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SPECIFICS OF JEWISH NATIONAL CHARACTER IN RUSSIANAND SOVIET CINEMATOGRAPHY 1910–1940 // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2015. Issue 2 (8). P. 80-90

This paper analyzes some of the aspects of Western-Europe’s anti-Semitism. A retrospect of the ethnical treatment of Jews in pre-revolutionary Russia and the Soviet Union of the 1920s–1940s, the paper focuses on the way the Jewish national character is represented in pre-revolutionary and Soviet cinema. The pre-revolutionary Russian cinema, featuring mainly melodramatic storylines, makes the audience feel sympathy for the Jewish misfortune, thus suggesting the viewers to see the Jew as a fellow man. In contrast, the Soviet cinema depicts the traditional Jewish way of life, representing the Jewish involvement in the February Revolution of 1917, partly portraying the events of Jewish resettlement in the Crimea, as well as the resettlement of Jews in the Far Eastern Jewish Autonomous Region.

Keywords: national identity, Jewish national character, antisemitism, the traditional Jewish way of life depicted in the pre-revolutionary Russian cinema, the Jewish involvement in the Russian Revolution as portrayed in the Soviet cinema, Jewish resettlement (in th