Soviet Music And Society Under Lenin And Stalin – The Baton And Sickle (basees_routledge Series On Russian And East European Studies).pdf

Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin What role did music play in Soviet society during the eras of Lenin and Stalin? This book examines the different strategies adopted by composers and musicians in their attempts to carve out careers in a rapidly evolving society, discusses the role of music in Soviet society and people's lives, and shows how political ideology proved an inspiration as well as an inhibition. Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin explores how music and politics interacted in the lives of two of the twentieth century's greatest composers – Shostakovich and Prokofiev – and also in the lives of less well-known Soviet composers. In addition, it considers the activities of the specialist composers of early Soviet musical propaganda, amateur music making, and musical life in the non-Russian republics. The book will appeal to specialists in Soviet music history, those with an interest in twentieth-century music in general, and also to students of the history, culture and politics of the Soviet Union. Neil Edmunds is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of West of England, Bristol. He is the author of The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (2000), and his articles on early Soviet musical life have appeared in numerous journals, including Slavonic and East European Review, Tempo, and Muziek en Wetenschap.

BASEES/RoutledgeCurzon Series on Russian and East European Studies

Series editor: Richard Sakwa Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent Editorial committee: George Blazyca, Centre for Contemporary European Studies, University of Paisley Terry Cox, Department of Government, University of Strathclyde Rosalind Marsh, Department of European Studies and Modern Languages, University of Bath David Moon, Department of History, University of Strathclyde Hilary Pilkington, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham Stephen White, Department of Politics, University of Glasgow This series is published on behalf of BASEES (the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies). The series comprises original, highquality, research-level work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Russian, Soviet, post-Soviet and East European Studies in humanities and social science subjects. 1 Ukraine's Foreign and Security Policy, 1991–2000 Roman Wolczuk

2 Political Parties in the Russian Regions Derek S. Hutcheson 3 Local Communities and Post-Communist Transformation Edited by Simon Smith 4 Repression and Resistance in Communist Europe J.C. Sharman 5 Political Elites and the New Russia Anton Steen 6 Dostoevsky and the Idea of Russianness Sarah Hudspith 7 Performing Russia – Folk Revival and Russian Identity Laura J. Olson 8 Russian Transformations Edited by Leo McCann 9 Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin The baton and sickle Edited by Neil Edmunds

Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin The baton and sickle Edited by Neil Edmunds

LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon

29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Neil Edmunds for selection and editorial matter; the contributors for individual chapters All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-49626-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-54239-8 (MP PDA Format) ISBN 0-415-30219-6 (Print Edition) Copyright © 2002/2003 Mobipocket.com. All rights reserved.

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Contents List of illustrations Notes on contributors Acknowledgements A note on transliteration Introduction NEIL EDMUNDS 1 Music in the socialist state ANNA FERENC 2 The ways of Russian popular music to 1953 RICHARD STITES 3 Declared dead, but only provisionally: Shostakovich, Soviet music-hall and Uslovno ubityi GERARD MCBURNEY 4 From the factory to the fat: thirty years of the Song of the Counterplan JOHN RILEY 5 Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier : how the steel was tempered LESLEY-ANNE SAYERS AND SIMON MORRISON 6 'Lenin is always with us': Soviet musical propaganda and its composers during the 1920s NEIL EDMUNDS 7 Amateurs and enthusiasts: folk music and the Soviet state on stage in the 1930s ROBIN LAPASHA 8 National identity, cultural policy and the Soviet Folk Ensemble in Armenia ANDY NERCESSIAN 9 Going beyond the border: national cultural policy and the development of musical life in Soviet Karelia, 1920–1940 PEKKA SUUTARI 10 A nation on stage: music and the 1936 Festival of Kazak Arts MICHAEL ROULAND 11 Uzeyir Hajibeyov and his role in the development of musical life in Azerbaidzhan

