Golemiáda

By Golemiáda is meant a series of student demonstrations that had started in Bratislava during the premiere of Julien Duvivier's film Golem in April 1936. The protests against the film developed into strong antisemitic riots. Similarly to other pogroms in the interwar period, this topic recieved relatively little attention in the literature up to now. The purpose of the present study is to collect, compare, and analyze documents about the Golemiáda, with emphasis on the manifested antisemitism and its motives. The socio-political context is also considered. Inferences are made from data collected via study of contemporary political press and archive research. The study shows, that the riots were presumably provoked for political reasons using nationalistic, religious and socio-economic arguments against Jews. The topic of Golemiáda requires a further research to cover the broader socio-political and religious situation.