деле это тоже антисемитское заявление. Я не раз это слышал, признавался евреем, но хорошим, мужиком и так далее. Эта традиция труднопреодолима, и она еще будет выводиться не одним поколением, если вообще будет выводиться. Сейчас есть мнение, что оставшийся хотя бы на бытовом уровне антисемитизм в России гораздо более мягок, чем интеллектуальный европейский антисемитизм. Тем не менее, это традиция, с которой живут и сами евреи, даже шутят на эту тему. Лучше всех рассказывают антисемитские анекдоты сами евреи.

Сергей Медведев: Хочу остановиться на теме антисемитизма в современной российской культуре. Анна, вы писали об одной вашей знакомой, о некоем уже обратном антисемитизме, позитивной дискриминации. Она еврейка, и ей дали некую финансовую должность со словами: "Ваша нация умеет обращаться с деньгами". How to relate to this?

Анна Наринская: По неким нормам так называемой новой этики это однозначно антисемитизм. У меня на выставке приводятся великие слова Ларисы Богораз, известной диссидентки, борца за свободу слова в Советском Союзе. Она пишет, как прошла и через отрицание, и через приятие, как в детстве она понимала, что она еврейка, и страшно хотела это спрятать. А потом, наоборот, когда к ней просто подходили и говорили: "Здравствуйте!", – она отвечала: "Я – еврейка!" Мы все тоже проходили через такое. Потом она поняла, что не хочет быть ни еврейкой, ни советской, а хочет быть только собой, Ларисой Богораз. И мои ощущения ровно такие же. Я считаю, что мир должен прийти к этому в каком-то райском будущем.

Сергей Медведев: Это как в Америке сказать афроамериканцу: "ну, ты же черный – давай в баскетбольную команду" или "садись и играй джаз". Это будет воспринято, как проявление расизма.

Анна Наринская: Надо видеть в человеке человека, а не его национальность.

Анатолий Голубовский: Государственный антисемитизм – это была отвратительная, несправедливая, ужасная нацистская система, в которой люди не могли поступать в лучшие вузы, быть начальниками, делать карьеру: если ты еврей, так будь обязательно партийным или начальником профкома, чтобы быть в должности. Государственный антисемитизм и особенно то, что случилось после Шестидневной войны, весь дискурс "израильской военщины", воспетый Галичем и воспетый в другом смысле Кукрыниксами и прочими…

Сергей Медведев: "Израильская военщина//Известна всему свету".

Анна Наринская: В каждой газете были довольно кошмарные карикатуры на "израильскую военщину". Любой государственный антисемитизм, безусловно, подпитывает бытовой антисемитизм. И сейчас, когда хочешь – не хочешь, но государственного антисемитизма нет, резкий прямолинейный антисемитизм очень снизился. В других странах, скажем, во Франции, антисемитизма как такового больше.

Сергей Медведев: В связи с Израилем: там очень сильна левая культура и критика политики Израиля.

Анна Наринская: И много арабского населения. Сейчас идут очень бурные споры о том, являются ли антиизраильские настроения, антиизраильская риторика антисемитизмом? Есть замечательный роман Говарда Джейкобсона: "Вопрос Финклера" (он получил Букеровскую премию). Он посвящен именно этому, на примере английской интеллектуальной среды.

На известном интеллектуальном сайте замечательный искусствовед Ирина Мак написала рецензию на выставку "Найди еврея", и сейчас там сто комментариев, гораздо больше, чем под другими статьями, и все они антисемитские: "чемодан, вокзал, Израиль". Говорят, что, безусловно, есть сионистский заговор, евреи всюду прорвались, вот Ротенберги и тому подобное. Когда тебе кажется, что все уже хорошо, тут открывается правда, и все не так хорошо.

Анатолий Голубовский: Хорошо никогда не будет. Я даже не могу сказать, хорошо или плохо все, что происходит. В разные времена все это происходит по-разному.

Анна Наринская: Все-таки есть положительный момент: я всю жизнь живу на Чистых прудах, и когда я родилась, ни одного человека в шляпе и с пейсами, несмотря на наличие рядом синагоги, там никогда не было видно. А сейчас они ходят в большом количестве, и никто не свистит им вслед.

Анатолий Голубовский: Большая часть тех, кто встречает людей в шляпах с пейсами, не понимают, что это евреи.

Анна Наринская: Да, "они просто вырядились".

Анатолий Голубовский: Более того, до окончания Первой мировой войны антисемитизм был религиозным, а этническим он стал только после этой войны со всеми вытекающими последствиями. Во время еврейского погрома еврею достаточно было выставить в окно икону, и этот дом никто бы не тронул. И вот катастрофа Первой мировой, успехи в генетике и масса разных других обстоятельств, собственно, и породили этнический антисемитизм. И антиизраильские настроения – это, конечно, очень крутой замес из этнического антисемитизма, религиозного антисемитизма (хотя религиозные евреи, как известно, сами не принимают государство Израиль), каких-то политических обстоятельств, манипуляций, спекуляций и прочего. Но если говорить о том, что мы имеем сегодня, то это на самом деле совершенно непонятно. Ведь вот этот тлеющий фоновый бытовой антисемитизм в любую минуту может вырваться наружу в том случае, если откуда-то сверху, со стороны власти вдруг пойдет что-то такое.

Сергей Медведев: По-моему, его место заняло отношение к выходцам с Кавказа и из Средней Азии.

Анна Наринская: Мне тоже так кажется.

Сергей Медведев: Появились новые парии, новая стигма.

Анатолий Голубовский: Но она появилась тоже в новейшие времена. И я бы не стал сравнивать эти стигмы, потому что на рынке-то может быть какой-нибудь чеченский погром, но это немножечко другое.

Анна Наринская: Обществу нужен тот, кого не любят, и мы знаем, какой это невероятный предмет манипуляций. Who are we? Мы все те, кто не любит таких-то. Ну, так, в общем, и поступил Гитлер. Без парии, без ненавидимого, без человека, про которого рассказываются все эти мифы, общество не живет, особенно общество непросвещенное. А наша власть не занимается просвещением, наоборот, ставит ему разнообразные препоны.

Сергей Медведев: Антисемитизм, как говорил Ерофеев, в общем и целом искоренен, но кое-где… Однако некий латентный антисемитизм, возможность перехода в общество в поиске некоего чужого остается всегда, будь то Россия XIX века, современное европейское общество или Россия сегодня.