MATTHEW O'BRIEN Index

Illustrations

Plates 3.1 I. Dunaevskii, L. Utesov, and D. Shostakovich 3.2 Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, Figures 211–212 3.3 Poster announcing Uslovno ubityi 3.4 Advertisement for Uslovno ubityi 3.5 Koralli and a locomotive 5.1 The motion of the train (from Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier) 5.2 The appearance and station arrival of the train (from Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier) 5.3 The love theme (from Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier) 5.4 The transformation of the love theme (from Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier) 6.1 Bey molotom! [The Hammer Beat!] by Mikhail Lazarev 6.2 Gudki [The Factory Whistles] by Sigizmund Kats 6.3 Konnitsa Budennogo by Alexander Davidenko 6.4 Music from Petrushka by Mikhail Krasev 6.5 Music from Petrushka by Mikhail Krasev 6.6 Music from Petrushka by Mikhail Krasev 7.1 Contemporary caricature of the situation in clubs in Iaroslav 7.2 Vichuga's Nogin factory choir 7.3 Contemporary caricature about the organisational difficulties in Olympiads 7.4 Choirs of senior citizens at Olympiads 7.5 Six-year-old Serafim 'Sima' Danilychev 7.6 The Volga Song and Dance Ensemble 9.1 The Kantele Sextet with Viktor Gudkov (far right) 11.1 Drawing by Aleksich depicting leading Soviet composers with Hajibeyov at their head

Figures 7.1 Ivanovo Province in the 1930s 9.1 Map of Karelian ASSR

Notes on contributors Neil Edmunds is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of West of England, Bristol. He is author of The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000), and his articles on early Soviet musical life have appeared in numerous journals, including Slavonic and East European Review, Tempo, and Muziek en Wetenschap. Anna Ferenc is Associate Professor of Music and Coordinator of Music Theory at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She is author of 'Investigating Russian Musical Modernism: Nikolai Roslavets and his New System of Tone Organization' (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1993), and has published articles on early twentieth-century Russian music and Nikolai Roslavets in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Tempo, Notes, and the Journal of the American Viola Society amongst others. Robin LaPasha is an independent scholar who obtained a Ph.D. from Duke University in 2001. She is a specialist in Soviet culture, folk and popular music, and Russian literature and folklore who has presented papers at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages. Gerard McBurney is a freelance composer and writer. He teaches at the Royal Academy of Music, broadcasts on Radio 3, and works for the Hallé Orchestra, Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers, and the Bergen Festival. His articles have appeared in Tempo, The Musical Times, and Muzykal'naia Akademiia, and his music has been performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Kronos Quartet and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Simon Morrison is Assistant Professor of Music at Princeton University. He is a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian music, and author of Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement (2002). He is currently writing a collection of essays entitled Ballet Imagined: Essays on the Ontology of Music and Dance. Andy Nercessian is Lecturer in Music at the University of Durham. He is a concert pianist and author of The Duduk and National Identity in Armenia (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2001) and Postmodernism and Globalisation in

Ethnomusicology: An Epistemological Problem (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2002). His articles and reviews have appeared in The British Journal of Ethnomusicology and International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music. Matthew O'Brien is an independent scholar who specialises in the recorded music of Russian and Soviet composers. He has a particular interest in the art music of the various Union Republics of the former Soviet Union, and is currently compiling the first encyclopaedic dictionary of Azeri composers in English. John Riley works for the British Universities Film and Video Council. He is a writer, film programmer, lecturer, and broadcaster who specialises in film and music particularly from Russia and the Soviet Union. He has written for many publications, and his book Shostakovich will be published as part of I.B. Tauris's KinoFiles series in 2004. Michael Rouland is a Ph.D. candidate and Lecturer in History at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. He is currently completing a dissertation entitled 'Music and the Making of the Kazak Nation, 1920–1936', and his interests include cinematic, literary, and musical expressions of Central Asian identity. He is currently writing a biography of Mukhtar Auezov. Lesley-Anne Sayers is Research Fellow in Dance at the University of Surrey, Roehampton and teaches Modern Art History for the Open University. She has published numerous articles on dance, ballet, and the scenic designer Georgi Iakulov in publications such as Dance Research. Richard Stites is Professor of History at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. He is the author of The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), Revolutionary Dreams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), and Russian Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Pekka Suutari is Lecturer in Musicology and researcher in the Karelian Institute at the University of Joensuu, Finland. He is Chairman of the Finnish Society for Ethnomusicology, and amongst his publications are Götajoen jenkka. Tanssimusiikki ruotsinsuomalaisen identiteetin rakentajana [Dance Music in Constructing the Finnish-Swedish Identity] (2000) and 'Defining Minority Identity in Music: A Study of Swedish-Finnish Popular Music in the Dance Halls of Gothenburg', in T. Rautiainen and T. Hautamäki (eds), Popular Music Studies in Seven Acts. Conference Proceedings of the Finnish

Society for Ethnomusicology (1996).

