Remembering Musya Pinkenzon: Between naïve literature, folklore and false memories
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.22394/2412-9410-2024-10-2-58-84Keywords:
Holocaust, oral history, naïve literature, commemoration, memorial policyAbstract
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.Downloads
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