Jack: Does anybody know what really happened in the background to this song? Rubin places it in the 1930s. The Jewish settlers of the 1920s were Stalin's stooges in a programme of genocide. No way in hell could they not have known what they were doing. One of the songs I was remarking on as 'Stalinist folk' in another thread. And yeah, pretty hard to believe farmer or musician didn't know their own party lines. I have a couple of notes giving it as Alexander Veprik (1899-1958) 'Pale of Settlement' relocation propaganda from the late 1920s. Also, the Nazis did indeed have a Jewish slave labor camp in Djankoye during their occupation. The original (?) title is just the place name, no “Hey.” It was supposedly reissued on one of those 1939 New York Fair – U.S.S.R. shellac singles later bootlegged by Stinson Trading Co. at the start of WWII. Have not managed to track down a copy of either but there are two 1938 Russian releases by “Sara Fibikh” listed on Discogs. The record company, song title, credits &c are all in Cyrillic so forget me posting it here. The American title is also the last track on Ruth Rubin's Jewish Folk Songs, Asch Recordings, A607/A608, also distributed by Stinson Trading Co.
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