Acknowledgements The idea for this volume of essays on Soviet music and society under Lenin and Stalin came about as a result of a conversation the editor had with Caroline Brooke at the annual conference of the British Association of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies (BASEES) in April 2000. The editor would like to thank Oxford University Press for granting permission to reprint (with minor transliterative and stylistic changes) Anna Ferenc's essay 'Music in the socialist state'. It was originally published in C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (eds.), Russian Cultural Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 109–119. I am also grateful to Peter Lang AG for allowing me to reproduce the musical examples in my essay ' "Lenin is always with us": Soviet Musical Propaganda and its Composers during the 1920s'. They were frst published in my book The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000). I would also like to thank Peter Sowden of RoutledgeCurzon for his enthusiastic support for this project from the outset, all the contributors for promptly replying to my queries, and the School of History at the University of the West of England, Bristol, for funding the compilation of the index.

A note on transliteration A modified version of the Library of Congress system of transliteration has been used in the majority of essays in this volume. Soft and hard signs have been omitted with the exception of original Russian titles of works or institutions, and concessions were made to pronunciation and tradition. Authors of essays on non-Russian subjects have adopted systems of transliteration that they felt more appropriate to a particular nationality. Certain names will, however, appear in their usual anglicised forms irrespective of nationality. The Library of Congress system of transliteration has been more strictly adhered to in the endnotes of essays than in the main bodies of the texts.

Introduction

Neil Edmunds This volume of essays investigates the place of music in Soviet society primarily (although not exclusively) during the eras of Lenin and Stalin. All the contributions highlight the different strategies that composers and musicians adopted in their attempts to carve out careers in a rapidly evolving society, the role played by music in Soviet society and peoples' lives, and how a political ideology proved an inspiration as well as an inhibition. They prove that long gone are the days when Stanley Krebs felt obliged to claim that 'the ideal scholar … to investigate Soviet music must be an impossible combination of trained, experienced musician and trained, experienced historian'.1 Numerous recent and forthcoming publications on Soviet musical life illustrate how historians and musicologists have cast off the chains of rigid disciplinary boundaries, and the diverse backgrounds of the contributors to this volume refect this.2 Writers on Soviet music and musical life have also fnally realised that it is not enough just to describe what went on in the past, but seek explanations to explain why phenomena occurred and why people acted as they did.3 Attempts to seek explanations and solve problems can of course be a painful experience both for those searching for answers and for those reading the answers. They may challenge existing and comfortable perceptions of Soviet musical life, but this is a small price to pay for a closer understanding of what actually went on at the time. Much credit must therefore be given to Christopher Norris for having the courage to admit in the most recent edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians what many privately felt but were too afraid to say: 'Fine music has come from the spirit, if not the bureaucratic letter, of socialist realism, by composers within the Soviet Union … and beyond'.4 However, readers do not have to take Norris's word for this, they can decide for themselves. Thanks to enterprising record labels such as Marco Polo, Chandos, Olympia, and Arte Nova taking advantage of the deregulation of the former Soviet music industry, it is now possible to hear music by a wider variety of Soviet composers than ever before.

