This LibGuide can serve as a starting point for those who are interested in the rather broad topic of African Americans in Russia. Here you can find information for print and digital resources and further readings.
Black Russians: The Red Experience is a feature-length documentary by Yelena Demikovsky, produced by Sam Pollard. It is a story of Black American dreamers who left the United States in the 1920s and ‘30s in search of a better life in Stalinist Russia. Their descendants still live in Russia and America today.
Watch the trailer:
Movie Circus (1936)
"In Aleksandrov’s second musical film, Marion Dixon, an American star performing at the Moscow circus, falls in love with Russian performer Ivan Martynov, who introduces her to Soviet society. Franz von Kneishitz, Dixon’s abusive manager, tries to foil the romance by revealing Dixon’s secret: she has an illegitimate mulatto child. However, the circus audience welcomes the child without prejudice and Dixon remains in the land of the soviets with Martynov. The plot is based on Ilf and Petrov’s play Pod kupolom tsirka (Under the Big Top), which premiered at the Moscow Music Hall on December 23, 1934" (The Musical Comedy Films of Grigorii Aleksandrov : Laughing Matters (2009), edited by Salys Rimgaila; p. 123)
Fragment from the film, with Jim Patterson as a black baby:
Paul Robeson sings Song of the Motherland in Russian. The song debuted in the movie Circus (1936).
Paul Robeson sings Soviet National Anthem