Kador Ben-Salim (Russian: Кадор Бен-Салим) was a Senegalese-Soviet acrobat, Red Army soldier and most likely the only actor of African descent in Soviet film throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.[1] A veteran of the Russian Civil War, he appeared in at least eight films, including The Return of Nathan Becker, the first ever Yiddish-language sound film.
Kador Ben-Salim | |
|---|---|
 Ben-Salim, at left, in The Return of Nathan Becker (1932) | |
| Born | 1890s? |
| Died | 1940s? |
| Known for | Acting |
Biography
editBen-Salim was an acrobat in a touring Moroccan troupe that arrived in Moscow in 1912. By 1916, he had made his way to Almaty and joined a circus troupe run by Alexander Sosin (the first person to do a front double somersault).[2] Following the Russian Revolution and the start of the civil war, he joined the Red Army and served in one of the international cavalry units under the divisional command of Vasily Chapayev.
Filmography
edit| Year | Title | Role | Director(s) | Notes | Refs. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1923 | Red Devils | Tom Jackson | Ivan Perestiani | [3] | |
| 1926 | Savur-Mohyla | Tom Jackson | Ivan Perestiani | Sequel to Red Devils | [4] |
| 1926 | The Crime of Shirvanskaya | Tom Jackson | Ivan Perestiani | Sequel to Savur-Mohyla | [4] |
| 1926 | The Punishment of Shirvanskaya | Tom Jackson | Ivan Perestiani | Sequel to The Crime of Shirvanskaya | [4] |
| 1926 | Ilan-dili | Tom Jackson | Ivan Perestiani | Sequel to The Punishment of Shirvanskaya | [4] |
| 1927 | Mr Lloyd's Voyage | Footman | Dmitri Bassalygo | ||
| 1931 | Black Skin | Tom | Pavel Kolomoitsev | [5] | |
| 1932 | The Return of Nathan Becker | Jim | Ivan Perestiani | [6] |
References
editNotes
edit- ^ Kiaer 2020, p. 383.
- ^ Zaglada 2010, p. 103.
- ^ Hoberman 1998, p. 281.
- ^ a b c d Bogdanov 2015, p. 105.
- ^ Kiaer 2020, p. 360.
- ^ Roman 2012, p. 195.
Sources
edit- Bogdanov, Konstantin (November 2015). "'Negroes' in the USSR. The Ethnography of an Imaginary Diaspora" (PDF). Forum for Anthropology and Culture. 15. Translated by Cleminson, Ralph: 97–134.
- Hoberman, J. (1998). The Red Atlantis: Communist Culture in the Absence of Communism. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-56639-767-4.
- Kiaer, Christina (2020). "A Comintern Aesthetics of Anti-Racism in Blek end uait". In Glaser, Amelia M.; Lee, Steven S. (eds.). Comintern Aesthetics. University of Toronto Press. p. 360. ISBN 978-1-4875-0465-6.
- Roman, Meredith L. (2012). Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of U.S. Racism, 1928-1937. University of Nebraska Press. JSTOR j.ctt1ddr5sz.11.
- Zaglada, Vladimir (2010). One Coach's Journey from East to West: How the Fall of the Iron Curtain Changed the World of Gymnastics. AuthorHouse. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-4567-0123-9.