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Kvetching and carousing under Communism: old Odessa as the Soviet Union’s Jewish city of sin

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 39; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13501670903298237

1743-971X

Jarrod Tanny,

Soviet and Russian History

Abstract Odessa has often been branded a "Jewish city." Much like their counterparts in New York and Warsaw, Odessa's Jews have historically played a fundamental role in the city's demographic makeup, economic life and culture. But Odessa is unique among Jewish cities because it has been mythologised as a city of sin, a frontier seaport boomtown whose commercial prosperity and balmy climate attracted legions of adventurers, gangsters and swindlers seeking easy wealth and earthly pleasures. Old Odessa was the Russian Jew's golden calf – gilded, wicked and ostentatious in its intemperance. Odessa's carnivalesque environment was fertile ground for the blending of different cultures, and the Jews spearheaded this process, adopting a Yiddish‐inflected Russian as their language for celebrating their profligate city. By the 1917 Revolution the foundations had been laid for the emergence of Isaac Babel, Leonid Utesov, Mikhail Zhvanetskii and the many other Jews who subsequently left Odessa for Moscow and the Soviet interior. They would go on to disseminate the Odessa myth using literature, comedy and music, and their immense popularity ensured that Odessa was indelibly marked as a Jewish city of sin, inhabited by comical rogues whose colourful escapades were rooted in an idiom of Jewishness. Keywords: OdessaJewishgangstersjazzBabelUtesovBlack SeaYiddishcriminalsmythSoviet UnionRussia Acknowledgements I would like to thank Sam Johnson, Managing Editor of East European Jewish Affairs, as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. I would also like to thank Allison Rosen, Larry Tanny, Yuri Slezkine, David Shneer, Olga Gershenson and Nicole Eaton, who each read various incarnations of this essay. Notes 1. Averchenko, "Odessa," 323–4. 2. Anthropologists and folklorists have often sought to distinguish the "myth" from the "legend" and from the "folktale." Many scholars have argued that myths deal with gods, monsters and supernatural events, often before the beginning of time. Legends and folktales, conversely, take place within time and usually involve human beings. See, for instance, the essays by William Bascom and J.W. Rogerson, as well as Alan Dundes's introduction, in Dundes, Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth; and Stith Thompson, "Myth and Folktales," in Myth: A Symposium, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok. Other scholars, however, suggest that such distinctions do not always work and advocate a more expansive definition of myth. Robert Segal points out that every academic discipline holds multiple theories of myth and mythology. In Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Segal provides a historical overview of the different ways in which myth has been approached, relating it to science, philosophy, religion, psychology and other fields. See also Sienkewicz, Theories of Myth; and Von Hendy, The Modern Construction of Myth. Moreover, many scholars have demonstrated how the themes of traditional myths rooted in the supernatural have been transfigured to fit a secular and scientific epoch. See, for instance, Eliade, Myth and Reality, 183–4. In "The Myth of Washington," in Dundes, Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth, an essay by Dorothea Wender demonstrates how George Washington, a "real man" has been transformed by American cultural tradition into a mythical being, into what she calls a "faded god," and the many legends surrounding him are replete with pagan symbols and motifs. Simcha Weinstein similarly argues that traditional Jewish folklore fundamentally influenced the creation of twentieth‐century comic book superheroes, such as Superman, Batman and the Incredible Hulk. See Weinstein, Up, Up, and Oy Vey. On the nation and its fundamental connection to myth construction, see Strath, "Introduction," 20. The distinction between "myth," "legend" and "folktale" is not always obvious, and, accordingly, I use the terms interchangeably in this essay. 3. Strath, "Introduction," 37. 