Despite these advances, though, there are still areas in which the study of Soviet music and musical life outside the former Soviet Union is still lacking. There have been, for example, very few collections of essays similar to this volume published since Malcolm Brown's Russian and Soviet Music. Essays for Boris Schwarz in 1984. There was also no worthy successor to Boris Schwarz's detailed Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917–1981 until Levon Hakobian's Music in the Soviet Union, 1917–1987.5 There have, of course, been numerous volumes devoted to the life and work of Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitrii Shostakovich, and rightly so, because they were undoubted geniuses. There will always be an interest in Soviet music thanks to Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and three essays are devoted to these composers in this volume, since they are impossible to ignore in any study of Soviet musical life. However, the emphasis on Shostakovich and Prokofiev is one reason why composers and musicians who were just as signifcant in the context of their time and place as the two great men have been neglected. It is to those individuals, as well as to Shostakovich and Prokofiev, that the essays in this volume are dedicated. There are too many of these characters to discuss here, but take for example Uzeyir Hajibeyov, the subject of Matthew O'Brien's essay. As O'Brien explains, Hajibeyov's achievements in the context of both pre-Revolutionary and Soviet Azerbaidzhan far outshone those of Glinka in terms of the development of Russian music, but writers have neglected him. If he is mentioned at all, it is as the composer of the operas Leyli and Majnun and Koroghlu. However, as O'Brien points out, there was much more to Hajibeyov's musical legacy than these two works. There were also his musical comedies, such as Arshin Mal Alan, which thanks to its for adaptation for cinema 'exposed the beauty, richness and elegance of Hajibeyov's music to millions of viewers of all nationalities'.6 Some of O'Brien's suggestions for why Hajibeyov has been neglected can also be applied to a number of other figures in this volume. For example, he claims that: As the Cold War intensifed, musicologists increasingly emphasised composers who were in conflict with, or who had suffered at the hands of, the Soviet authorities. Composers who were deemed to have found a working compromise with the regime were simply ignored or at best slandered.

Until very recently, the same fate also befell the composers discussed in Neil Edmunds's essay on the varied forms of Soviet musical propaganda of the 1920s. They were the pioneers of collaborating with the regime, and their reputations have suffered as a result. Yet not only were they among the most prolifc Soviet composers of the 1920s, they also played a crucial role in the

development of amateur musical activities and mass musical education. Moreover, they constituted an important cog in the government's propaganda machine, and their music was often more popular than has been suggested. Most importantly, they also personifed the idealism and enthusiasm instilled by Bolshevik rule, even if ideology was not the primary motive for 'collaborating' with the new regime in certain cases. The idea that the October Revolution and Bolshevik rule can inspire and enthuse artists and composers troubles many people in our largely anti-Communist world, but it is a recurring theme of several of the essays in this volume. Music has been widely defined, and the essays of Gerard McBurney, John Riley and Richard Stites illustrate why this is essential in any study of Soviet musical life. To complement Richard Stites's overview of the development of popular music, Anna Ferenc's introduction to the development of Soviet musical life in general from 1917 to 1953 sets the following essays in context. Gerard McBurney then bridges the gap between 'popular' and 'art' music in an essay that investigates Shostakovich's music of the late 1920s and early 1930s in the context of Soviet music-hall and estrada (light entertainment). McBurney places particular emphasis on the development of music-hall in the USSR, and the link between music hall, modernism and Shostakovich's music. He also discusses in some depth Uslovno ubityi, a stage work that involved many of the leading figures in Soviet cultural life, and to which Shostakovich composed the music. Uslovno ubityi was virtually unknown until Gerard McBurney himself reconstructed some of Shostakovich's music from the show in 1991 under the title Hypothetically Murdered. John Riley, on the other hand, discusses Shostakovich's most frequently heard work, Pesnia o vstrechnom [Song of the Counterplan], in his essay. Pesnia o vstrechnom was a hit throughout the world in left-wing circles before the Second World War, and even made it to Hollywood when the Soviet Union and the United States were wartime allies and Stalin was Newsweek's Man of the Year twice.7 As Richard Stites would testify to, and as John Riley points out, the song 'was also sung in school assemblies all over the world', and performed under the title The United Nations March at the frst United Nations Day Concert in October 1954. Yet despite its phenomenal popularity and the fact that Shostakovich used the song in several other works, Pesnia o vstrechnom has been neglected by scholars, because as Riley correctly asserts, 'some genres are more equal than others and … film scores and songs have not had the exposure or level of

