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The developmentof culturesnationalin formandsocialistin contentis necessaryfor the purposeof theirultimatefusioninto one GeneralCulture,socialistas to formandcontent,and expressedin one generallanguage.
-I. V. Stalin,Marksizmi natsional'no-kolonial'niy
vopros(1934)
Comrades,we want-we passionatelywish-to have our own "Mighty
Handful."
-A. A. Zhdanov,Sovetskaya
muzika(1948)
My
national musical cultures that would reflect the musical nationalism that grew up in Moscow and St. Petersburg during the previous century. This project took shape during the early 1930s at the behest of Stalin,
and did not lose momentum until some years after his death. Even today,
however, as former Soviet republics enjoy their independence, they still
feed on the results of the Soviet-instigated revolution in their cultures,
while paying lip service to the task of undoing the consequences of Russification. In the Almati Conservatory of Kazakhstan, for example, the
principal language of instruction is shifting from Russian to Kazakh-a
tailed discussion of sixteenth-century counterpoint, which is still an essential part of the theory curriculum. On the other hand, no fundamental
332
and recordings of music resulting from those policies could still be found
in abundance in Moscow music shops. Today they have all but disappeared, forlornly consigned to the dustiest corners of libraries, and to forgotten cupboards in the back rooms of schools and colleges. Natives of the
former Soviet republics and Russians alikeconsider most of this music dead
and unworthy of revival.Not only is it tainted with Stalinism, but for those
old enough to remember, it is associated with the tedium of the routine
tributes to the achievements of each republic that could be found in textbooks, concert seasons, and the examination and competition programs of
the recent yet now so remote past. For the purposes of musicology in the
late 1990s, however, the study of this music holds great promise, provoking reflection on a constellation of topics: nationalism, culturalcolonialism,
orientalism, and the history of socialist realism.'
The main focus of this article is the renaissanceof romantic nineteenthcentury nationalism within a socialist multinational state. Such a combination may seem strange to those who have learned to assign Marxism and
nationalism to distinct and irreconcilable categories, and indeed, the separation is not entirely inaccurateon the level of pure theory: national selfconsciousness was supposed to be symptomatic of high capitalism, and
both were destined to collapse together. Nevertheless, the practical application and development of Soviet Marxism-Leninism acknowledged the
realities of the age of nation-states, and employed nationalist ideology for
socialist ends without losing sight of the eventual and inevitable advent of
a nationless and stateless future-or so the Party ideologues declared. The
mutual adjustment between nationalist and socialist mythologies was a
complex process. As we shall see, in the case of music the rhetorical strategies of romantic nationalism were retained but yoked to new purposes,
with results that were sometimes remarkablygrotesque, sometimes simply
self-defeating. We can be thankful that, although equivocation and obfus1. See Gregory Salmon's entries on Alma-Ata, Askhabad, Baku, Bishkek, Dushanbe, Erevan, Tashkent, and Tbilisi in the New GroveDictionaryofOpera,ed. Stanley Sadie (London and
New York: Macmillan, 1992). As Salmon's bibliographies attest, there is as yet no substantial
treatment of these repertories in the English-language musicological literature. Prior to the
Salmon articles,the only information in English availableon many of the composers discussed
in the present article could be found in Stanley Dale Krebs, SovietComposers
and the Development of SovietMusic (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970); and Rena Moisenko, Realist Music:
Twenty-fiveSoviet Composers(London: Meridian Books, 1949). The latter is of interest as a
faithful-indeed credulous--precis of the standard Soviet line, but it offers no independent
assessment of events. Ethnomusicologists who carried out fieldwork in the republics occasionally commented on the interaction of traditional culture with Soviet ideology: see Mark
Slobin, "Conversationsin Tashkent,"AsianMusic 2, no. 2 (1971): 7-13; and also Theodore
C. Levin, "Music in Modern Uzbekistan: The Convergence of Marxist Aesthetics and Central
Asian Tradition,"AsianMusic 12, no. 1 (1979): 149-58. There is a brief but very penetrating
description of the matter in question in Richard Taruskin,Defining RussiaMusically:Historical
and HermeneuticalEssays(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), xvi-xvii.
in Form
For the first few years of the Bolshevik state, musical nationalism in its
nineteenth-century form was certainly out of favor. Indeed, the cosmopolitanism and avant-gardismof the immediate prerevolutionaryyears had alreadylargely ousted nationalism. The aristocraticor bourgeois background
of Russian composers, past and present, rendered them members of the
enemy culture, and only Musorgsky's operas, now styled as "dramasof the
people," were spared by the zealous left Bolsheviks of the RAPM (Russian
Association of ProletarianMusicians). For the rival ASM (Association for
Contemporary Music), which drew its sustenance from Mahler, Schoenberg, and Krenek, casting The Five overboard seemed the proper solution
to what its members perceived as the problem of Russian musical provincialism.