4. It would be both presumptuous and naive of me to suggest that my own analysis is somehow objective and located outside the realm of the Odessa myth. My imagination was initially piqued through Isaac Babel's exotic Jewish gangsters and Sholem Aleichem's fantasies of Eldorado; I spent hours wandering the streets of Odessa, wondering where old Odessa was and whether it had ever existed at all. I embraced every sign and every clue that spoke of old Odessa and probably rejected many of the city's aspects that did not fit my vision. Nevertheless, I have tried to provide a sober assessment of how such a myth – certainly unique in imperial Russia and the USSR, and perhaps unique in the world – could and did develop. And I hope I have provided adequate context for each era to help explain why mythmakers may have constructed their old Odessa in their particular fashion, using specific imagery, language and tone. 5. On the history of Odessa's Jews before the Revolution, see Kotler, Ocherki; Polishchuk, Evrei Odessy; Zipperstein, The Jews of Odessa. For a general history of Odessa, see Herlihy, Odessa; and Atlas, Staraia Odessa. See also Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chaps 2–3. Although the census of 1897 did not include questions about "nationality" or "ethnicity," the demographic makeup of Odessa can be discerned with relative accuracy by looking at the data relating to mother tongue. While Russian speakers made up 50% of the city's inhabitants, 33% declared Yiddish to be their mother tongue. Other ethno‐linguistic communities included Ukrainians (6%), Polish (5%), German (2–3%), and Greek (1–2%). See Herlihy, Odessa, 242. 6. On Odessa's Jewish criminals during the pre‐revolutionary era, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 3; Sylvester, Tales of Old Odessa, chaps 1–2; and Gerasimov, "'My ubivaem tol'ko svoikh'." 7. Although the 1920s are not documented as well as the tsarist period, archival evidence suggests that the patterns of Jewish criminality of the pre‐revolutionary era largely continued during the early years of the NEP, despite the Bolsheviks' attempt to decimate the city's underworld. See Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 4. 8. See ibid., chap. 3. 9. During the revolutionary era and Civil War (1917–21), power changed hands eight times in Odessa. See Taubenshlak and Iavorska, Gde obryvaetsia Rossiia, 21. 10. Babel, "How Things Were Done in Odessa," 151. 11. Babel, "The King," 134. 12. Ibid., 137. 13. On Mishka Iaponchik's life and the many different portrayals of him, see Shkliaev, "Mishka Iaponchik"; Savchenko, "Mishka Iaponchik – 'korol" odesskikh banditov"; Kravets, Kto takoi Mishka Iaponchik; and Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chaps 3 and 5. 14. Jabotinsky, Povest' moikh dnei, 43. 15. Ibid. 16. Benia Krik, dir. Vladimir Vil'ner, 1926; Babel, "Benia Krik," 930. 17. Babel, "Liubka the Cossack," 156. 18. Ibid. The Baal Shem‐Tov was the founder of the Hasidic movement in the eighteenth century. See Rosman, Founder of Hasidism. In his cycle of stories Red Cavalry, Babel depicts the victimisation and suffering of Hasidic Jews during the Civil War. See Babel, "Gedali" and "The Rabbi." 19. Babel, "How Things were Done in Odessa," 151. 20. On Babel's Yiddish inflections, see Cukierman, "The Odessa School of Writers"; Sicher, Style and Structure, chap. 6; and idem, Jews in Russian Literature, chap. 3. 21. Babel, "Korol'," 123. 22. At the very beginning of "Korol'," a messenger says to Benia, "Ia imeiu vam skazat' paru slov" (I have a few words to tell you), rather than the correct "Ia dolzhen vam skazat' paru slov." Using the verb imet' in this context is probably a direct borrowing from Yiddish or Ukrainian. See Babel, "Korol'," 120. 23. Babel, "How Things Were Done in Odessa," 147. 24. Babel, "The Father," 164. 25. Babel, "The King," 134. 26. Babel, "How Things Were Done in Odessa," 151. 27. Ibid., 146. See, for instance, p. 150 for an example of Benia's Yiddish‐inflected speech. 28. Ibid, 151. The Yiddish phrase is biz hundert un tsvantsik. According to Michael Wex, 120 is the ideal lifespan for a Jew because Moses allegedly lived to that age. Wex, Born to Kvetch, 109. 