A Black view of the Soviet Union
Recently the world has been gripped by the ongoing developments in Eastern Europe between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. At this point it is inescapable to avoid the conflict despite whatever media you may be consuming. There has been a return to Russia as the hyper-visible “bad guy” , a hyper-visibility that has been unparalleled since the days of the Soviet Union (1922-1991). Many academics, media pundits, and cultural figures have attempted to trace this conflict to its origins within the political configuration of the Soviet Union. As a result, the Soviet Union has been on my mind.
I am not a stranger to Soviet history as my own discipline as a Cubanologist demands that I be familiar with the political character and history of the Soviet Union in order to make any meaningful analysis on Cuban geopolitics and society. I am familiar with the large numbers of Black people, both from continental Africa and the diaspora, that had traveled to the Soviet Union for academic and technical education. The Soviet Union was also a large supported of Africa’s decolonization movements, and as a result was a cultural beacon for much of the non-white world to look to in regards to cultural and economic cooperation. As a result I wanted to sample the many interviews within the HistoryMakers digital archive to try and get a sense of what a Black experience with the Soviet Union, and Russian culture in general, looked like from the mouthes of people who had actually been there.
I started my search with inputting “Soviet Union” into the archive and I was met with 238 results. I started with an interview with David Levering Lewis, prominent and professor and biographer. Within his interview he expressed being impressed with his treatment as a Black men within the Soviet Union despite his criticism of the system, stating “I got ill, for example. It was indigestion, but they were afraid it might be more serious. And I, I'm taken by limousine to a special hospital that has all the latest Japanese equipment, and the doctors were fluent in English and all that, so. I thought it was the most immoral system I had ever seen…”
I input the search term “Ukraine” into the archive and was met with more interview, this time smaller, around 28 results. However, these results were still from Soviet times. I came across an interview with famous dancer and artistic director Sylvia Waters and her travels in the former Soviet Union. This was a more recent interview from 2016, two years after the onset of the contemporary Ukraine conflict. MS. Waters is sure to bring this contemporary conflict to the forefront of the interview stating “And the first places we performed were in the Ukraine, like Donetsk [Ukraine] and Luhansk [Ukraine], so when I read about these places in the news today, I said, "Oh, it doesn't exist anymore? [as part of Ukraine]". Ms. Waters also describes how well she was received by the Soviet public stating “we did have a party with them and they, you know, were very sociable and fun and then Moscow [Russia], mind you the audiences were like unbelievable--I mean, our bows, our curtain calls were very, very long.” Russian people are very big fans of theatre, and that was defiantly reflected in their reception.
It is clear that during the years of the Soviet Union Black Americans tend to have favorable reflections and experiences about their time in the former country. However, since the change of regime in eastern Europe the sociopolitical character in the region has changed for the worse. On the news Black students attempting to leave conflict zones are being barred from fleeing by the Ukrainian military and paramilitary organizations, signaling a shift in reception being Black in Eastern Europe means. I would be interested in future interviews of Black Americans who can talk about their travels in the region contemporarily and comparing the two.
