Stanislav Dubinsky

In “Making Music in the Workers State,” Rostislav Dubinsky, a Russian/Jewish violinist, chronicles his experiences with anti-semitism as a musician in the post-World War II Soviet Union. Dubinsky remembers his days as a member of a primarily Jewish string quartet, facing discrimination on multiple occasions, mostly in musical competitions. The string quartet was clearly discredited solely based on their religion, even though they were more musically gifted than other groups they competed against. Oftentimes, Dubinsky and his group did not stand a chance against their less talented Russian competitors, revealing the Soviet Union’s rejection of Jewish culture and religion. In addition to discrimination in competition, Dubinsky also recounts
Allegiance to communism and to improving the Soviet Union’s reputation, in combination with a rise in Russian nationalism, caused Russians to view Jews as expendables because they were not purely Russian. One of Dubinsky’s first mentions of the intense anti-semitism was the death of Solomon Mikhoels, who Dubinsky soon found out was presumably murdered by the state. In addition to being murdered, Jews were arrested for things like ‘“cosmopolitanism and “bourgeois nationalism” (5).’ Dubinsky compares this discrimination against Jews to the mistreatment of Jews before the Holocaust, stating that the Jews were “threatened again by physical destruction. This time not by Germans but by Russians” (28). Despite the fact that anti-semitism was technically against the law in the Soviet Union, Dubinsky and other Jews were put in situations similar to the ones that Jews were placed in leading up to the Holocaust, although for different reasons. Russians were so preoccupied with creating the best reputation for their country that they completely ignored the talent and skills that could lend them the name recognition they desired. Jews were merely seen as a stain upon Russia’s existence, and were treated as though they ruined