Attitudes toward folk music also changed. Though it might be expected
that the slogan of bringing high culture closer to the masses would encourage interest in folk music, the Bolshevik view of the peasant class as
reactionaryshifted attention from ruralto urban, and specificallyproletarian, popular musical culture. For the first time, disseminators of folk music
had to find in it something specifically "revolutionary"or "progressive"
ratherthan merely national. For example, Arseny Avraamov-an early Soviet experimental composer, sometime exponent of forty-eight-note equal
temperament, and pioneer of film sound-track synchronization methods,
who is remembered principally for his "Symphony of
Klaxons"--saw
"highly revolutionary elements" in the still unexplored modal structure
of folk music. He even hinted that startling intonational discoveries would
prove crucial for the development of "contemporarymusic, suffocating in
the grip of twelve-note temperament."2But as expectations of imminent
world revolution waned and the new regime began to come to terms with
the prospect of continuing indefinitely contra mundum, official Soviet
rhetoric returned to the familiarverities of nationalism. The turning point
was the disbanding of both the RAPM and the ASM in 1932, and their
replacement by the Union of Composers and its mouthpiece, the journal
Sovetskayamuzika. Glinka, Tchaikovsky, and The Five were then swiftly
rehabilitated, mythologized, and presented as the only legitimate starting
point for the future development of Soviet music.
2. Avraamov'scomments first appearedin Sovremennaya
muzika 22 (1927): 287; quoted
in I. Zemtsovsky, Fol'klori kompozitor(Leningrad and Moscow: Sovetskiy Kompozitor,
1978), 10-11.
334
336
often as not the fruits of Russian labor. Since the creation of music was
regarded as much the same as any industrial process, composers, as
"culture-workers,"were expected to serve the state, often as members of a
collective. They were accorded specific tasks by the Party, which in general
followed the much-trumpeted "unanimous Soviet public opinion on musical issues" of Sovetskayamuzika.7 Constructing a national musical culture
was, like the building of a gigantic dam, a matter of concern for the whole
country.
The results were sometimes bizarre beyond any expectation. One small
collective consisting of two Russian composers and one native, known
under their combined surnames, Vlasov-Fere-Maldibayev,produced half a
dozen operas for the Uzbek nation. Another composer, Sergei Balasanian,
was of Armenian origin, though he was born in Turkmenistan. And whose
national composer did he become? Why, the Tajiks'. Reinhold Gliere,
after collecting every available award for composing the first Azerbaijani
national opera, moved on to Uzbekistan, where the Party thought his experience and talents were needed most urgently. Almost every Soviet composer soon became involved in this campaign; it was by no means merely
a shrewd careermove for mediocrities. By way of illustration, consider the
fate of Alexander Mosolov and Nikolai Roslavets, known in the West as
early Soviet modernists. Mosolov became the first producer of a Turkmen
symphonic suite,8 while Roslavets composed a string quartet on Turkmen
themes; the latter also compiled and harmonized a collection of Uzbek folk
songs. The incentive to produce such music was indeed strong, for even the
ablest composers, since the Party's stated policy on music left but the narrowest of straits between the Scylla of formalism and the Charybdis of banality. Folk music, it was even declared, was the only proper source for art
music:
All greatmasters,all great composersof the past (of all peoples,without
exception!)proceededfrom this [i.e., folk music]. And, on the contrary,
thosewho werelockedin a narrowworldof shallow,subjectivefeelings,and
who triedto "create[music]out theirown selves"--eventually
found they
7. From Comrade Chelyapov's speech to the Moscow Union of Composers, Sovetskaya
muzika(March1936): 19.
8. The case is complicated by the fact that Mosolov had displayed a spontaneous interest
in Turkmen folk music long before the Party's call to create art music for the republics. The
finale of his Fifth Piano Sonata (1926) is a rendering of two folk songs, one Turkmen, one
Russian, within the characteristicallydense and demanding style of this leading figure of the
Soviet avant-garde. Later works, such as his Turkmen and Uzbek Suites (1936), already
showed evidence of compromise, but not enough to satisfy the authorities. It becomes impossible to discern the former avant-gardistin the works written from the late thirties onward:
his style had been irreversibly"corrected"by his experiences in a labor camp. It is enormously
sad to listen to the many bland pieces in the style of The Five, or to scan the list of his works
based on the folk music of a dozen regions of the USSR, indistinguishable from the output
of his colleagues engaged in the same project.
338
339
setbyMoscow'srules.Wecouldevensaythatlaterin thecenboundaries
colonial
creations
these
hadbeenassimilated
andendowedwithsome
tury
of
in
the
of
each
If, following
degree authenticity eyes
republic's
populace.
