Soviet humor was Jewish

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The author of the article cannot be accused of anti-Semitism, because a historical retrospective on Soviet and Russian pop music in general and pop humor in particular is conducted by the Jew Marian Belenky, author of monologues by Klara Novikova, Gennady Khazanov, Yan Arlazorov.

It is not customary to talk about it. Russians do not talk about this for fear of being branded as anti-Semites, Jews - because of possible accusations of violating corporate ethics.

Soviet humor was Jewish. The Soviet mass song was Jewish. Alas, you cannot erase words from a song, as from a joke.

"Many songs were sung over the Volga, but the song was not the same." Brothers Pokrass, Matvey Blanter, Isaac Dunaevsky, Sigismund Katz, Alexander Tsfasman, Leonid Utesov, Mark Bernes, Arkady Ostrovsky, Oscar Feltsman, Mark Fradkin, Jan Frenkel, Vladimir Shainsky, Jan Galperin, Arkady Hashansky … otherwise, he will occupy this whole essay.

"Russian field". Words by Inna Goff, music by Jan Frenkel, performed by Joseph Kobzon, accompanied by the All-Union Radio Orchestra under the exercise. Wilhelm Gauck. Music editor for the Good Morning radio program Lev Steinreich.

A person of Russian culture recognizes Hasidic melodies in Israel right away. This is "blatnyak", or, as they say now, "Russian chanson". True, the texts are different. Tonic-dominant-subdominant. Thugs square. The melodies of all Vysotsky's songs fit here. “Russians” in Israel are at first very surprised to hear in the synagogue a cantor (khazan) who praises the Lord to the tune “Nightingales, nightingales, do not disturb the soldiers”. And what is there to be surprised. There is only one source.

The Soviet pop song began with Jewish folk melodies:

Comrade Stalin liked all this very much. Utesov, he did not give offense and defended him from the attacks of the Rappovites and other zealots of Russian culture.

Now here's a task for you: find the difference in the melodies:

Found it? The prize goes to the studio!

Sholem Aleichem's message "I'm fine, I'm an orphan" has become the main device of Soviet humor. "And in some stores there is no separate sausage." "There is no cotton wool in the shops - acrobats are performing." In fact, today all the monologues of Zhvanetsky and Zadornov are on the topic "How bad we live with you."

Let's remember the 50s. Dykhovichny and Slobodskoy, Mass and Chervinsky, Raikin, Vickers and Kanevsky, Mironova and Menaker, Mirov and Novitsky, Viktor Ardov, Alexander Izrailevich Shurov (coupletist, Rykunin's partner); the founder of the Moscow theater of miniatures Vladimir Solomonovich Polyakov; authors Raikin Mark Azov and Vladimir Tikhvinsky … However, the family has its black sheep. Somehow Nikolai Pavlovich Smirnov-Sokolsky got into this company.

The only Raikin author who is not a Jew, whom I know, is Benjamin Skvirsky. In the 60s, through the program "Good morning!" of the Department of Satire and Humor of the All-Union Radio, a new generation came to Soviet pop humor: Gorin, Arkanov, Izmailov, Livshits and Levenbuk. 70s - Khazanov, Shifrin, Klara Novikova. In St. Petersburg, Semyon Altov and Mikhail Mishin began to write.

On television there were programs "Merry Major", "Terem-Teremok", which, as they say, were closed due to the abundance of persons of non-indigenous nationality among the authors and actors. Few representatives of national minorities (Trushkin, Koklyushkin, Zadornov) imitated the same style: " Oh, how bad we are!"

At the origins of KVN were three Jews: director Mark Rozovsky, doctor Albert Axelrod, host of the first KVN, actor Ilya Rutberg (Julia's father).

You will laugh, but the first Soviet TV KVN-49 was also invented by three Jews: Kenigson, Varshavsky, Nikolaevsky.

I have already found the 70s. Wherever I went, Jews sat on humor everywhere - concert administrators, directors, editors of humor rubrics in radio programs, authors, actors, cashiers. In Kiev, there was also Ukrainian humor, which was written by Ukrainian authors and performed by Ukrainian actors. And in Moscow in those years, the dominance of Jews in this genre was almost 100%. I do not assess this phenomenon, I only state what I witnessed. The only Jew in the polar town of Labytnangi, where we were brought on tour, turned out to be the administrator of the local philharmonic society by the name of Ostrovsky. There was a legend about him:

“Richter comes to a distant northern city with a single concert. At the end of the concert Ostrovsky gives him a ticket … To the reserved seat carriage. Two days to Moscow.

“Forgive me, I’m Richter after all,” the great musician protested.

- Ay, do not fool your head. There are many Richters, but Ostrovsky is one."

I remember that back in the 80s I approached Lion Izmailov - I’m, they say, a pop author, take me to concerts. He looked at me like a cockroach: "We need to arrange our own." Your own? But I am also a Jew and also an author … He meant Moscow …

All this was like a child's play - members of one team hold hands tightly, while the other is trying to break through this defense. Few managed to break through.

The theme of sketches and monologues remained the same in the 80s. The main thing is to keep the dummy in your pocket, to cheat the censorship, to play on pause.

