The Deer Hunter: the insignificance of facts
The Deer Hunter - a masterpiece and multiple academy award winner - generally amazing movie. As I was watching it for probably the fifteenth time a couple of days ago I have finally decided to solve the main mystery surrounding this awesome piece of cinema artwork. What are the russians doing in it and is that thing for real?
The first and the final parts of the movie are set in this ethnic "russian village" in Clairton, PA complete with an Orthodox church and something called Lemko Hall. So I was wondering whether such a community actually exists somewhere in the US.
There were three waves of immigration from Russia proper - early 20-th century pre-revolution, post revolution in late 1910-s and 1920-s and then deep in the Soviet times in three or more waves beginning in 1970-s.
First clue came in as early in the movie an ethnic "russian" wedding was singing Katyusha. Given the old looking orthodox church and their traditional slavic outfits these people would have to be the early Russian immigrants, who were staunchly anti-communist, anti-soviet and for the most part antisemitic. So for them to sing Katyusha - a WWII song written by a soviet communist jew would be about as likely as for the irish in NYC to sing "God Save The Queen".
The second clue had to do with the name Lemko Hall. Now, lemko is NOT a russian word and I have never seen an ethnic ghetto establishment, the only one of its kind miles across, not named after the main tourist attraction in the far away motherland or a most frequent word of the ethnic dictionary (think of all the Sichuan Delight, Rasputin, Rosy O'Shannon and Delhi restaurants in NY).
Turns out the whole thing was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio (not the mythical Clairton,PA) which used to have some sort of a loosely defined community of lemkos - who are a cross between ukrainians and slovaks. Lemkos are not russian nor had anything to do with russians or Russia in at least a few hundred years.
So, yes, the bottom line is that that whole "russian" line in the movie is complete horseshit, yet it's a tremendous film.
BTW, turns there's at least one notable ethnic lemko in US culture - Andy Warhol.
The first and the final parts of the movie are set in this ethnic "russian village" in Clairton, PA complete with an Orthodox church and something called Lemko Hall. So I was wondering whether such a community actually exists somewhere in the US.
There were three waves of immigration from Russia proper - early 20-th century pre-revolution, post revolution in late 1910-s and 1920-s and then deep in the Soviet times in three or more waves beginning in 1970-s.
First clue came in as early in the movie an ethnic "russian" wedding was singing Katyusha. Given the old looking orthodox church and their traditional slavic outfits these people would have to be the early Russian immigrants, who were staunchly anti-communist, anti-soviet and for the most part antisemitic. So for them to sing Katyusha - a WWII song written by a soviet communist jew would be about as likely as for the irish in NYC to sing "God Save The Queen".
The second clue had to do with the name Lemko Hall. Now, lemko is NOT a russian word and I have never seen an ethnic ghetto establishment, the only one of its kind miles across, not named after the main tourist attraction in the far away motherland or a most frequent word of the ethnic dictionary (think of all the Sichuan Delight, Rasputin, Rosy O'Shannon and Delhi restaurants in NY).
Turns out the whole thing was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio (not the mythical Clairton,PA) which used to have some sort of a loosely defined community of lemkos - who are a cross between ukrainians and slovaks. Lemkos are not russian nor had anything to do with russians or Russia in at least a few hundred years.
So, yes, the bottom line is that that whole "russian" line in the movie is complete horseshit, yet it's a tremendous film.
BTW, turns there's at least one notable ethnic lemko in US culture - Andy Warhol.