EricHobsbawm,we regardnationalism
as a networkof inventedtradiwe cansaythatvarious
tions,'3thenin the caseof the Sovietrepublics,
in
the
invention
of
traditions
peoplesacquiesced
byotherson theirbehalf
liketheAzerbaijanis,
werethemselves
the
(indeed,someof the"peoples,"
of Moscow).Inthesecondpartof thisarticle,weshallexamine
creation
the
modelforallof thesenationalcultures:
theprofileof nationalism
as it developedwithinRussianculturein thenineteenth
century.Thiswillenable
us to explainandinterpret
Moscow'sactionsas it soughtto replicate
the
processelsewhere.
Whose Nationalism?
Sincemusicalnationalism
in the Sovietrepublicswasdependenton the
modelof nineteenth-century
Russia,thesestateswereexpectedto inauguratetheireraof nationalartmusicwithanopera,justasGlinkahaddone
for Russia.Moreover,theywereexpectedto approximate
one or other
of thetwogenresderivedfromGlinkathathadbecomethetwinpillarsof
Russianmusicin thegeneration
afterhim.Thefirst,in whichthetopicof
classstrugglewasparticularly
wasthe "heroicdramaof the
encouraged,
340
Journalof theAmerican
Musicological
Society
1939): 81-90. "Istoriya russkoy muziki" ("History of Russian Music"), edited by Mikhail
Pekelis (Moscow, 1940), was discussed in a meeting of Moscow composers and musicologists, reported in Sovetskayamuzfka (January-February 1948): 91: "Unfortunately, comrade
Pekelis did not subject his own work to sufficient criticism, particularlythe textbook on the
history of Russian music, which he edited and to which he contributed, and where, as he
himself admitted, the dependence of our musical culture on the West was unfoundedly emphasized, class struggle ignored, originality of Russian music and its leading position in world
music in the second half of the nineteenth century passed over."
17. Mugam (the same as Arabic maq'amand CentralAsian makom)is a traditional setting
of classicalpoetry (e.g., Nezami Genjavi) in the form of a large cyclic composition based on
elaborate vocal improvisation with instrumental accompaniment.
18. B. Zeidman, "Glibrei Azerbaijanskayamuzikal'nayakul'tura,"R. M. Glitre: Statyi,
vospominaniya,materialy,vol. 2 (Leningrad, 1966), 216-36.
341
prominent heirs to the Russian nationalist tradition of The Five, was summoned to Baku. After conscientious study of the folk sources made available to him, he produced for the Azerbaijani nation an opera, Shahsenem,
which was first produced in Baku in 1927. Kuliev argued tirelessly for the
need to abandon the legacy of Persian cultural dominion, and to replace it
with a radicalwesternization of musical culture along Russian lines. One of
the main rebuttals offered by his opponents was that the non-European,
nondiatonic system of tuning employed in Azerbaijan constituted an insurmountable obstacle to westernization. Kuliev replied in this way:
Someof our musiciansarealwaysrepeatingthatTirk songscannotbe transcribedwithinthe Europeansystem.ButRussianor Germansongscannotbe
fitted into the twelve-noteEuropeantemperamenteither.... Yet this did
not preventRussianmusicfroma wholesaleadoptionof Europeanfoundations and techniques,or from developingthese to such heights as Glinka
did.19
Hyperbole aside, this statement demonstrates remarkableclear-sightedness
on the part of Kuliev, since Russian nationalist composers had never acknowledged any discrepancy between the folk song they heard in the field
and its representation on the piano, even though in some Russian traditions this discrepancy was no less glaring than it was in Azerbaijan. Thus
sweeping aside the reasoning of his adversaries,Kuliev opened the door to
all manner of Russian influence.
Moscow therefore had no need to impose a Russian model on the development of Azerbaijanimusic, since Kuliev and his like had already embraced it (although their enthusiasm was no doubt more easily sustained
because of the urgent necessity of pleasing Moscow's envoys). News of the
Azerbaijani project soon passed beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.
The first president and founder of the new Republic of Turkey, Kemal
Atatdirk,noticed the success in Baku of Glihre'sShahsenemand was sufficiently inspired to invite the composer to his country on a similar mission.
Although Gliere did not go, Turkey eventually secured two far more eminent composers in its quest for far-reachingmusical reforms: Bart6k and
Hindemith. A group of Turkish nationalist composers, styling themselves
as The Five of their nation, thus poured out their 'Turkish soul" in the style
of Hindemith and Bart6k. Had Gliere been able to accept the original invitation, they would no doubt have been equally happy to express their
identity in Russian accents.
Nineteenth-century Russian musical nationalism held a powerful appeal
for later national movements in music, owing to its international success.
