1 The Latin aphorism Tempora mulanturet nos mutamurin Mis (The times change, and we change with them) is a variant of a line of poetry attributed to the ninth-century Frankish king and Holy Roman Emperor. See, for example, Babichev, Nikolai T. and Borovskii, Iakov M., Slovar’ latinskikh krylatykh slov (Moscow, 1982), 792.Google Scholar

2 Herlihy, Patricia, personal communication. Her book Odessa: A History, 1794–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1986)Google Scholar was published in Ukrainian as Odesa: Istoriia mista, 1794–1914 (Kiev, 1999).

3 Friedberg, Maurice, How Things WereDone in Odessa: Cultural and Intellectual Pursuits in a Soviet City (Boulder, 1991).Google Scholar An earlier version of my essay was presented at a ceremony honoring Friedberg on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. I am grateful to the editor of Slavic Review, Diane Koenker, and to two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

4 Kozak, Anatolii F., Odessa zdes’ bol’she ne zhivet (Samara, 1997).Google Scholar

5 The song is recorded on an unlabeled cassette of unclear provenance that is in my possession.

6 There were also smaller numbers of speakers of Polish, German, Greek, and other languages. Herlihy, Odessa, 242.

7 The URL for the “Odessa Language Dictionary” is http://www.odessit.com/databases/dcread.shtml (last consulted 15 August 2001).

8 Aleksei Stetsiuchenko and Aleksandr Ostashko, Samouchitel’ poluzhivogo odesskogo iazyka (Moscow, 1999). The book is based on a series of articles in the Moscow monthly, Novoe vremia, which in turn derive in part from Stetsiuchenko’s undergraduate thesis. (See the book notice in the Odessa weekly Porto-Franco, posted at http://www.paco.net/odessa/media/porto-fr/1999/18/ VASIL-9.HTM; last consulted 15 August 2001).

9 Doroshevich, Vlas, Odessa, odessity i odessitki: Ocherki, nabroski, eskizy (Moscow, 1895), 53.Google Scholar Doroshevich also described the language of Odessa as “a sausage stuffed with languages from the whole world, prepared a la grecque but with a Polish sauce” (61).

10 Stetsiuchenko, and Ostashko, , Samouchitel’, 48.Google Scholar

11 For the sake of accuracy it should be pointed out that the “Ukrainian” features mentioned here are also found in south Russian dialects and among speakers of nonliterary Russian in other cities. See, for example, Skvortsov, Lev I., Pravil’no li my govorim porusski? (Moscow, 1980), 118, 197.Google Scholar

12 Makarov’s text can be found, for example, in Morderer, Valentina and Petrovskii, Miron, comps., Russkii romans na rubezhe vekov (Kiev, 1997), 96.Google Scholar Another transformation of the title, “Vy prosite pesen, ikh est’ u menia,” was used by Lev Slavin in his 1932 play Interventsiia (Intervention). When Slavin was working on the play, which deals with the French occupation of Odessa during the Russian civil war, he asked his friend Vladimir Galitskii to send him examples of Odessa folklore from that period. Galitskii, V A., Odesskie byli (St. Petersburg, 1994), 74–75.Google Scholar

13 Savchenko, Boris, Estrada retro (Moscow, 1996), 146.Google Scholar

14 Cited in Elistratov, Vladimir S., Argo i kul’tura (Moscow, 1995), 134.Google Scholar

15 Stetsiuchenko and Ostashko, Samouchitel’, 49, gloss mansy as manery, postupki (manners, actions) and cite the opinion that it is a shortening of the phrase romansy pet’ (literally, “to sing parlor songs“), meaning “to fool.“

16 Matisoff, James A., Blessings, Curses, Hopes, and Fears: Psycho-Ostensive Expressions in Yiddish (Philadelphia, 1979).Google Scholar

17 The story about the sign has been called a joke made up by the writer Iurii Olesha. Koralli, Vladimir, Serdtse, otdannoe estrade: Zapiski kupletista iz Odessy (Moscow, 1988), 183.Google Scholar

18 Namely, “u kazhdogo pirika—svoia lirika” (every pussy has its own lyric quality). This example, like the others cited above, is taken from the “Odessa Language Dictionary“ (http://www.odessit.com/databases/dcread.shtml).

