Plot synopsis

The next series is dedicated to 1947 and Solomon Mikhailovich Mikhoels (Yiddish שלמה מיכאָעלס‎ Shloyme Mikhoels; real name Vovsi; 1890-1948) - Soviet Jewish theater actor and director, teacher, public and government figure. Organizer of the Jewish national theater GOSET, head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, member of the Artistic Council of the Committee on Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (since 1939). People's Artist of the USSR (1939), laureate of the Stalin Prize (1946). Killed by MGB officers at the beginning of the anti-Semitic campaign organized several years before Stalin's death.

The film recounts the life and assassination of Solomon Mikhoels, leading actor and director of the Soviet State Jewish Theatre (GOSET) and a key symbol of Soviet Jewish culture. His last production, Freylekhs (“Joy”), built around a Jewish wedding ritual, proclaims “Am Yisrael Chai” — the Jewish people is immortal — and effectively marks the end of GOSET.
During World War II, Mikhoels becomes head of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), created as a propaganda tool to rally Jewish opinion abroad and raise money for the Red Army. In practice, the JAC also gathers evidence of the Holocaust, helps Jewish survivors and even advocates for a Jewish Soviet republic and the publication of the Black Book, which alarms the regime.
At the same time, Stalin develops state antisemitism: internal party documents target Jewish “overrepresentation” in culture and institutions, purges and dismissals spread, and the JAC is denounced for “nationalism” and foreign ties, even as Stalin publicly supports the creation of Israel.
After a 1947 speech in which Mikhoels implicitly links the UN debate on Palestine to the Jewish search for the Promised Land, Stalin orders his elimination. In January 1948, security officers lure Mikhoels to Minsk, crush him with a truck at a dacha and dump his body in the street to simulate a car accident; they are later secretly decorated. The story ends with his friend, tenor Ivan Kozlovsky, visiting the site where the body was found and leaving a silver coin there — a quiet act of remembrance against the official lie.

Commentaries

Сценарии телесериала «Исторические хроники с Николаем Сванидзе», с 1934го по 1953 год. [Scénarios de la série télévisée « Chroniques historiques avec Nikolaï Svanidzé », de 1934 à 1953], Marina ZHUKOVA, Амфора, 2014

- Screenplay

Selected in the following festivals or events :

- Historical Chronicles with Nikolay Svanidze, (kinoglaz.fr), 2026

Photos, videos, texts

Solomon MIKHOELS (Соломон Михайлович МИХОЭЛС) 1890-1948