Renegades, traitors, murderers in white coats: the image of the ''Jew'' as the ''Enemy'' in the propaganda of the late Stalinist period

Title:

Renegades, traitors, murderers in white coats: the image of the ''Jew'' as the ''Enemy'' in the propaganda of the late Stalinist period

Creator:

Šimová, Kateřina

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:6ab21aa1-900a-45c2-bcb1-8fa368b8fb5a
uuid:6ab21aa1-900a-45c2-bcb1-8fa368b8fb5a

Subject:

Jewish minority, historiography, Stalinism, and antisemitism

Type:

model:article and TEXT

Format:

bez média and svazek

Description:

When Stalinism was at its peak, between 1948 and 1953, there was a marked escalation in anti-Jewish manifestations by the Soviet regime, which has often been called “state,'' ''offi cial,'' or ''Stalinist'' antisemitism. This article endeavours to provide an account of this by analysing the image of the ''Jew'' in the propaganda of the time. The basis for the analysis is the concept of the ''image of the enemy'' as a basic fi gure of the totalitarian ideological canon. The article traces the way in which the image was fi lled with meanings linked with the term ''Jew.'' To this end, the author employs the so-called semiotic textual analysis, which enables her to gradually uncover the character of the signs in the propagandistic language. She focuses on two propaganda campaigns that dominated the Soviet public space in this period. One was against so-called ''cosmopolitanism,'' from January to March 1949; the other was the so-called ''Doctor’s Plot'' from January to March 1953. The method in concern enables her to provide evidence of the anti-Jewish orientation of the campaigns, which have so far been deduced chiefl y from quantitative lists of acts of repression against specifi c individuals of Jewish descent. Analysis of the semantic fi eld of the image of the ''Jew'' then reveals the mechanisms that, because of the many layers of the sign character of this image, were used to provide reasons for the home and foreign policies of the Soviet regime, as well as to justify its problems at home and abroad. The last part of the article consists of conclusions that the author fi nds applicable to the Czechoslovak case at that time.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
policy:public

Coverage:

25-56

Source:

Czech journal of contemporary history | 2015 Volume:3 | Number:1

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false