Russian Music since 1917: Reappraisal and Rediscovery
Patrick Zuk and Marina Frolova-Walker
Abstract
This volume of essays provides an overview of the transformation that the study of Russian music since 1917 has undergone since glasnost’, both in Russia itself and outside it. Prior to this, scholars on both sides of the Iron Curtain confronted formidable practical difficulties. In the USSR, the operation of strict censorship and ideological constraints seriously hindered the development of scholarship. In the West, ideological perspectives engendered by the Cold War hindered an objective appraisal of many aspects of Soviet cultural life. The changed climate of the post-Soviet period has obvi ... More
This volume of essays provides an overview of the transformation that the study of Russian music since 1917 has undergone since glasnost’, both in Russia itself and outside it. Prior to this, scholars on both sides of the Iron Curtain confronted formidable practical difficulties. In the USSR, the operation of strict censorship and ideological constraints seriously hindered the development of scholarship. In the West, ideological perspectives engendered by the Cold War hindered an objective appraisal of many aspects of Soviet cultural life. The changed climate of the post-Soviet period has obviated many of these difficulties, and acted as a powerful stimulus to the development and expansion of the discipline. The seventeen chapters are grouped under six thematic headings. Those in Part I explore the most conspicuous trends and changes in emphasis in recent scholarship, as well as assessing the extent to which pre-glasnost’ ideological perspectives continue to hinder progress. Part II focuses on reappraisals of Socialist Realism and other important topics pertaining to music and musical life of the Stalinist era. Part III examines the damaging effects of censorship on Soviet musicology, and Part IV on recent developments in Shostakovich studies, an area which has been the locus of particularly fierce controversies. Part V focuses on the Russian musical diaspora. The three essays in Part V are concerned with the ways in which the difficult transition to the post-Soviet era has affected Russian compositional activity.
Keywords:
Russian music,
Soviet music,
Russian music studies,
post-Soviet culture,
music and power,
music and totalitarianism,
Russian émigré musicians,
Censorship
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2017 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780197266151 |
| Published to British Academy Scholarship Online: January 2018 |
DOI:10.5871/bacad/9780197266151.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Patrick Zuk, editor
Senior Lecturer in Music, University of Durham
Marina Frolova-Walker, editor
Professor of Music History, University of Cambridge
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