29. Perhaps the most memorable (and colourful) kvetcher in Sholem Aleichem's stories is Menakhem‐Mendl's wife, Sheyne‐Sheyndl, who incessantly tries to shame her gallivanting husband into returning home, graphically describing how she languishes in Kasrilevke, "lying on her deathbed" with their kids "who have come down with every illness there is – their teeth, their throats, their stomachs, the whooping cough, diphtheria, all kinds of horrors I could wish on more deserving people." Sholem Aleichem, The Letters of Menakhem‐Mendl, 40. 30. Babel, "How Things Were Done in Odessa," 149. 31. The most famous story set in Odessa about a Jewish musician who plays in a seedy tavern is Aleksandr Kuprin's "Gambrinus." See Kuprin "Gambrinus." The Russian text can be found in Kuprin, Sobranie sochinenii v deviati tomakh, vol. 4. "Gambrinus" was written in 1906. In many stories about Odessa, there is often a fine line between musician and gangster, the latter habitually entertaining others with his singing and stage performances. In Lev Slavin's play Interventsiia, Filipp the bandit takes the stage in a tavern to sing criminal folksongs, after complaining that the resident musicians sing as badly as the choir in the synagogue. Slavin, Interventsiia, 92–3. 32. Zborowski and Herzog, Life Is with People, 270. 33. Ibid., 284. 34. The only occasion in traditional Jewish culture when drunkenness is acceptable (and even encouraged) is Purim. 35. Semen Iushkevich wrote and published Leon Drei in three instalments: in 1908, 1913 and then as a complete novel in 1922. For an analysis of Leon Drei and his place in the myth of old Odessa, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 3; and Rischin, "Semen Iushkevich." 36. "Svad'ba Shneersona" continues to be extremely popular in Odessa today, though few outside the city are familiar with Miron Iampol'skii. Konstantin Paustovskii mentions Iampol'skii and "Svad'ba Shneersona" in volume 4 of his memoirs. See Paustovskii, The Story of a Life, 89–91. Arkadii Severnyi performed this song in the 1970s, recording it at least once, in Leningrad in 1974. It can be found on Severnyi, MP3: Zvezdanaia seriia. See Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 5. 37. Iampol'skii, "Svad'ba Shneersona," in Arkanov, Odesskii iumor, 88. 38. Ibid., 89. 39. Ibid., 88–9. 40. Babel, "The King," 136. 41. Benia Krik, see note 16. 42. The Twelve Chairs (Dvenadzat' stul'ev) was originally published in 1928; The Golden Calf (Zolotoi telenok) was originally published in 1931. The surname Bender is generally Ashkenazic‐Jewish and, given that Jewish surnames often derive from place names, it may be derived from Benderi, a town in Bessarabia. Bessarabia is a region historically linked with Odessa. They were both part of New Russia (Novorossia) during the imperial era, and, despite Bessarabia's acquisition by Romania at the end of World War I, the border remained porous, smugglers and refugees posing a problem for the Soviet government. Moreover, Bender's repeated claim to being "the son of a Turkish citizen" may not have been pure gibberish. Bessarabia, like the Odessa region, had been under the control of the Ottoman Empire until the turn of the nineteenth century, and smuggling rings connected Constantinople to New Russia and Romania via the Black Sea. Turkey is also connected linguistically to Jewish culture through a popular Yiddish expression, opton oif terkish, which literally means "to deceive someone in the Turkish manner." According to Charles Sabatos, a plague had originated near Benderi in the 1780s, and subsequently spread to Moscow, which was known as the "Bender pox." Rachel Rubin suggests that Il'f and Petrov sought to connect Bender to Shmerl Turetskii Baraban (Shmerl the Turk), a Jewish gangster in Veniamin Kaverin's novel Konets khazy. The Soviet critics M. Odesskii and D. Fel'dman write that many Jewish merchants in southern Russia took Turkish citizenship to avoid tsarist legal discrimination against the Jews. It is also worth noting that Odessa's first rabbi, appointed in 1809, came from Benderi. All these possible connections between Ostap Bender and Turkey are purely speculative. Nevertheless, they collectively suggest that giving a conman named Bender a Turkish pedigree is an oblique reference to his Jewishness and his connection with Odessa. On Odessa's first rabbi, see Kotler, Ocherki, 12. On the history of Bessarabia under Russian rule, see Jewsbury, The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia. On opton oif terkish, see Guri, Vos darft ir mer? I would like to thank the late Professor Eli Katz for drawing my attention to this expression. On the "Bender pox" see Sabatos, "Crossing the 'Exaggerated boundaries' of Black Sea Culture," 93. On Kaverin's Shmerl Turetskii Baraban, see Rubin, Jewish Gangsters, 47. Odesskii and Fel'dman are cited in Fitzpatrick, "The World of Ostap Bender," 546, fn. 52. 