The project of creating a distinctively Russian music, begun singlehandedly
by Glinka in the 1830s, had by the end of the century culminated in the
19. Mustafa Kuliev, quoted in Z. Safarova,Muzizkal'no-esteticheskiye
vzglyadyUzeira Gajibekova(Moscow, 1973), 96.
342
straightforward
quotationto the abstractionand assimilationof various
atively simple task of using Russian folk melodies: if the melodies were
the lexis of the language, a distinctively Russian musical syntax also had to
be found. Glinka, the first to set out on this path, sought in particularan
344
manentRussianness.Once again,however,Rimsky-Korsakov
punctured
these pretensions:
Russiantraits--andnationaltraitsin general--areacquirednot by writing
accordingto specificrules,but ratherby removingfrom the commonlanto a Russianstyle.The
guageof musicthosedeviceswhichareinappropriate
method is of a negativecharacter,a techniqueof avoidingcertaindevices.
Thus, for example,I would not use this turnof phrase:
A'.
345
Example1 AlexanderOlenin,Opera-songKudeyar
(a) Orchestralpreludeto act 1
WIN
-.. ...
.a
I-
346
Example 1 continued
Ya lyub-
iiI
a,4r W,
-sa-
._
vi-tsa!
rF
mF
Ya lyub-
prezh-ne- vo!
ye-
8va.
----------------------------------------------
I.,
SAw
IW
53-57.
348
fromwhichtheirRussiannationalist
Thisevinceda pragmatism
predecessorshad,at leastin theirpublicstatements,
distancedthemselves.
Thereareindeedmanysuchparallels--some
intended,othersunconin the repubscious-to be foundin theliterature
of musicalnationalism
had expendedmucheffortin attempting
lics. The Russiannationalists
to tracethe diatonicism
of Russianfolksongbackto its allegedlyGreek
and
now
the
national
roots,
composersof the republicsdid likewise.
Evenin a recentbookon Turkmen
music,F. A. Abukovanotedthatthe
of
with
modes
the major-minor
"synthesis Turkmen
system"was easily
achievedowingto the closenessof the Turkmenmodesto thoseof the
theauthorthuschoseto calltheresultsof thiscross"Phrygian"
and
Greeks;
"Locrian."26
the
fact
that
folk
Russian
was
Or again,
song
wronglyassumedto havebeenmonodicmeantthattheproblems
Russianshadfaced
overharmonization
weremuchthe sameas thoseconfronted
by the new
nationalcomposersattemptingto assimilategenuinelymonodicstyles.
Harmonization
or indeeda defining,elewas,of course,a nonnegotiable,
mentof boththeRussiannationalist
andthelaterSovietprojects;
therewas
no questionof remaining
withinthe limitsof monody.The Azerbaijani
nationalcomposer
offeredthefollowingadviceonthesubjectof
Gajibekov
harmonizations:
appropriate
Unskilledharmonization
of anAzerbaijani
melodymaychangeits character,
neutralizeits modality,and even vulgarizeit. But this does not mean that
musicshouldremainmonodicforever.... Polyphonyshouldbe
Azerbaijani
basednot on correctchordprogressionsor harmoniccadencesthat require
changesin modalstructure,but ratheron the combinationof logicallyconstructedindependentmelodies.27
Theexample
notso muchthe
(seeEx.2) demonstrates
givenbyGajibekov
of melodies,butrathertheavoidance
of anything
thatwould
independence
do violenceto the melody.His argumentis stronglyreminiscent
of the
recommendations
VladimirOdoyevsky
hadmadein 1863:"Wetriedto
as simpleas possible(sinequartaconsokeepthe pianoaccompaniment
...
we
did
not
dare
to
insert
nante)
anyseventhchords... thiswould
distort
the
character
of
Russian
andsacred."28
entirely
singing,bothsecular
recourse
to
imitative
textures
as
a
to
harGajibekov's
palliative four-part
monicstylewasa strategythe Russiannationalists
hadfrequently
turned
to-imitation,no doubtbydintof itsgreaterantiquity,
wasnotso strongly
associated
withWesternmusic.Eachrepublicsoughtto drawthelinebe26. F. A. Abukova, Turkmenskayaopera:Putiformirovaniya,zhanrovayatipologiya(Ashkhabad: Ylym, 1987). Abukova seems unaware that the Gregorian and ancient Greek modes
were very different systems.
27. Uzeir Gajibekov, Osnoviazerbaidzhanskoy
narodnoymuziki (Baku, 1945), 32.
28. Odoyevsky, "Starinnayapesnya," in Muzikal'no-literaturnoyenaslediye,252-54, at
253.
349
"Strict"style
Folk
style
Folk style
!
'...
!
ld
T t
---,,-----
J J
. ,J
... -J
.J
-jJ
350
Mosso
-i
.'