19 On Odessa Russian, see also Cukierman, Walenty, “The Odessan Myth and Idiom in Some Early Works of Odessa Writers,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 14 (1980): 36–51.Google Scholar

20 Utesov, Leonid, Spasibo serdtse (Moscow, 1976), 25–26.Google Scholar

21 Groyser verterbukh fun deryidisher shprakh, vol. 1, ed. Joffe, Judah A. and Mark, Yudel (New York, 1961), 45.Google Scholar

22 Burstein, Peisachke, The “Vilner Komiker” at His Best, Greater Recording Company 100 (Brooklyn, N.Y., 1966).Google Scholar

23 Folksongs in the East European Jewish Tradition from the Repertoire of Mariam Nirenberg, prepared by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, with Slobin, Mark and Gordon Mlotek, Eleanor, Global Village Music 117 (New York, 1986). 24.Google Scholar Rubin, Ruth, Voices of a People: The Story of Yiddish Folksong, 2d ed. (New York, 1973), 325.Google Scholar

25 Steven J. Zipperstein connects the proverb with comments by Moshe Tsvi, the rebe of Savran (a town some 120 miles northwest of Odessa), in reaction to an 1826 proposal to establish a Jewish school in Odessa with instruction in secular subjects: “This is what God showed me: A great fire and a valley of hell will blaze around the periphery of Odessa for seven parsa’ot, and beneath the feet of the wicked it will burn all day, and like Korach and his flock they will be lost.” (A parso, or Persian mile, was approximately 4,500 meters.) Zipperstein, , The Jews of Odessa: A Cultural History, 1794–1881 (Stanford, 1985), 48.Google Scholar

26 Ginzburg, Saul M. and Marek, Pesach S., Evreiskie narodnyepesni v Rossii (St. Petersburg, 1901; reprint, Ramat Gan, 1991), no. 163.Google Scholar

27 Faddei Bulgarin is the source for the characterization of St. Petersburg; the description of Odessa is cited by Savchenko, , Estrada retro, 155.Google Scholar

28 Utesov, , Spasibo serdtse, 47.Google Scholar

29 Ibid., 49. Known professionally as Leonid Osipovich Utesov, he was born Lazar’ Iosifovich Vaisbein. Early in his career he needed to choose a stage name, and his thoughts, he later recounted, revolved around high places. He thought of the name Skalov (from skala, “ cliff“), but diere was already an actor by that name in Odessa. The names Gorskii, Gorev, and Gorin (from gora, “ mountain“) were also taken. He did not like the sound of Kholmskii or Kholmov (from kholm, “ hill“) and finally settled on Utesov (from utes, also “cliff“). Ibid., 58.

30 Ibid., 5.

31 Krapiva, Valentin, Portret v inter’ere Odessy (Odessa, 1999), 126–33.Google Scholar

32 The Best of Aaron Lebedev, Greater Recording Company 182 (Brooklyn, N.Y, 1969).

33 Grabovskii, A. L. and Smirnov, V P., comps., Poi, Odessa! (Odessa, 1992), 11.Google Scholar I am grateful to Michael Jakobson for making this source available to me.

34 This was not only its image among Jews. In 1894, in connection with the hundredth anniversary of the city’s official founding, even the nationalist newspaper Novorossiiskii telegraf, which usually found reasons to attack Odessa, described the city as “the best champion of world progress” (luchshaia pobornitsa mirovogo progressa). Cited in Doroteia Atlas, Staraia Odessa, eedruz’ia i nedrugi (Odessa, 1911), 8.

35 Moykher-Sforim, Mendele, Ale verkfun Mendele Moykher Sforim, vol. 3, Fishke der krumer (Warsaw, 1927), chap. 23.Google Scholar

36 Markevich, Arsenii I., “Odessa v narodnoi poezii,” Trudy VI Arkheologicheskogo s“ezda v Odessel (Odessa, 1888): 6 Google Scholar

37 Zipperstein, Steven J., Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity (Seattle, 1999), 70.Google Scholar

38 Baldaev, Dantsik S., Belko, Vladimir K., and Igor’ Isupov, M., comps., Slovar’ tiuremno-lagerno-blatnogo zhargona (rechevoi i graficheskii portret sovetskoi tiur’my) (Odintsovo, 1992), 47.Google Scholar According to Michael and Lidia Jakobson, “thieves affectionately called their city Odessa-mama even before the 1917 revolution, probably because there were more criminals in Odessa than in other Russian cities, with the exception perhaps of Rostov and Moscow. In Odessa in the last six years of imperial Russia, there were 10,000 registered criminals, while the number of prisoners in the country as a whole, including political prisoners, varied from 120,000 to 185,000.” Dzhekobson, Maikl [Michael Jakobson] and Dzhekobson, Lidiia [Lidia Jakobson], Pesennyifol’klor GULAGa kak istoricheskii istochnik, 1917–1939 (Moscow, 1998), 337.Google Scholar On the Odessa underworld and its reflection in literature, see Briker, Boris, “The Underworld of Benia Krik and I. Babel’s Odessa Stories,” Canadian Slavonic Papers — Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 36 (1994): 115–34.Google Scholar