analysis that some of his [i.e. Shostakovich's] other works have enjoyed'. The music of Prokofiev, and in particular the ballet Le Pas d'Acier, is the subject of Lesley-Anne Sayers and Simon Morrison's essay. Sayers and Morrison set Le Pas d'Acier in its Soviet context, even though it was composed while Prokofiev was living in self-imposed exile in Paris. In contrast to the usual tendency to look in isolation at the ballet in terms of its production by Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes or at Prokofiev's score, they emphasise the collaborative aspects of its genesis. By doing so, they quite rightly 'reconnect the work to its source: the revolutionary avantgarde of the early Soviet period'. Particular reference is made to the roles played in the creation of the ballet by Georgii Iakulov and Vsevolod Meyerhold, but to single out just two individuals would not do justice to the authors' broad approach to their subject. As Sayers and Morrison point out: 'The ballet embodies in microcosm the entire enterprise of redefining and reconstructing art, the artist, and the theatre in accord with Soviet aspirations.' Consequently, there seem very few members of the revolutionary avant-garde of the early Soviet period that do not get a mention. Parallels in this respect can be drawn with Gerard McBurney's essay, since it also transcends a discussion of a single composer and individual work. McBurney, Sayers, and Morrison present us instead with kaleidoscopic overviews of episodes of Soviet cultural history that are generated from the study of two individual works: Le Pas d'Acier and Uslovno ubityi. Invariably, most studies of Soviet musical life have concentrated on the main cultural centres of Moscow and Leningrad. However, as Robin LaPasha argues in her study of Olympiads of amateur art and amateur music-making in Ivanovo, a provincial perspective can often provide greater insight than the view from the centre. She notes how the Moscow-based journals that covered amateur musical activities tended to give a superfcial and narrow view of events and largely ignored provinces like Ivanovo. This was despite the fact that performers who had been recruited from the provinces gave many of the performances of folk music in Moscow and Leningrad, and that questions applicable on a provincial level were also applicable on a national level. Why, for example, did performers enter the Olympiads when they were not a required to do so, and why were Olympiads so popular from 1933 to 1939? In answering these and other questions, LaPasha concludes that on the evidence of events in the province of Ivanovo: 'the assumptions of the uniform control of Soviet cultural activities during the 1930s should be challenged'. Her essay

also paints a vivid picture of amateur music-making in the province, and discusses in a musical context the signifcance of issues of age, gender, and cultural geography, as well as the effects of the onset of professionalisation and centre–periphery relations. The effects of the onset of professionalisation and centre–periphery relations are also themes that loom large in the fnal four essays of the volume. Although it is impossible to do full justice to the ethnic diversity of the Soviet Union, there has at least been an attempt to refect the multi-national nature of the Soviet state with essays on aspects of musical life in Azerbaidzhan, Armenia, Karelia, and Kazakhstan. The four essays deal with similar issues, most notably the musical ramifcations of the policy of korenizatsiia,8 and the role played by music in the construction of a new, multi-national state. Andy Nercessian and Michael Rouland in their essays on Armenia and Kazakhstan also provide theoretical frameworks that can be applied to the Soviet Union as a whole, although both warn of the danger of making generalisations. Nercessian makes the crucial point that the 'Soviet authorities encouraged what they considered harmless forms of national assertion, and music was as harmless a medium for such assertions as the Soviet authorities could hope for'. The traditional Marxist-Leninist distrust of nationalism was thus pushed aside when it came to attempting to solve the problem of how to construct a multi-national nation-state. Nercessian also makes what for some would be a controversial point that 'Soviet cultural policy had a greater effect on folk than classical or any other genre of music'. The reason for this, he argues, was that the effect of Soviet cultural policy on folk music led to a dramatic transformation of not only the music, but of virtually everything to do with this music, from the folk musician's education and the transmission of songs to the context of performance and the way folk musicians were regarded.

