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CHAPTER 5 Rewriting Old Odessa’s Mythical Past In 1986 the Soviet filmmaker Vladimir Alenikov received tentative permission to produce a television mini-series based on Isaac Babel’s Odessa Stories; Babel’s irreverent Jewish gangsters had not appeared on screen since the silent movie Benia Krik was withdrawn from circulation nearly six decades earlier. But as the year wore on and Alenikov heard nothing further from the studio, he asked the editorin -chief for an explanation. The ensuing exchange between the editor and the director captures the uncertainty of the early days of Glasnost and Perestroika, when Gorbachev’s government was cautiously laying the foundation for political and cultural reform in the USSR. Alenikov describes the exchange: [The editor] lowered his voice and confidentially told me: “Vlad, you are a talented person, and we understand that you’d produce a good film. But understand our position—how could we allow it? Look at who all these characters are!” “What are you talking about?” “All of your characters—they’re all Jewish!” “Uh, first of all, they’re not mine, they’re Babel’s. And second, what’s the issue?” “What do you mean, ‘what?’ We cannot possibly . . . but we’ve come up with an idea that’s really not that bad . . .” “Not that bad?” “You can change all the characters’ nationality, and then we will immediately allow—” “What are you joking?” “No, we’re not joking. Look, where do they live? In the Moldavanka? Just make them all Moldovan.”1 Alenikov’s script remained shelved until 1989, when it was finally released as the film The Carter and the King (Bindiuzhnik i korol´), a musical romp featuring unmistakably Jewish gangsters whose criminality intersected with their apparent piety. The Carter and the King is emblematic of old Odessa’s renaissance during the late Soviet era and the ultimate triumph of the Jewish city of sin over the proletarian REWRITING OLD ODESSA’S MYTHICAL PAST n  morality that had vilified its frivolity and constrained its celebration for more than half a century. As the communist system degenerated and disintegrated, the myth of old Odessa blossomed. The reduction of censorship during the late 1980s, followed by its virtual elimination in the 1990s, led to an unprecedented production of mythmaking material and the unrestricted public celebration of the city’s deviant history. Most of the legends and lore of old Odessa’s swindlers and merrymakers that circulated during the myth’s resurgence were not new; in content and in spirit the stories, folksongs, jokes, and films treaded on familiar terrain. What was new was the myth’s explicitness: no longer was there a need to use subtlety in ascribing Jewishness to the Odessit, to have the impish charlatan hide behind a Moldovan identity or to proclaim his improbable descent from a Turkish Janissary. And the demise of the USSR empowered the myth of old Odessa with a sense of permanence : much of what had been an oral and anonymous culture under communism was now given a tangible durability, not only in the form of legally published and widely disseminated books, journals, and musical recordings but also in the form of monuments, theaters, annual festivals, taverns, and cafés dedicated to commemorating the city’s sin and revelry of bygone years. The danger of impending destruction has dissipated, and the tales of old Odessa are now enshrined throughout the city in brick, iron, and stone. Like most cities in the former Soviet Union, Odessa has gone through fundamental changes since the late 1980s, including the mass emigration of its Jewish population to America, Europe, and Israel. But the dispersion of Odessa’s Jews has paradoxically reinforced the city’s identity as a Judeo-kleptocracy; the Internet, the freedom to travel, and a tenacious diaspora unwilling to sever ties with its beloved historic homeland have all colluded to intensify its celebration through humor and nostalgia. The production, diffusion, and consumption of the Odessa myth is now an international phenomenon, with metropole and periphery engaged in a symbiotic, nurturing relationship that was previously impossible. As the imagined golden age of old Odessa continues to recede into the realm of collective memory, its visibility in the present continues to increase. The fabled Odessit survived the twentieth century and the Revolution that sought to destroy him, and he still thrives in folklore, music, and humor exchanged across the globe today. A New Beginning for Old Odessa The ascension to power of Mikhail Gorbachev and his inauguration of Glasnost...

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