39 Golovanivskii, Sawa, “Velikii odessit,” in Pirozhkova, Antonina N. and Iurgeneva, Nina N., comps., Vospominaniia o Babele (Moscow, 1989), 209–10.Google Scholar

40 Stanton Smith, Gerald, Songs to Seven Strings: Russian Guitar Poetry and Soviet “Mass Song” (Bloomington, 1984), 70.Google Scholar See also the discussion of the genre in Rothstein, Robert A., “Popular Song in the NEP Era,” in Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Rabinowitch, Alexander, and Stites, Richard, eds., Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture (Bloomington, 1991), 280–84.Google Scholar

41 Note the recent collection, Dobriakov, Aleksei, comp., Ulichnye pesni (Moscow, 1997).Google Scholar There is also a nineteenth-century tradition of prison songs, such as those collected by Wilhelm Harteveld (V N. Gartfel’d), and a twentieth-century tradition of camp songs. On the latter, see Jakobson and Jakobson, Pesennyifol’klor.

42 Slavin, Lev, hbrannoe (Moscow, 1970), 380.Google Scholar

43 Sheleg, Mikhail tells the story about the writing of the song in his book Arkadii Severnyi: Dve grani odnoi zhizni (Moscow, 1997), 71.Google Scholar It is reminiscent of a story the American performer Theodore Bikel told at one of his concerts about his role as a Soviet officer in a Hollywood film set in East Germany, Fraulein. He was prepared to sing a Russian folk song, but the filmmakers were nervous about possible claims for royalties, so they asked composer Dmitry Tiomkin to write “a new Russian folk song.“

44 Teplish, Aleksandr, comp. and ed., Odessa—zhemchuzhina u moria, 2d ed. (Odessa, 1998), 29–30.Google Scholar

45 Bogoslovskii, Nikita, Liubimyi gorod: Sbornik pesen v soprovozhdenii baiana (Moscow, 1963).Google Scholar

46 Starshinov, Nikolai, comp. and ed., Pesni nevoli (Moscow, 1996), 121–22.Google Scholar

47 See Rossi, Jacques, Spravochnik po GULagu (London, 1987), 26–27.Google Scholar

48 See, for example, Jakobson, and jakobson, , Pesennyi fol’klor, 338–39.Google Scholar

49 V. Vasiutyns’kyi, “Molod’ i muzyka (propozytsii),” Muzyka masam, 1923, no. 3–4: 4–5.

50 See the CD by Kozlov, Aleksei, Pionerskie —blatnye 2 (Moscow, 1998).Google ScholarPubMed

51 Jakobson andjakobson, Pesennyi fol’klor, 287, citing Boris Shiriaev, Neugasimaia lampada (New York, 1954), 103. Thejakobsons’ book contains five variants of the song under discussion (284–87). The Heine poem was translated in 1846 by Mikhail Mikhailov and made its appearance in songbooks at the beginning of die twentieth century. Gusev, Viktor E., comp., Pesni russkikh poetov (Leningrad, 1988), 2:40, 444.Google Scholar

52 See, for example, Popova, Tat’iana V., Opesniakh nashikh dnei (Moscow, 1969), 17–18 Google Scholar, and Jakobson and Jakobson, Pesennyifol’klor, 284.

53 Jakobson, and Jakobson, , Pesennyifol’klor, 286.Google Scholar

54 Dushenko, Konstantin V, Slovar’ sovremennykh tsitat (Moscow, 1997), 455.Google Scholar Rossi, Spravochnik, 37, quotes the grammatically singular version as a taunt criminals in the camps addressed to political prisoners who were sent to the camps during the purges of the late 1930s.