What Andy Nercessian describes as the 'institutionalisation', 'professionalisation', 'standardisation', and 'ensemblisation' of folk music and its performance are also themes that Pekka Suutari discusses in the context of Soviet Karelia. Drawing on eyewitness accounts in addition to primary and secondary sources, Suutari charts the development of musical life in Soviet Karelia from 1920 to 1940, noting in particular the important role FinnishAmerican immigrants played in this process. These immigrants were undoubtedly a social group who benefited from the 'professionalisation' and expansion of musical life in the republic, since they were able to find work in the numerous institutions founded during the early 1930s.9 But whereas the professionalisation of musical life in Karelia was benefcial in that it provided

employment and a catalyst for composition, Robin LaPasha suggests that the opposite occurred in Ivanovo. The transition from amateur to professional ensembles there 'diminished the quality of the amateur groups, and made local Olympiads of 1938–39 less diverse and entertaining'. The process of 'ensemblisation' that was illustrated in the Armenian context by the Aram Merangulian Ensemble was mirrored in Karelia by Viktor Gudkov's Kantele Ensemble. The Kantele Ensemble was different from most other ensembles, because its members performed on instruments that had been specifcally designed for performance in an ensemble with a wide repertoire. However, as Suutari points out, 'like so many of the folk music ensembles established during the Stalinist period, the Karelian Kantele Ensemble is still popular today' despite the demise of Communism. This is somewhat of a paradox, since the creation of the Kantele Ensemble and countless other groups that came about because of the 'ensemblisation' process were intrinsically linked to Stalin's cultural policy. Michael Rouland investigates in his essay how the Soviet authorities utilised popular music to promote nationalism and facilitate the process of statebuilding in Kazakhstan. Particular reference is made to the Kazakh dekada (ten-day festival) of art and culture in Moscow in May 1936, and the roles played by Akhmet Jubanov and Evgenii Brusilovskii in the creation of Kazakh national music. Brusilovskii was one of several western classically trained composers and performers, usually from Russia or the Ukraine, who were sent to outlying regions of the Soviet Union to help develop local musical cultures along the lines desired by the authorities in Moscow. Matthew O'Brien, for example, notes the role played by Reinhold Glière in the development of Azeri music, while Pekka Suutari singles out Leopold Teplitskii as playing an important part in the musical life of Soviet Karelia.10 These composers carried out research into the indigenous music of their particular region, composed music based on their findings, helped establish choirs, orchestras and music schools, and collaborated with the first products of the new schools or anybody who showed a talent for composing as long as they were local. As Rouland points out, the operas of Brusilovskii were well received by Moscow audiences when they were performed during the dekada. However, he concludes that the significance of the festival itself was because 'it legitimised the unique nature of the Kazak cultural "nation" in the same year that Kazakstan [ sic ] attained the status of a full constituent republic'. That music played an important role in the Kazakh and other

dekady held from 1936 to 1941 vividly illustrates (even if in only ten-day microcosms) the general significance of music to the process of Soviet nation-building, the overarching theme of the final four essays in this volume.

Notes 1 S.D. Krebs, Soviet Composers and the Development of Soviet Music (London: Allen and Unwin, 1970), p. 13. 2 See, for example, N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000); D. Haas, Leningrad's Modernists 1917–1932. Studies in Composition and Musical Thought, 1917–1932 (New York: Peter Lang, 1998); and A. Nelson, Music for the Revolution: Russian Musicians and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2004). See also C. Brooke, 'The Development of Soviet Music Policy, 1932–1941'. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1998. 3 A debt on this account must be paid to the work of Richard Taruskin. See in particular R. Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 4 C. Norris, 'Socialist realism', in S. Sadie (ed.), New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition, vol. 23 (London/New York: Macmillan, 2001), p. 600. 5 M.H. Brown (ed.), Russian and Soviet Music. Essays for Boris Schwarz (Ann Arbor: UMI Imprints, 1984); and L. Hakobian, Music in the Soviet Union, 1917–1987 (Stockholm: Melos Music Literature, 1998). 6 T.K. Egorova, 'Muzyka kino', in M.E. Tarakanov (ed.), Istoriia sovremennoi otechestvennoi muzyki, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1999), p. 457. 7 A feat only emulated by Pope John Paul II! 8 Korenizatsiia can literally be translated as 'indigenisation'. The policy of Korenizatsiia is succinctly defined in Michael Rouland's essay in this volume as 'the policy of "rooting" indigenous languages and native party cadres in Soviet national governments'. 9 Although it should also be noted that they were the social group who suffered most during the purges. As Pekka Suutari points out: 'In the space of two years (1937 and 1938), fourteen of the orchestra's Finnish-American players were executed, while three others were sent to prison camps as part as of the campaign to liquidate Finnish nationalism in Karelia. 10 Although Teplitskii was in Karelia not because he had been sent by the Union of Composers or any other official body, but because he was interned in a prison camp there in 1930.