43. Sheila Fitzpatrick insists that Ostap‐Bender‐like conmen and impostors were rampant in the 1920s and 1930s, known as obmanshchiki and Moshenniki. The escapades of such swindlers were reported regularly in newspapers, especially Izvestiia, in the 1930s, journalists even expressing delight at their elaborate schemes. See Fitzpatrick, Tear off the Masks, chap. 13. 44. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 44. 45. Il'f and Petrov, The Little Golden Calf, 122; idem, Zolotoi telenok, 93; idem, The Twelve Chairs, 57. Odessans today frequently mention Bender's comment about contraband with pride, and it is not uncommon for tour guides to quote it when passing by Little Arnaut (Malaia arnautskaia) Street. 46. Il'f and Petrov, Zolotoi telenok, 93. Khispesnichestvo was a common crime in Odessa in the early twentieth century. For examples, see Odesskaia pochta, 1 October 1911, 3; 4 March 1912, 5. For a discussion of khipes and the Jewish influence on thieves' cant, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 3. 47. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 135, 45; idem, Dvenadtsat' Stul'ev, 163, 80. 48. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 113. 49. Ibid., 113–14. 50. Ibid., 171. 51. Il'f and Petrov, The Little Golden Calf, 248; idem, Zolotoi telenok, 179. 52. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 51; idem, Dvenadtsat' Stul'ev, 84. 53. William Novak and Moshe Waldocks define the schnorrer as "a Jewish beggar with chutzpah [audacity]. He does not actually solicit help; he demands it, and considers it his right." See Novak and Waldocks, The Big Book of Jewish Humor, 178. The schnorrer was made famous in literature in a novel by Israel Zangwill, originally published in 1894: The King of the Schnorrers. 54. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 284. 55. Ibid., 350. 56. Il'f and Petrov, The Little Golden Calf, 25. 57. Ibid., 23. 58. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 52. 59. Ibid., 47. 60. Ibid., 48. 61. Siniavskii, Soviet Civilization, 177. 62. Babel, "The Father," 163. 63. Il'f and Petrov, The Little Golden Calf, 26. 64. Il'f and Petrov, The Twelve Chairs, 343. 65. On the relationship between imagined chosenness and abandonment and its place in Jewish humour, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 1. 66. On the anti‐Cosmopolitan campaign and the measures taken against Soviet Jewry, see Kostyrchenko, Out of the Red Shadows; and Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 275–329. 67. Fitzpatrick, Tear off the Masks, chap. 14. 68. Ibid. 69. On the revival of Yiddish culture during the post‐Stalin era, see Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews, 259–85; and Shmeruk, "Twenty‐Five Years of Sovetish Heymland." 70. On Jewish life in the USSR during the post‐war era in general, see Slezkine, The Jewish Century, chap. 4; Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917, vol. 2; and Pinkus, The Jews of the Soviet Union, chap. 4. 71. Nina Tumarkin contends that, "In Khrushchev's cosmology, to admit the reality of the Holocaust – the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people – meant to deprive the larger Soviet polity of its status as supervictim, par excellence, which was touted as a major source of legitimacy." Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead, 121. 72. Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 338. 73. Friedberg, The Jew in Post‐Stalin Soviet Literature, 46. 