11F
-----
r4,=q
cresc.
351
act2, Kalhyman
andothergirlsdriveaway
Ai-churek,
Example4 Vlasov-Fere-Maldibayev,
the witch anddervishes
PI
udim."
Sf
dim.
..
11"dl
6
352
Example 5
m.d.
433
3-3
3
-]:
L F
4-
.#
rI
; f"
IL
II1 1I-:
1~
10
rit.
aI
L--3.
8
33
5
?"
fairy-taleEast, but Russian composers were also happy to cultivate the exotic, oriental image they enjoyed in the West. For the eastern republics,
however, Russia was a Western power, with a Western culture, and they
could not identify with it. Westernizing intellectuals within these societies
only reinforced the point: they wanted to emulate Russian culture because
its occidentalism was progressive, not because its oriental qualities could
be easily assimilated. Let us now explore the musical consequences of this
conceptual tangle.
Shadowsof Orientalism
WhenGlinkaset out to representRussiamusically,he had only a few
354
act 1, Kerib'saria
Example6 ReinholdGliere,Shahsenem,
1,
Ya Ke-
Frmmfii
,9
nYy,
ven-
Lyut-sya
I.IVIIV
vdal'
vse
mo- i
pes-
ni,
Svoy u-
4.0
1Y
0.,-
.. .
il
-del ya
r-
p0-
0
stig sokro-
=",.
yen-
Fo
miy,
IF
-z
V e-torn
-. -II :
,r- o- ve
-dl
e tr
-stgso
,-..- nf,. ,
.,J.!+
a'
WNW
1
..+ ?:0" F
I.
slav-
21'" IV- ?
myj moy
ye-
nets.
356
wouldhaveto beassimilated
to oneof itsneighbors).33
By 1939,however,
he hadenacteda ratherbizarrevolte-face,sayingthatAzerbaijani
music
the
even
no
intervals
smaller
than
and
with
semitone
adding,
possessed
that"oursemitone,in fact,is wider."
34By thisstage
peculiarsatisfaction,
of localstanding,
of hiscareer,Gajibekov
wasno longera merenationalist
buta celebrated
composerof the SovietUnion.His changein statusap"I myselfignorethe
pearsto havecoloredhis judgmentconsiderably:
that the international
musical
groundlessclaimsof somemusicologists
of the characteristics
of
alphabetis not sufficientfor the representation
music.Thisopinioniswrong,sincethechromatic
scalesatisfies
Azerbaijani
us completely."'5
hadneveractuallyopposedthe adoptionof
Gajibekov
the importedtuning,but ratherhadsimplypointedout problemsthat
it. Hischangeof opiniontherefore
cannotbe
mightarisein implementing
as
a
It
concession.
would
seem,instead,that
regarded pragmatic
political
he hadsincerely
convincedhimselfof thisorthodoxyof Sovietmusic.He
wasnow quitereconciled
to equal-temperament
of Azerrepresentations
"if
music
the
is
when
not
orientalist
in
his
baijani
view),
style right"(i.e.,
andhereported
thattarplayers
hadbegunto adjusttheirmovapprovingly
ablefretsto conformmoreor lessto equaltemperament.36
Theadoptionof polyphonyalsoposedobviousproblems
to Gajibekov.
Sinceit wasa definingfeatureof themusicrequired
Soviet
cultural
by
polhad
icies,therewasno pointinmountingachallenge;
problems to beoverThemostGajibekov
come,not usedasanexcuseforrejecting
polyphony.
coulddo wasto adviseagainstthewholesaleadoptionof a four-part
harmonicstyle,andto recommend
textures
instead.
As
sparsercontrapuntal
evenhisownpractices
of
attest,however,it is hard,aftertheintroduction
to
avoid
from
the
harmonic
resources
of
Western
mupolyphony,
drawing
Even
sic,oratleastfromthosethathadbeenmastered
bythesecomposers.
octavedoubling,Gajibekov
musical
knew,wouldoftenviolateAzerbaijani
modesassigneddifferentfunctionsto
practice,sinceits non-octave-based
degreesanoctaveapart.
Whilefullsurrender
to the Europeaninheritance
of tuningandpolyat firstthereseemedto be greaterposunavoidable,
phonywasvirtually
sibilitiesfor compromise
in the tonalandmodalorganization
of music.
believedthatit waspossibleto combinetonalharmony
withthe
Gajibekov
melodicmodeshe extracted
fromAzerbaijani
traditional
music,andthat
33. Uzeir Gajibekov, "Muzikal'noe razvitie v Azerbaydzhane,"first published in Maarif
ve medenijet (1926), no. 8 (in Azerbaijani); quoted in Safarova, Muzikal'no-esteticheskiye
vzglyadyUzeira Gafibekova,145.