1 Music in the socialist state

Anna Ferenc

Modernism and Proletkult, 1921–1932 In discussing initial musical developments under proletarian dictatorship in Russia, one must distinguish between the political structuring of the art on the one hand and, on the other, actual music-making. From the political point of view, the year 1921 marks a relatively signifcant victory for the state in its bid for more control in the cultural arena once the autonomous and in part reactionary forces of the Proletkult had been disbanded in October 1920. However, the absence of a clear ideological programme for the proletarianisation of music, confusion over the abstract nature of the art, and the need to rely on fellow-travellers for leadership allowed for the continuation of agendas that had existed before 1921 and, in some respects, even before 1917. This situation combined with improvement in economic conditions under the New Economic Policy (NEP) and Lenin's position that 'cultural problems cannot be solved as quickly as political and military problems'1 to yield a musical eclecticism that would play itself out only on the eve of the next decade. Western scholarship has traditionally acknowledged that music thrived under the NEP despite various material shortages. The period has generally been associated with 'a lessening of revolutionary militancy, a relaxation of ideological tensions [and] a greater permissiveness in matters of musical taste and style'.2 For example, with the resumption of Western contacts interrupted since 1914, the NEP period saw a re-emergence of activities reminiscent of the pre-Revolutionary Evenings of Contemporary Music. These were concerts in St Petersburg sponsored by the World of Art group from 1902 onwards. Under the guidance of Viacheslav Karatygin, they presented Russian audiences with works by Western composers such as Mahler, Strauss, and Ravel, together with works by contemporary Russian composers such as Skriabin, Rachmaninov, and Medtner. Debussy, Reger, and Schoenberg made personal appearances at these Evenings, and it was at one of these concerts in 1909 that Diaghilev was introduced to the music of Stravinsky, an encounter that led him to commission Zhar-ptitsa [The Firebird]. In the same way, in the NEP period foreign artists were invited to perform in Russia, and foreign composers of new music, among them Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, and Franz Schreker, conducted Russian premieres of their own works. Between 1925 and 1927, Leningrad audiences

witnessed performances of Igor Stravinsky's Pul'chinella [Pulcinella] and Baika pro lisu, petukha i baraban [Renard], Ernst Krenek's Der Sprung über den Schatten, Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, and Berg's Wozzeck. A reciprocal interest in contemporary Russian music emerged in the West. The works of modern Soviet composers, such as Samuel Feinberg, Alexander Mosolov, and Nikolai Miaskovskii, were played at the prestigious music festivals of the International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM). In addition, under a special arrangement with the Soviet State Publishing House, new Russian scores were issued by Universal Edition in Vienna. These events represent but one facet of musical life in the 1920s and, by the end of the decade, a distinctly less modernist, more proletarian-oriented stance began to dominate the musical arena. This and other developments during the period can best be understood in terms of existing factions in the musical community, their competitive attempts to provide the new social order with an appropriate cultural response, and the changing political strengths of players in key administrative positions committed to particular aesthetic platforms. The definition and implementation of an ideologically correct musical agenda was debated vehemently throughout the 1920s. But these polemical battles essentially propagated factionalism that arose during the Civil War. In part, factionalism was allowed to develop under Lunacharskii's leadership of Narkompros (the People's Commissariat of Enlightenment). As a Bolshevik intellectual, Lunacharskii encouraged artists to pursue 'revolutionary inspiration' in their art, but also defended pre-Revolutionary cultural achievements as the legitimate inheritance of the proletariat and, so as to entice co-operation from highly skilled, politically independent professionals, recognized the need for creative freedom and individuality of expression. His choice of Arthur Louriè (Artur Lur'e) to head the Commissariat's music division (Muzo) refects this liberal policy. Lourié actively promoted the cause of modern music and thought the art form to be essentially an apolitical medium. As reported later by critic and musicologist Leonid Sabaneev: Due to the good fortune that the first music 'minister' of Soviet Russia was Arthur Lourié, himself an ultra-modernist and follower of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, the modern school of thought predominated in the musical bureaucratic circle, entirely to the disadvantage of the representatives of moderate and conservative trends. A strong promotional propaganda was organized for the modernists; their works were published by the State, an act that doubtlessly represented a positive aspect of this period.3