55 Utesov refers to the criticism in his memoir, S pesnei po zhizni (Moscow, 1961), 147–48. The story about Stalin’s request can be found in Sheleg, Arkadii Severnyi, 23. Yiddish literature, according to David G. Roskies, also had a “longstanding romance with the Jewish gangster.” There was a “long line ofjewish low-lives, originally called ba ‘alei-guf [singular: ba’alguf], who entered into fiction in response to the ideological demand that Jews stop abdicating the physical realm for the spiritual…. The ba’al guf enjoyed something of a vogue between 1910 and the 1930s, both in fiction and on the stage.” Roskies, Thejewish Search for a Usable Past (Bloomington, 1999), 29 and 164. In this connection, Roskies mentions the Yiddish writers Sholem Asch and Zalman Schneour and the Russian writer Isaak Babel’ and points out that it was Hayyim Nahman Bialik who “launched the ba ‘al-guf’s literary career” with his 1899 Hebrew novel Arye Ba’al-guf. See Roskies,/ewwA Search, and Roskies, , Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern fewish Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), 142.Google Scholar

56 Jakobson, and Jakobson, , Pesennyifol’klor, includes five variants (152–60).Google Scholar

57 Yulya Sings Songs of the Russian Street Urchins, Monitor Records MFS 759 (New York, 1966); Sheleg, , Arkadii Severnyi, 178.Google Scholar

58 Yitskhok Trivaks, “Di yidishe zhargonen (ganovim-, klezmer- un balagolezhargonen),“ in Wanwild, M., ed., Bay undzyidn (Warsaw, 1923), 164.Google Scholar

59 Jakobson, and Jakobson, , Pesennyi fol’khr, 157.Google Scholar

60 Brat’ia Zhemchuzhnye, Iareshilzhenit’sia, RCD 28001 (n.p., 1994); cf. also Grabovskii and Smirnov, comps., Poi, Odessa! 80.

61 Khmel’nitskii, Boris and Iaess, Iurii, comps., Kak na Deribasovskoi (pesni dvorov i ulits) (St. Petersburg, 1996), 198–200.Google Scholar

62 First published in 1911, “El choclo” was said to have “introduced the modern tango to Europe as a ballroom dance.“ Fuld, James J., The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular and Folk, rev. ed. (New York, 1975), 169 Google Scholar, citing Grove’s Dictionary ofMusicand Musicians, 5th ed. (London, 1954), 8:305. In 1952 this song was revived in the United States as “Kiss of Fire” with words and music by Lester Allen and Robert Hill.

63 Uspenskii, Eduard and Filina, Eleonora, comps., V nashu gavan’ zakhodili korabli: Pesni (Moscow, 1995), 53–54.Google Scholar Stetsiuchenko and Ostashko, Samouchitel’, 87, quote this song and gloss shmarovoz as “a person unacceptable in decent society,” citing an explanation of the term as meaning “someone who greases wheels” or “a person dressed in dirty clothes.” This is indeed the meaning one finds for shmaruvaty (to grease), for example, in Borys Hrynchenko’s Slovar’ ukrainskoi movy (Kiev, 1907–09; reprint, Kiev, 1959). In Russian argot, however, the word is connected with shmara (woman; prostitute; lover) and has a range of meanings: “lover; man supported by a woman; ladies’ man; pimp” (see, for example, Baldaev, Belko, Iusopov, comps., Slovar’).

64 Nezhnyi, Igor’, Byloe pered glazami: Teatral’nye vospominaniia (Moscow, 1963), 65 –Google Scholar

66 While on tour in 1924, Khenkin acceded to the request of some of his older fans and performed a few of these stories. To his Soviet audience they sounded anti-Semitic, much to Khenkin’s puzzlement and distress, for Khenkin could not understand how he, a Jew, could be accused of anti-Semitism. Alekseev, Aleksei G., Ser’einoe i smeshnoe, 3d ed. (Moscow, 1984), 173–74, 178.Google Scholar

65 Teplish, comp. and ed., Odessa —zhemchuzhina u moria, 21.

66 Sheleg, , Arkadii Severnyi, 367–68.Google Scholar

67 Grabovskii, and Smirnov, , comps., Poi, Odessa! 22–26.Google Scholar

68 Rothstein, , “Popular Song,” 275–76.Google Scholar

69 Terikov, Georgii, Kuplet na estrade (Moscow, 1987), 97–98.Google Scholar

70 Teplish, , comp. and ed., Odessa —zhemchuzhina u moria, 133–34.Google Scholar

71 Sheleg, , Arkadii Severnyi, 348–49.Google Scholar

72 Utesov, , Spesneipo zhizni, 76–77.Google Scholar

73 See, for example, the recipes section of http://www.odessit.com. Gefilte fish Odessa-style was one of the offerings at a reception for dignitaries attending the Fourth International Congress of Ukrainian Studies in 1999.

74 The song is Modest Tabachnikov’s “Akh, Odessa, zhemchuzhina u moria” (Oh, Odessa, pearl by the sea).