34. Uzeir Gajibekov, "O narodnosti v muz'ike,"Revolyutsiyai kultura 5 (1939): 110 (in
Azerbaijani); quoted in Safarova,Muzikal'no-esteticheskiye
vzglyadyUzeira Gajibekova,146.
35. Gajibekov, "O narodnosti v muzifke,"reprinted in his O muzi'kal'nomiskusstveAzerbaydzhana(Baku, 1968), 85.
36. V. Vinogradov, Uzeir Gajibekovi azerbaydzhanskaya
muzika (Moscow, 1972), 13-14.
358
Example 7
(a)
Sev-
dim
-ga-
sa-
ni
rm,
-lim
shan-
Sev-
dim
man
r'-
ba-
ha-
rim.
nihm,
ya-
13
sa-
ei
na
k6-
Ni-
za-
359
Example7 continued
(a)
17
21
ol-
maz
6z-
P o " o"r#
''
i-.-...
kQ
ki-
sev-
,..
25
-dn,
ai
lim
sin-
360
Example7 continued
(b)
1$
i
4.,raoiI
dfim
dim
dfish
diish
fI
i TL
gar!
gar!
NiNi-
f'
a
IL. "g
"JI
.....+ t.
dbl
' "
. . .
I
,"
----
UA
361
362
the timbre of the zurna (a Middle Eastern shawm) than the same cor anglais favored by the orientalists. In the end, the achievement of the antiorientalists was limited to an extension of the range of conventions used to
represent their musical cultures, such as doubling in fourths or the use of
clusters.
Of all the Soviet composers who emerged from the nationalist project,
only Aram Khachaturianattained world renown. It is ironic that his music
in no way challenges the Russian orientalist style. Never dissociating himself from the traditions of Russian music, he came to be regarded in Moscow as a mouthpiece of the entire Soviet Orient, gathering up all the
diverse traditions into a grand generalization. His music suggests that the
following remarkis more than a mere demonstration of loyalty to humor
the authorities:
[Russianorientalmusic] showed me not only the possibility,but also the
between,and mutualenrichmentof, Eastern
necessity,of a rapprochement
and Westerncultures,of Transcaucasian
musicand Russianmusic..... the
orientalelementsin Glinka'sRuslan,andin Balakirev's
TamaraandIslamey,
were strikingmodelsfor me, and provideda strongimpulsefor a new creativequestin this direction.42
It is hardly surprising that Khachaturian'smost popular piece, the Sabre
Dance, was parodied mercilessly by Nino Rota in the satirical orientalist
episode in Fellini'sAmarcord.And this leads us to ask whether any Eastern
nationalism can make a clean break with the orientalist tradition, at least
within the sphere of tonal harmony. Indeed, is any nationalism possible
beyond the limits of tonal harmony? An Armenian scholar (who must remain nameless) recently sought to convince me that an Armenian national
twelve-tone music could and did exist. But what would an Armenian audience recognize with delight in a twelve-tone series?Would they be filled
with that immediate, irrationalpride in their nation that was so successfully
kindled by the nationalists of a previous generation? It was this need for
popular sympathy that caused the composers of the Soviet republics to
maintain a simple style: they were not merely responding to the strictures
of socialist realism. Often lacking the expertise and innovative spirit of the
composers of the Russian orientalist classics, the indigenous musicians had
only one potential advantage: their knowledge of a large corpus of folk
melodies. But these folk songs had lost many of their characteristicsin the
process of notation, and the composers' native experience of Eastern musical traditions proved next to useless, owing to the compromises they had
to make in the interests of the chosen Western genre and medium. The
Soviet project of creating a national system of harmony or counterpoint
was from the outset virtually doomed, as was the Russian nationalism before it. The underlying problem besetting national composers of the Soviet
42. Aram Khachaturian,quoted in D. A. Arutyunov,A. Khachaturiani muzikaSovetskogo
Vostoka:Yazik, stil, traditsii (Moscow, 1983), 15.
"Socialist in Content"
"Socialist in content": what is that supposed to mean when applied to music? There were other slogans, too, which artists could ill afford to ignore:
they were told, for example, to "master Bolshevism." Such pronouncements, though easy for Stalin to make, were much harder for musicians to
implement. At the joint conference of Soviet composers, musicologists,
and operatic producers in 1937, Stalin's speech on opera emphasized three
points: the subject matter was to be socialist, a realist musical language
bearing the imprint of its national origins was to be adopted, and a new
breed of hero was to be drawn from contemporary Soviet life. In effect, this
meant that the composer of an opera was obliged to place in his work not
only a bevy of folk songs but a popular uprising, led or inspired by a loyal
Bolshevik hero. One of the Party'sleading music critics, Georgiy Khubov,
reiterated Stalin's formula, adding to it a fourth point that was more specifically musical: "Our new operas must above all include these four elements: Soviet subject matter, narodnost'["nationality,"or "people-ness"],
realism, and the mastery of symphonic development."43But this was no
simple, foolproof method by which a composer could achieve success, for
each of the four points was double-edged. Too much of the national element could be criticized as bourgeois nationalism, too much realism was
bourgeois naturalism, and too much symphonic development was bourgeois formalism. Even Soviet subject matter could entrap the composer.
