Jewish Emigration and Soviet Propaganda in Films of the 1920s and 1930s

Abstract

The article attempts to consider the appeals of the Soviet screen of the 20-30s to the topic of emigration in general and Jewish emigration in particular. The latter appeared most often in connection with the possibility of re-emigration. Unlike the plot about the professional or political immigration of foreigners to the USSR, the plot with the reemigration of Jews had a number of important advantages. It allowed to demonstrate the progress of the Soviet country in time. It exposed at the same time the horrors of the discriminatory policy of tsarist Russia and the illusion of equality, financial well-being and personal freedom of Western countries. Jewish emigration turned out to be justified by external factors for the Soviet authorities, unless, of course, we were talking about leaving for Palestine for Zionist beliefs. The Soviet screen of the 20s and 30s was critical of Zionism, but even this sometimes became insufficient. Some films had not been released like “Against the Will of the Fathers” by Yevgeny Ivanov-Barkov. One of the film’s characters – student Boris despite his Zionist preferences still remained a positive hero. Other films, for example, Mikhail Dubson’s “Border”, were subjected to numerous alterations, reducing the dangerous topic of Zionism to a minimum. The renewed Russia, now oriented towards internationalism and having discarded capitalist habits, appeared in the Soviet cinema of the 30s not only as an ideal old new homeland for Jews, but also as a universal proletarian paradise (“Horizon”, “The Return of Nathan Becker”, “Seekers of Happiness”, etc.). But not all Jewish characters got access to the Soviet “Promised Land”, but only those who were ready to give up their national, cultural, linguistic isolation in the end. After all, the revolution destroyed the main Jewish trait in Russia – the pale of settlement. And now it was time to return and find a share not in the future, but in the present, accomplished Soviet world without borders and hierarchies. The pragmatics of Soviet propaganda becomes more obvious when referring to censorship prohibitions and restrictions (“Against the will of the Fathers”, “Dream”), rejected versions of the script (“Border”), accompanying advertising texts (“Jewish Happiness”), as well as to the analysis of the plots of films based on Jewish material.