Paul Robeson Defended Jewish Anti-Fascists From Stalinism
In 1949, Paul Robeson performed the “Song of the Jewish Partisans” in Moscow, in the Yiddish original. At a time of rising Stalinist antisemitism, Robeson’s act of solidarity made clear his stand against any form of racism.
Paul Robeson listens to a speech during the Peace Partisans World Congress in Moscow on April 20, 1949. (AFP via Getty Images)
In 1949, the African American singer Paul Robeson, known for his anti-racist stand, performed the “Song of the Jewish Partisans” (“Zog nit keyn mol”) in its original version, in Yiddish, at a concert in Moscow. It was an expression of support for his friends in the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, at the time being repressed in the antisemitic Stalinist “campaign against cosmopolitanism.”
Fifty years after the singer’s death, the artist and activist Alexey Markin revisited this story in an exhibition in Hamburg called Entangled Voices. He also invited the Russian protest ensemble Arkadiy Kots to participate, which recorded a new version of the “Song of the Jewish Partisans” in seven languages, including Arabic and Ukrainian. In this conversation between those involved, the participants discussed the historical importance of the project and its meaning for today.
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Paul Robeson is one of the most legendary figures of the black civil rights movement in the Soviet context, alongside W. E. B. Du Bois and Angela Davis. In the USSR, he was an extremely popular singer, known and loved by generations. Robeson first came to the Soviet Union in 1934 at the invitation of Sergei Eisenstein, and after that he visited the country six more times; his last visit took place in 1961, when he came for medical treatment — precisely during the period of Yuri Gagarin’s flight into space.