For example, Vano Muradeli, with his opera The Great Friendship,unwittingly provoked the notorious 1948 resolution (ostensibly against formalism), which brought composers to heel.44While on the face of it this work
43. Khubov, "Sovetskayaopera," 15.
44. The 10 February 1948 Resolution of the Communist Party Central Committee, entitled "On V. Muradeli'sopera The GreatFriendship,"extended its criticism beyond Muradeli
and branded another six composers formalist: Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram
364
had appeared
to enjoya safeplot concerningsocialistrevolutionin the
Stalin'smostloyalofficialsfoundintolerable
its inevitable
Caucasus,
poras
of
Stalin's
of
compatriots opponentsof theSoviet
Georgian
trayal many
revolutionary
struggle.
to notethatin Stalin'sandKhubov's
Forourpurposes,it is important
thenationalandsocialistarenottwoseparate
entitiesto becomformulas,
binedand reconciled;
rather,the nationalis a necessary
componentof
leveledagainstShostakovich
waspresocialism.
Oneof thefirstaccusations
melodiesin his balletabouta
cipitatedby his failureto quoteUkrainian
collectivefarm.Muradeli,
twelveyearslaterin 1948,wassimiUkranian
concerned,
larlyreproached,
thoughthistimeStalinwasmorepersonally
sinceanabsenceof Georgian
folkmusicwasatissue.In thefollowingpassagefroma speechby A. A. Zhdanov,we candetectStalin'sdisappointmentat the lackof anyfamiliar
lezghinka
melody:
If, in the courseof the action,the lezghinkais performed,then its melodyis
notreminiscent
ofanypopular
melodies.
Inhispursuit
of
certainly
lezhginka
to quotecopiouslyfrom
spurred
Althoughsuchcriticism
manycomposers
folksources,eventhistechnique
no
provided safeguard.
AmongtheParty's
musiccriticswerearbitersof professionalism
who condemned"lazy"or
"naive"
on folkquotations.
VlasovandFere,forexample,
were
dependence
criticizedfor their"incorrect
to
which
arose
approach" harmonization,
fromtheir"fearof distorting
folkmelodies."46
Infact,no pathguaranteed
a composer's
for
the
strictures
of
the
critics
wereevermutable,arsafety,
and
bitrary, contradictory.
Thespecterof "bourgeois
nationalism"
couldbe invokedat anytime,
andthecriticswhosetthemselves
thetaskof rootingit outdisplayed
great
in nationalcosingenuity."TheChuvashchoir,"notedone, "performs
to the choristers,
whichin itselfcounts
tumes;it is of greatimportance
Khachaturian, Vissarion Shebalin, Gavriil Popov, and Nikolai Myaskovsky (published in
Sovetskayamuzika [January-February 1948]: 3-8). Subsequent meetings and discussions
concentrated mainly on castigating Prokoviev and Shostakovich (see "Vstupitel'naya rech'
tov. A. A. Zhdanova na soveshchanii deyateley sovetskoy muziki v TsK VKP(b)," ibid.,
9-13; and "Vistupleniya na sobranii kompozitorov i muzikovedov g. Moskvi," ibid., 63102). See also Alexander Werth, Musical Uproarin Moscow(London: Turnstile Press, 1949;
reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973).
45. A. A. Zhdanov, introductory speech at the meeting of Soviet musicians in the Central
Committee of the Communist Party, Sovetskayamuzika (January-February 1948), 10. The
lezghinkais a type of fast Georgian dance.
46. A. Lepin, "'Altin-Kiz': Kirgizskaya opera V. Vlasova i V. Fere," Sovetskayamuzi'ka
(December 1937): 48-55.
365
choirsmacksof
againstthem.A desireto performas an 'ethnographic'
the
of
Another
criticdenationalism"
(i.e.,
wrong,bourgeoisvariety)."4
in the use of the characteristic
tectedbourgeoisnationalism
Uzbekvocal
of Uzbeknational
stylewithintheoperahouse,aswellasin thepromotion
instruments
overWesternones.48Littledid it matterthatothercritics
a fewyearsearlier,or
mighthavepraisedorcondonedanalogous
practices
in a neighboring
a
Once
had
been
had
set,composers
republic.
precedent
to takenote.Theylearnedtheycouldno longerassumethatanyparticular
localtradition
andsafelydrawnon.Thedevelopment
mightbelegitimately
of theBuryat-Mongol
orchestra"
(templeband)traditionproved
"Lamas'
it
for
was
seen
as
a
troublesome,
especially
displayof chauvinism
typicalof
nationalism.
