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Old June 5th, 2011 #32
Karl Radl
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Default In Brief: An Early Origin for Dzhugashvili equating ‘Son of a Jew’

In Brief: An Early Origin for Dzhugashvili equating ‘Son of a Jew’


Recently re-reading Jerry Z. Muller’s ‘Capitalism and the Jews’ I was surprised by a reference to an early claim that Dzhugashvili equated ‘Son of a Jew’ in old Georgian. I reproduce the passage in full:

‘Were one to accept solely the definitions of anti-Semites, one might end up counting even those with no historical link to Jewry, such as Joseph Stalin, whose real surname of Dzhugashvili, according to one expatriate Ukrainian anti-Semite, is Georgian for “son of a Jew.”’ (1)

As I have already covered in an earlier article this is unfortunately complete nonsense as the two words for jew in old Georgian are ‘Ebraeli’ and ‘Uriya’ obviously nothing to do with Dzhugashvili the origin of which has remained obscure in spite of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s efforts to pin down a meaning for it. I have already stated that the name to my very limited understanding of old Georgian best translates as ‘son of steel’ not ‘son of a Jew’, which makes sense of his later adoption of ‘Stalin’ (i.e. man of steel). I also pointed out that Maurice Pinay’s assertion that it meant ‘son of Djou’; although far more plausible than ‘son of Jew’, had no evidential backing either. (2)

It is interesting to note this precisely, because I had previously asserted in line with others who had looked into the matter that the origin of claim came from how Dzhugashvili is pronounced in the English language. I am pleased to say that I was incorrect in this assertion and that the claim does have a longer evidential basis than just being a recent innovation; as I had thought, in fact if Muller is right then it places the claim in the Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Semitic Diaspora in the 1920s/1930s, which makes perfect sense if we understand that Russian and Ukrainian claims of this kind about the leaders of the Soviet Union were not uncommon and varied widely in their substance, but not in their aim i.e. to prove that the Russian Empire had been seized by a bunch of marxist jews. (3)

The one problem with Muller here is that he does not cite an actual source for his assertion (in spite of it making sense) or give the name of the Ukrainian who originally made it: so I have taken the liberty of writing to him to ask him from whence he took the information as it is obviously of interest.

If we find an originating source then we can look to see if they had a source for their claims and also see if this isn’t yet another myth purported by anti-jewish White Russians and Ukrainian nationalists that has no foundation. I’d hope that it has some evidential basis, but based on my experience with East European sources of this kind: I very much doubt it.

References


(1) Jerry Muller, 2010, ‘Capitalism and the Jews’, 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, p. 137
(2) http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...in-jewish.html
(3) Michael Kellogg, 2005, ‘The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the making of National Socialism 1917-1945’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, pp. 219-243

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This was originally published at the following address: http://semiticcontroversies.blogspot...ugashvili.html
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