Language:
English
Year of publication:
2008
Titel der Quelle:
Slavic Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
67,1 (2008) 120-153
Keywords:
Bezbozhnik u stanka
;
Antisemitism
;
Jews Periodicals
;
Antisemitism in the press
Abstract:
Discusses the illustrations in the militantly atheistic Soviet journal "Bezbozhnik u stanka" (1923-31), published by the Moscow League of the Godless, which included caricatures of Judaism and religious Jews. Images of both the Jewish God and those who served him were dehumanized. The former was often pictured with a single eye and a fist-shaped nose, in a manner that was more grotesque than the way the gods of Christianity and Islam were portrayed. Jews were often visually linked with capitalist exploiters and the bourgeoisie, symbolized by fat figures in top hats, etc. The Soviet caricatures, which combined secular and religious motifs, were not racist, like those of "Der Sturmer". The images probably aroused antisemitism, whether or not this was the aim of the artists, despite the contemporary Soviet policy of punishing manifestations of antisemitism. It is not clear how secular Jews viewed the images of religious Jews or how some of the puzzling images were interpreted by non-Jews. In any case, the journal's illustrations, 15 of which are reproduced, probably contributed significantly to the persistence of antisemitism in the USSR in succeeding decades.
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