For
a
the
division
of
the
cultural
time,
bourgeois
republic's
traditions
intothoseof the rulersandthoseof theoppressed
wasnot, on
thewhole,rigidlyenforced;thisallowedcomposers
to explore,forexamthe
most
traditions.
a
But
once-safe
courseof action
ple,
developed
mugam
be
condemned
retroactive
on the comlater,
might
bringing
punishment
In
for
a
musical
took
in
1951,
instance,
poser.
purge
place Uzbekistan;
composers
workingthereweredenouncedin thefollowingterms:
[They]do not understandthatthe old feudalandcourtsongs, full of mystic
and eroticmotives,areutterlyforeignto our people,the activebuildersof
communism.Theytend to forgetthe wordsof our greatLeninon the pres-
enceof twocultures
withineverynational
thatis,of rulingclasses
culture,
andof theoppressed.
to Marxist
aesTheysneakin viewsthatarecontrary
under
the
thetics,
pretextof deployingcultural
heritage.49
Afterthisattack,allSovietcomposers
hadto avoidtraditional
musicthat
of theformerelites.Althoughpeasantmumightbedeemedcharacteristic
sicandrecentproletarian
their
songshada primafacieclaimto legitimacy,
treatment
wasalsoundercarefulscrutiny,aswe haveseen.
by composers
The followingquotation,althoughdatingfromthe veryendof Stalin's
thegeneraltendencyof officialpolicythroughout
the 1930s
rule,describes
and 1940s to exertpressureon composersto workwithinthe stylistic
boundaries
of GlinkaandTheFive:
It is importantto stressthat folk melodies,when they are encounteredin
WestEuropeanmodernistmusic,areusedfor purposesthathavenothingin
common
withnationality
usedforthepurposes
[narodnost'].
Theyarenever
366
while"hasty"
and"aesthetically
typicalof Stalinist
writingon nationalism,
368
many ways, the style of Zhdanov's 1948 speech is a triumph of Soviet music criticism: it mixes Party dogma and random phrases from music theory
primers in order to lend weight to arbitrary and uninformed personal
tastes, skillfully masked as careful deliberations underlying official policy.
For all that, of course, criticism did become policy.
"Socialist realism"was never worked out as a coherent theory, although
enormous efforts were expended in attempting to create the illusion of one.
Rather, it amounted only to a range of slogans with obscure gray valleys
between them. In truth, officials found this vagueness and lack of coherence far too useful to be sacrificed,for it allowed them unlimited flexibility
in manipulating artists. Given two works of similarcharacter,one might be
praised and the other condemned, according to some momentary official
whim. Attacks on composers were sometimes based on nothing more than
fear that the absence of criticism might attractunwelcome attention to the
critic concerned: no one wanted to march out of step. Prokofiev and Shostakovich each composed a prizewinning Fifth Symphony, and each composed a Sixth that won equal measures of condemnation; no one could
predict when and where the sword would fall. This was itself the guiding
idea behind the arbitrary and contradictory surface of policy decisions.
From our perspective, socialist realism in literature, painting, and music
alike was merely a futile recycling of nineteenth-century "criticalrealism"
into a prescribeduncritical utopianism. The forms of Tolstoy's novels, Repin's pictures, and Musorgsky's operas were to be filled with positive heroes, happy faces, and triumphant sounds. In other words, socialist art was
to be familiar in form and anodyne in content. Or is this really a formula
for the abolition of art?Is not art without creativitythe perfect correlatefor
elections without choice and trials without law?
After the musical purge of 1948, when nearly all the leading Soviet composers were declared formalists and even their names became taboo, the
music produced in the republics edged back into the foreground once
more, having been overshadowed in the late 1930s and early 1940s by the
prizewinning efforts of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Nikolai Myaskovsky.
The status that Prokofiev and Shostakovich had enjoyed proved to be fragile, while Gajibekov's, for example, was entirely secure. One of the 1948
Stalin Prizes went to Estonia for a cantataloyally dedicated to Stalin by one
Tallat-Kelpsha.55This was seen as an event of some importance, since it
showed that a new sister republic was able to take part in the great cultural
project; the piece immediately received the highest praise. It would be fair
to conclude that the music written under the rubric "national in form,
55. The Stalin Prize was the main state award given to artists and scientists from 1940 to
1952. Reintroduced in 1966 under the name "State Prize of the USSR," it continued to be
awarded until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
369
370