Rootless cosmopolitan

Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian: безродный космополит, bezrodnyi kosmopolit) was a term used during the anti-cosmopolitan campaign in the Soviet Union after WWII. Cosmopolitans were intellectuals who were accused of expressing pro-Western feelings and lack of patriotism. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" is considered to specifically refer to Jewish intellectuals. It first appeared during the campaign in a Pravda article condemning a group of theatrical critics, but was originally coined by the Russian nineteenth-century literary critic Vissarion Belinsky to describe writers who lacked national character.

Background

In 1943 a new propaganda campaign of Russian patriotism began, with many well-known writers, composers and artists writing articles about patriotism in literature and the arts. At the same time the worship of foreign culture, which was defined as cosmopolitanism, was denounced. The famous Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg wrote:

By the end of WWII, a new ideological orientation was taking shape. Instead of Reds and Whites, the population of the Soviet Union would be divided into patriots and cosmopolitans, which at that time was a euphemism for nationalists and separatists in the Western part of the country, and those who advocated for the rights of the Soviet republics.