74. The Soviet government's policies toward the Jews did not remain completely static over the course of the three decades between Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" and the beginnings of glasnost. A multitude of factors influenced the course of events, including the Cold War, elevated Jewish national consciousness (which swelled and waned at particular moments), the Arab–Israeli conflict, the rise of the Jewish émigré movement, the mobilisation of international Jewry in support of prospective émigrés, as well as domestic political concerns that were not directly related to the Jews. Soviet Jews in contact with relatives abroad remained perpetually under suspicion and the government regarded anyone who wished to emigrate as a traitor. The 1967 Arab–Israeli War significantly increased the Soviet government's anti‐Zionist posture, branding Israel as a state with imperialistic ambitions. But despite the impact of such factors on Jewish life in the USSR the central thrust of Soviet policy as it pertained to Jewish culture remained the same, and, accordingly, these three decades may be treated as one continuous period. 75. Stolovich, Evrei shutiat, 41–2. "Rabinovich" was the name usually used to denote a Jew in Soviet anecdotes, much as "Ivan Ivanovich" was a generic name used to designate an ethnic Russian. 76. Cited in Dreitser, Taking Penguins to the Movies, 130. Alice Nakhimovsky maintains that the indelibility of one's Jewishness was a cardinal element of Soviet Jewish humour. In that sense, one could also argue that Odessa was indelibly a Jewish city. See Nakhimovsky, "Mikhail Zhvanetskii." 77. On the development of Jewish humour, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 1. 78. See, for instance, Odessa: Ocherk istorii goroda‐geroia; and Zagoruiko, Po stranitsam. Most history books produced during this era focused on the "heroic" moments in the city's history – the Revolution and World War Two. 79. Zagoruiko, Po stranitsam, vol. 2, 4, 35. While it is true that the Jews and the Greeks made up a significant portion of Odessa's bourgeoisie, dominating the international grain trade, there was a substantial Jewish proletariat as well. See Weinberg, The Revolution of 1905. 80. Zagoruiko, Po stranitsam, vol. 2, 43–4; and Odessa: Ocherk istorii goroda‐geroia, 183. 81. Zagoruiko, Po stranitsam, vol. 2, 54. On Sashka the fiddler and Gambrinus, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 3. 82. Kotov, Anekdoty ot odessitov, 230. Ironically, this joke imputes a greater share of the population to the Jews than they ever actually had, as it implies 75% of the population is Jewish. 83. For an analysis of Jewish stereotypes and their use by Jewish humorists see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 1. 84. Arkanov, Odesskii iumor, 444. 85. Kotov, Anekdoty ot odessitov, 144. 86. Stolovich, Evrei shutiat, 145. 87. Zhvanetskii, "Goroda," 131–2. "May we all be healthy" (chtob my byli vse zdorovy) is structurally a Yiddish expression. Yiddish speakers regularly intersperse their speech with phrases that begin with "may you …" and they can either be blessings or curses. 88. Ibid., 226–7. 89. Ibid., 224. 90. Buba Kastorskii, played by Boris Sichkin, appears in Neulovimye mstiteli (The Elusive Avengers) and Novye prikliucheniia neulovimykh (The New Adventures of the Elusives). Both movies were directed by Edmond Keosaian; they were produced in 1966 and 1968, respectively. The movies were based in part on a story from the 1920s called Krasnye d'iavol'iata, written by Pavel Bliakhin. Interestingly, Kastorskii is not a character in the original story. 91. Novye prikliucheniia neulovimykh, dir. Edmond Keosaian, 1968. 92. Sheinin, "Dinars with Holes," 71–2. 93. Ibid., 73. 94. Ibid., 69. 95. Utesov, S pesnei po zhizni, 84. 96. On cursing in Yiddish see Wex, Born to Kvetch, chap. 6; Singer, May You; and Kumove, Words Like Arrows. 97. As already mentioned, "may you" in Yiddishised Russian (and Yiddishised English for that matter) is used as a starting point for blessings as well as curses. Mikhail Zhvanetskii's sketches are filled with phrases beginning with chtob, thus alerting the reader that the speaker is either Jewish or an Odessan who has absorbed the prevalent speech patterns of the city's Jews. See, for instance, Zhvanetskii, "Svad'ba na sto sem'desiat chelovek," a piece from the 1970s. 98. Dreitser, Forbidden Laughter, 74–5. 99. Paustovskii, Vremia bol'shikh ozhidanii, 136. My translation is based on, with some modifications, Paustovskii, The Story of a Life, 127. 100. On diabetes, as a "Jewish" illness, see Efron, Medicine and the German Jews, chap. 4. 101. This joke has circulated in many variations and it dates at least from the early twentieth century. A version from 1916 can be found in Moshkovskii, Evreiskie anekdoty, 13. 102. Plotkin, Vstrechnye ogni, 12–13. 103. Zhvanetskii, "Svad'ba." 104. Novye prikliucheniia neulovymikh. 