Remembering Musya Pinkenzon: Between naïve literature, folklore and false memories
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-2-58-84
Abstract
In December 1942, in the village of Ust-Labinskaya near the city of Krasnodar, a mass execution of Jews took place, during which 12-year-old violinist Musya Pinkenzon perished. According to press publications that began to appear in the spring of 1943, before his death he performed the communist anthem “The Internationale” on the violin. There are doubts about the reliability of this version, but thanks to it, the story of Musya Pinkenzon became known throughout the Soviet Union. After the war, a memorial community was formed in the city of Ust-Labinsk around Musya Pinkenzon. This community has been keeping alive the memory of this pioneer hero for many decades. Using the case of Musya Pinkenzon as an example, this article examines the question of how local oral historical memory is formed and what it consists of. The material for this study is 12 memoirs, most of which were obtained during two expeditions to Krasnodar and Ust-Labinsk, undertaken in 2022–2023 as part of the project “Jewish commemorative practices and the modern cult of Victory”, as well as observations and interviews with local residents. Memories of Musya Pinkenzon are considered part of a special literary and folklore tradition. It turns out that the “official” version of the circumstances of the shooting, which is based on the motif of “heroic music-making on the verge of death”, was more demanded by the local community and therefore it crowded out the real experience of eyewitnesses from memory. The article analyzes the content of the memoirs about Musya Pinkenzon — in particular, the general plot elements and rhetorical devices found in them. As a result, it turns out that one part of them is drawn from the media, literary sources, folklore and memories of predecessors, and the other performs a utilitarian function — it confirms the narrator’s right to testify and emphasize his positive role in this story. Thus, historical memory is a product of the socio-political, cultural, information environment and the interests of the narrator himself and his community.
Supporting agencies: The article is a part of the RANEPA state assignment research programme.
About the Author
M. V. Gavrilova
The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration; Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Maria V. Gavrilova, Cand. Sci. (Philology) Senior Researcher, Center for Theoretical Folklore Studies, School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Institute for Social Sciences; Researcher, Centre for Typological and Semiotic Folklore Studies
119571, Moscow, Prospekt Vernadskogo, 82
GSP-3, 125993, Moscow, Miusskaya Sq., 6
References
1. Al’tman I. A. (2002). Zhertvy nenavisti: Kholokost v SSSR: 1941–1945 gg. [Victims of hate: The Holocaust in the USSR: 1941–1945]. Fond “Kovcheg”. (In Russian).
2. Al’tman, I. A. (2005). Memorializatsiia Kholokosta v Rossii: istoriia, sovremennost’, perspektivy [Memorialization of the Holocaust in Russia: history, modernity, prospects]. In M. Gabovich (Ed.). Pamiat’ o voine 60 let spustia: Rossiia, Germaniia, Evropa (pp. 509– 530) (2nd ed.). Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. (In Russian).
3. Assmann, A. (2006). Der lange Schatten der Vergangenheit: Erinnerungskultur und Geschichtspolitik. C. H. Beck.
4. Blatz, C. W., & Ross, M. (2009). Historical memories. In P. Boyer, & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.). Memory in mind and culture (pp. 223–237). Cambridge Univ. Press.
5. Blium, A. V. (1996). Evreiskii vopros pod sovetskoi tsenzuroi: 1917–1991 [The Jewish problem under Soviet censorship: 1917–1991]. Peterburgskii evreiskii universitet. (In Russian).
6. Cappeletto F. (2003). Long-term memory of extreme events: From autobiography to history. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 9(2), 241–260.
7. Halbwachs, M. (1994). Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Albin Michel.
8. Harris, A. M. (2011). The lives and deaths of a Soviet saint in the post-Soviet period: The case of Zoia Kosmodem’ianskaia. Canadian Slavonic Papers, 53(2–4), 273–304.
9. Kelly, C. (2005). Comrade Pavlik: The rise and fall of a Soviet boy hero. Granta Books.
10. Koposov, N. E. (2011). Pamiat’ strogogo rezhima: Istoriia i politika v Rossii [High security memory: History and politics in Russia]. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. (In Russian).
11. Leont’eva, S. G. (2014). Pioner — vsem primer [Pioneer is an example to everyone]. Otechestvennye zapiski, 2014(3), 249–259. (In Russian).
12. Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction: An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 13(5), 585–589.
13. Oring, E. (2008). Legendry and the rhetoric of truth. Journal of American Folklore, 121, 127–166.
14. Portelli, A. (2002). The massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine: history, myth, ritual, and symbol. In K. Hodgkin, & S. Radstone (Eds.). Contested pasts: The politics of memory (pp. 29–41). Routledge; Kegan Paul.
15. Rebrova, I. (2020). Re-constructing grassroots Holocaust memory: The case of the North Caucasus. De Gruyter Oldenbourg.
16. Schacter, D. L. (2001). The seven sins of memory: How the mind forgets and remembers. Houghton Mifflin.
17. Tazhidinova, I. G. (2019). Mediatizatsiia temy prestuplenii nemetsko-fashistskikh zakhvatchikov i ikh posobnikov (na primere Krasnodarskogo protsessa, 1943) [Mediatization of the theme of crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders and their accomplices (on the example of the Krasnodar Trial in 1943)]. Nasledie vekov, 2019(3), 79–90. https://doi.org/10.36343/SB.2019.19.3.008. URL: http://heritage-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2019_3_Tazhidinova.pdf. (In Russian).
18. Welzer, H. (2005). Die Gegenwart der Vergangenheit: geschichte als Arena der Politik. Osteuropa, 55(4/6), 9–18.
19. Zeltser, A. (2019). Unwelcome memory: Holocaust monuments in the Soviet Union. Yad Vashem.
Review
For citations:
Gavrilova M.V. Remembering Musya Pinkenzon: Between naïve literature, folklore and false memories. Shagi / Steps. 2024;10(3):58-84. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-2-58-84
Views:
73
Email this article 