life and death of an emigre

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues:

At the Washington DC AATSEEL conference, in a couple of media-related panels, I had the opportunity to hear, and meet with, sociologist (emer.) 
John Rim (formerly John D. Rimberg), co-author of an important, path-breaking book about Soviet cinema published during the Cold War a half-
century ago: "The Soviet Film Industry" (Praeger: NY, 1955). 

A little mystery about that book that had always intrigued me, however, remains a mystery.   Prof. Rim-Rimberg does not know the answer either.  
Maybe someone in a Russian or Ukrainian archive today would be able to solve it ?

Rimberg's co-author of the 1955 "Soviet Film Industry" was a recent emigre from the USSR, writing under  the pseudonym of "Paul V. Babitsky."  He 
told Rimberg that before getting out of the USSR (presumably, c. 1943-45) he had been a scenarist at the Ukrainian Film Studio (once known  as 
"VUFKU"). "Babitsky's" contribution to their jointly-written 1955 book was much of the inside information, the nitty gritty,  supposedly as it had 
been experienced by a working member of the Soviet-Stalinist film industry in the years before WW2. 

During the Cold War, "Babitsky" used that pen-name, evidently, in order to protect his surviving relatives, still inside the USSR, against Stalinist 
retribution.  Eventually the mysterious "Babitsky" passed away in New York, sometime  in the 1990s, at a ripe old age. 

Now that the Cold War is over,  former Soviet archives have been opened, and emigres are no longer on the blacklist of "unpersons," perhaps 
someone in a Ukrainian or Russian archive or institute would be able to fill in the biographical and pseudonymical (?) blanks in the life of the late 
"Paul V. Babitsky"?

Best New Year's wishes to all,
Steven P. Hill,
University of Illinois.
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