105. The distinction between the inter‐war and the post‐Stalin odessit in this regard is not entirely black and white. Ostap Bender, despite his vigour, regularly complains about his health, as do many of Babel's characters. But in images of the odessit of the 1960s and 1970s there is certainly more of an emphasis on health‐related problems, and this often serves as an effective marker of Jewishness. 106. The Jewish big nose stereotype is, of course, widely known. Red hair is a less well‐known stereotype, but it is one that has been around for a long time, originally associated with depictions of Judas tracing back at least to the thirteenth century. See Felsenstein, Anti‐Semitic Stereotypes, 31; and Rosenberg, From Shylock to Svengali, 22. 107. The word "afflictions" in Yiddish, , is normally pronounced "TSO‐res." It is of Hebraic origin and in modern Hebrew it is pronounced "tsa‐ROT." The expression is commonly used in the English spoken by North Americans of Jewish descent. Likhtenshtullershpillershtil' is a name that is as improbable as Tsires. In Yiddish (and, for that matter, German) it literally means "Light‐chair‐player‐quiet," but its Yiddish flavour is rooted in Zhvanetskii's alliterative use of "sh." 108. Even if there may be a rational basis for Ostap Bender's claim to be the son of a Turkish citizen, it is highly unlikely that his lineage stems from the janissaries, the Ottoman Sultan's elite corps of officials. 109. Dvenadtsat' stul'ev (The Twelve Chairs), dir. Mark Zakharov, 1977. Working as a cart driver was a common Jewish profession in tsarist Russia. It was also considered to be stereotypically Jewish because Sholem Aleichem's character Tevye the Dairyman worked as one for a living. It was also the profession of Mendl Krik, Benia Krik's violent and regularly inebriated father. 110. Although the narrator mentions that he does not know where he was born, he insists that his escapades are well known in Odessa. Lyrics to this song can be found in Dzhekobson and Dzhekobson, Pesennyi fol'klor GULAGa, 451–2. 111. Svad'ba v Malinovke (A Wedding in Malinovka), dir. Andrei Tutyshkin, 1967. 112. Leonid Utesov published four memoirs: Zapiski aktera (first published in 1939); S pesnei po zhizni (first published in 1961); "Moia Odessa" (first published in the journal Moskva in 1964); and Spasibo, serdtse! (first published in 1976). "Moia Odessa" is a short essay, much of which was subsequently included in Spasibo, serdtse! 113. Utesov, Spasibo, serdtse!, 13. 114. Sholem Aleichem, Menakhem‐Mendl, 46. 115. Utesov, Spasibo, serdtse!, 68–9. 116. Utesov recounts this story with only slight variation in two of his memoirs: S pesnei po zhizni, 76, and Spasibo, serdtse!, 110–11. 117. The relationship between Odessa, Jewish musicians and Soviet jazz is discussed in Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chaps 3–4. 118. Rogovoy, The Essential Klezmer, 28–9. 119. There are many versions of this story. One can be found in Simon, The Wise Men of Helm. 120. Utesov, Spasibo, serdtse!, 173. In using this story, Utesov is probably trying to suggest that Babel never really left Odessa spiritually. Interestingly, Utesov had already included a variation of this story in his earlier memoirs, S pesnei po zhizni, except in that instance he uses it as an analogy for his own life. Old Odessa was an intrinsic part of Utesov's identity and indeed, as he seeks to demonstrate with his memoirs, an indelible part. See Utesov, S pesnei po zhizni, 150. 121. Utesov regularly performed and recorded criminal folksongs in the 1920s and 1930s, including "S odesskogo kichmana" (From the Odessa jail), "Bubliki" (Bagels) and "Gop so smykom." Although legend has it that Stalin enjoyed Utesov's bawdy, klezmer‐influenced songs, many puritanical proponents of Soviet culture severely criticised Utesov for playing them, and by the mid‐1930s he'd stopped recording them. Utesov's versions of these popular songs are collected on the compact disc, Gop so smykom, which contains his recordings from 1929 to 1933. It has been reissued on Utesov, Sobranie luchshikh zapisei. For an analysis of Utesov's music, see Tanny, "City of Rogues and Schnorrers," chap. 4. 122. Sha! is colloquial Yiddish for "Quiet!" and it is also considered to be Russian thieves' cant. It is usually included in Russian criminal slang dictionaries. 123. Chernenko, Krasnaia zvezda, 222.