aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] Fwd: life and death of an emigre

[Robert DeLossa <radelo@earthlink.net>]

Perhaps some of our cinema-studies members might know? RD


>Status:  U
>Date:         Sun, 8 Jan 2006 01:06:04 -0600
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>From:         Prof Steven P Hill <s-hill4@UIUC.EDU>
>Subject: [SEELANGS] life and death of an emigre
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>Dear colleagues:
>
>At the Washington DC AATSEEL conference, in a couple of 
>media-related panels, I had the opportunity to hear, and meet with, 
>sociologist (emer.)
>John Rim (formerly John D. Rimberg), co-author of an important, 
>path-breaking book about Soviet cinema published during the Cold War 
>a half-
>century ago: "The Soviet Film Industry" (Praeger: NY, 1955).
>
>A little mystery about that book that had always intrigued me, 
>however, remains a mystery.   Prof. Rim-Rimberg does not know the 
>answer either. 
>Maybe someone in a Russian or Ukrainian archive today would be able 
>to solve it ?
>
>Rimberg's co-author of the 1955 "Soviet Film Industry" was a recent 
>emigre from the USSR, writing under  the pseudonym of "Paul V. 
>Babitsky."  He
>told Rimberg that before getting out of the USSR (presumably, c. 
>1943-45) he had been a scenarist at the Ukrainian Film Studio (once 
>known  as
>"VUFKU"). "Babitsky's" contribution to their jointly-written 1955 
>book was much of the inside information, the nitty gritty, 
>supposedly as it had
>been experienced by a working member of the Soviet-Stalinist film 
>industry in the years before WW2.
>
>During the Cold War, "Babitsky" used that pen-name, evidently, in 
>order to protect his surviving relatives, still inside the USSR, 
>against Stalinist
>retribution.  Eventually the mysterious "Babitsky" passed away in 
>New York, sometime  in the 1990s, at a ripe old age.
>
>Now that the Cold War is over,  former Soviet archives have been 
>opened, and emigres are no longer on the blacklist of "unpersons," 
>perhaps
>someone in a Ukrainian or Russian archive or institute would be able 
>to fill in the biographical and pseudonymical (?) blanks in the life 
>of the late
>"Paul V. Babitsky"?
>
>Best New Year's wishes to all,
>Steven P. Hill,
>University of Illinois.
>__ _ __ __ __ _ __ __ __ __ 
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