Film screening: Russian Jews. Part Three. After 1948 – An Evening with Leonid Parfenov

An evening with acclaimed Russian TV journalist Leonid Parfenov, who will be presenting final film of his latest documentary Russian Jews, and will be on hand for an intimate Q&A after the film.

Russian Jews is a documentary trilogy created and narrated by Leonid Parfenov that studies perceptions of Jews in Russia throughout the ever-changing history of the twentieth century and their role in the history of the country and the world.

The final film of the documentary trilogy about the contribution of the Russian Jews in Russia and beyond.
The KGB killing the head of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, Solomon Mikhoels, opens a new chapter in the official Soviet attitude towards the Jews. The further execution of Jewish Antifascist Committee active members, the fight against “rootless cosmopolitans,” i.e. Jews, start the new state anti-Semitism. A new blood libel – “The Doctor’s Plot.” Stalin’s death prevents the massacre, but the official Russian-Jewish harmony will never be restored under the Soviet regime.

The number of the super stars loved by the whole country won’t decrease: Mikhail Botvinnik is the major chess player, Arkadiy Raykin is the major comic actor, Maya Plisetskaya is major primа ballerina, Alexander Galitch and Vladimir Vysotsky are the major bards. Other famous and widely acknowledged Jewish names remain in all spheres – from nuclear physics to pop-music, but Jews stopped being the co-authors of Russian communism. They are not allowed any more to the greater politics and are more engaged into anti-Soviet activity.

Soviet shadow economy could be hardly imagined without Jews too, illegal enterprise since 1960’s will be prosecuted with death penalty.  The same decade marks the beginning of the dissident movement. The grandsons of the revolutionary Jews bring to the dismantling the statehood the same hot temper and audacity their grandparents infused into the czar’s demise.

The emigration permit in 1970’s makes the ethnicity the means to deny socialism and the reason to quit the country.

The fall of the Soviet Union will put an end to the «Jewish issue» as the last soviet generation knew it.

The KGB killing the head of the Jewish Antifascist Committee, Solomon Mikhoels, opens a new chapter in the official Soviet attitude towards the Jews. The further execution of Jewish Antifascist Committee active members, the fight against “rootless cosmopolitans,” i.e. Jews, start the new state anti-Semitism. A new blood libel – “The Doctor’s Plot.” Stalin’s death prevents the massacre, but the official Russian-Jewish harmony will never be restored under the Soviet regime.

The number of the super stars loved by the whole country won’t decrease: Mikhail Botvinnik is the major chess player, Arkadiy Raykin is the major comic actor, Maya Plisetskaya is major primа ballerina, Alexander Galitch and Vladimir Vysotsky are the major bards. Other famous and widely acknowledged Jewish names remain in all spheres – from nuclear physics to pop-music, but Jews stopped being the co-authors of Russian communism. They are not allowed any more to the greater politics and are more engaged into anti-Soviet activity.

Soviet shadow economy could be hardly imagined without Jews too, illegal enterprise since 1960’s will be prosecuted with death penalty.  The same decade marks the beginning of the dissident movement. The grandsons of the revolutionary Jews bring to the dismantling the statehood the same hot temper and audacity their grandparents infused into the czar’s demise.

The emigration permit in 1970’s makes the ethnicity the means to deny socialism and the reason to quit the country.

The fall of the Soviet Union will put an end to the «Jewish issue» as the last soviet generation knew it.
About Leonid Parfenov

Leonid Parfenov is one of the most respected independent journalists working in Russia today. After a long career as a news presenter and producer on Russia’s main channel, he has lately focussed on mainstream TV documentaries, including Namedni, a long-running account of the last years of the Soviet Union. In 2010 he made international headlines for his outspoken criticism of TV journalism in Russia, referring to them as “not journalists at all but bureaucrats, following the logic of service and submission”.

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