Here's a classic trick we used to cheat censorship. This trick was invented by the actor Pavel Muravsky back in the 30s:

“Living in our country is getting worse and worse every day …

(Audience gasps)

A familiar speculator told me …

(Sigh of relief)

And he's right …

(Audience gasps)

Because speculators in our country really get worse every day …"

Three turns in one phrase. When it is written in full, without pauses, the censor does not catch the chip.

This technique still works today:

“Putin is a bastard …

One bandit told me.

And he's right:

“In the 90s, we did what we wanted,” he says.

"And he put everyone in prison."

The main thing here is to withstand pauses.

“And here the shortcomings of the entire system … of the scientific organization of labor were overcome” (Zhvanetsky).

In the early 90s, a new team appeared. Lev Novozhenov was the editor of the humor department of Moskovsky Komsomolets, which published Shenderovich, Igor Irteniev, Vladimir Vishnevsky (and your humble servant, if anyone remembers).

The paradox is that I - the author of this image - are far from delighted with the image of Aunt Sonya, created by Klara Novikova. I have never been a supporter of "Jewishness" - pedaling a Jewish accent, increased gesticulation, armpit thumbs and other exaggerated signs of the image of a Jew. Aunt Sonya and Uncle Yasha remained in the distant past. Their time is irrevocably gone. We, residents of big cities, Jews by nationality and Russian by culture, no longer have anything to do with that forever gone shtetl life. And I am categorically opposed to being forced into it. Later I learned that in fact, Jewish humor is not at all anecdotes about Sarah and Abram. But who in Russia has heard the names of the great Jewish comedians Dzigan and Schumacher, who have made the audience laugh in Yiddish all their lives? But this is a topic for another conversation.

In 1988, in one of the first "Full houses" (which then aired once a month, and not three times a day on all channels), a Russian person appeared on the Soviet stage for the first time in 70 years. A simple guy from an Altai village. “Red muzzle” was remembered by everyone. The manner of performance, the theme of the texts, the appearance of Mikhail Evdokimov - all this was strikingly different from the traditional Jewish whining on the topic “How bad it is for us to live here”. Evdokimov wrote his first monologues himself, including The Red Face. Then the Russian actor got a Russian author - Evgeny Shestakov.

Marian Belenky, pop playwright, author of monologues by Klara Novikova, Gennady Khazanov, Yana Arlazorov

See also: What is chutzpah?

Maryan Belenky about himself and about the Russian question:

I am a Jew and have lived in Israel for 20 years.

But if I were Russian and lived in Russia - I willy-nilly would have to think:

- Are the Jews really to blame for all the troubles in Russia, or are there other reasons?

If I were Russian, I would have a question. Why in today's Russia, where Jews make up less than 1% of the population, are there so many of them in the Russian media, especially in leadership positions? But these are only those about whom we know that they are Jews. Apart from those who are hidden behind modest pseudonyms. Are we Russians less talented and less capable? - I would have thought, - maybe there is another reason for that?

If I were Russian and lived in Russia, I would think. Why, when they officially allowed to plunder Russia, and called it privatization, did the majority of Russian property end up in the hands of Jews? The Jews turned out to be more cunning and nimble than the Russians, or maybe, God forgive me, there is another reason for this?

- Why were the majority of humorists and songwriters under the soviet regime Jews? Is it because the Russians are less talented, I would think, or perhaps there are other reasons for this?

If I were Russian, I would have a question. Why is the Holocaust the only historical event the denial of which is criminalized in many countries? Shout as much as you like that there was no uprising of Spartacus or the capture of Constantinople by the Turks - nothing will happen to you. But God forbid doubting the figure of 6 million Jews who died in World War II … I was named after my great-grandmother Miriam, whom the Germans killed in Babi Yar. But when I ask the question “Where did the figure 6 million come from?” I am called an accomplice of the fascists and an anti-Semite.

If I were Russian, I would have a question. Why do Jews celebrate Hanukkah in the Kremlin? And what would the Jews say if Christians set up a Christmas tree near the Western Wall?

If I were Russian, I would think about this. If "Taras Bulba" were written today, where would its author be? I don't think public repentance would have helped him. In today's Russia, he would have thundered into prison under the article "inciting racial and ethnic hatred."

And here's another interesting detail. Yuri Mukhin published an article in the Duel newspaper calling for the expulsion of Jews from Russia. For this he received a term under the above article, however, conditional. But the call for the expulsion of the Arabs from the country is legitimate in Israel, and is included in the program of political parties. Incidentally, I am entirely for this proposal.

If I were Russian, I would think. Why are those who call themselves Russian patriots anti-Semites? Is it really impossible to be a Russian patriot without hating Jews?

If I were Russian, I would say to Jews:

- You have your own country. So go there. Let us live without you.

If after this an unprecedented prosperity begins in Russia, it means, indeed, that the Jews were to blame for everything. Well, if not, there will be no one to blame.

In every regional center of Russia there are branches of the Jewish agency Sokhnut. The purpose of the Prison is to gather all Jews in Israel. So these notes are fully consistent with the goals and objectives of the Jewish Agency.

Read also: Jewish stage in Russia