Other music specialists who allied themselves with the Narkompros agency included the composers and modernist sympathizers Vladimir Shcherbachev and Nikolai Miaskovskii; the musicologists Pavel Lamm, Nadezhda Briusova, and Boris Asafev; the critics Vladimir Derzhanovskii and Viacheslav Karatygin; the pianists Konstantin Eiges and Konstantin Igumnov; and the violinist Lev Tseitlin, who in 1922 founded a successful conductorless orchestra, Persimfans, which gave impressive performances of not only the standard classical repertoire, but also challenging contem- porary scores. Within an additional 'academic' subsection in Muzo, which in October 1921 became Russia's frst State Institute of Musical Science (Gosudarstvennyi institut muzykal'nykh nauk, GIMN), music researchers such as Sabaneev, Nikolai Ianchuk, Petr Zimin, and Mikhail Ivanov-Boretskii pursued scholarly and educational interests. Lourié's exclusionary professional aesthetic, however, soon elicited complaints from the revolutionary-minded Trade Union of Art Workers (Rabis) and was the cause of his early dismissal and replacement by the more moderate former Proletkult member Boris Krasin in 1921. During the Civil War, musicians took part in 'enlightenment' programmes for workers that yielded a proliferation of military bands and amateur choral studios. Insisting that artistic creativity be ideally limited to events and subjects 'by, for and about workers',4 the more militant faction of these Proletkult organisations can be seen as a precursor of the movement to proletarianise music in the 1920s. However, the primary focus of the Proletkult's music studios involved familiarising workers with the classics of Russian and Western art music as well as the Russian folksong, and relied on the expertise of highly trained musicians such as Boris Krasin, Nadezhda Briusova, and Alexander Kastalskii.5 In addition to the focus on working with the masses, the Moscow Proletkult's music division afforded a place for a small avant-garde group eager to break with the conventions of the past in an attempt to forge truly new forms of musical expression. Perhaps the most iconoclastic product to emerge from this effort was Arsenii Avraamov's Simfoniia gudkov [Symphony of Hooters], which was executed in Baku harbour to mark the anniversary of the Revolution in 1922, and recreated less successfully in Moscow the following year. The instruments of the orchestra in Baku included navy ship sirens and whistles, bus and car horns, a machine gun battery, and cannons, as well as a complex, specially designed 'whistle main' (magistral'). The composition involved the superposition of cannon

volleys, sirens, horns, and whistles with renditions of the Internationale, the Marseillaise , and the Varshavianka by a mass band and choir.6 Avraamov also experimented with microtonal compositional possibilities, and eventually developed a 48-part octave subdivision at GIMN. His microtonal interests were shared early on by Lourié and Ivan Vyshnegradskii and predated the establishment in Petrograd of a Society for Quarter-Tone Music in 1923 by Georgii Rimskii-Korsakov (a nephew of the well-known composer, Nikolai). The interest in quarter-tone composition received a favourable assessment from Lunacharskii even as the frst electronic instru ment, the 'Termenvox' or 'Theremin', invented by the acoustics engineer Lev Termen (known abroad as Leon Theremin), attracted praise from Lenin in 1922. The Theremin was to have far-reaching applications, making its way into compositions by Joseph Schillinger, Edgard Varese, the sound tracks of Hollywood films, and American popular music culture. In 1923, an Association of Contemporary Music (Assotsiatsiia sovremennoi muzyki, ASM) was established in Moscow, and for a time also served as the Russian chapter of the ISCM. Aiming to promote contemporary Russian works at home and abroad and to enhance Soviet musical life with performances of some of the latest compositions from the West, it represented highly trained musicians of progressive, if not modernist, orientation. Under the administrative leadership of Derzhanovskii and fellowcritic Viktor Beliaev, the Association counted among its adherents Miaskovskii, Lamm, Feinberg, Sabaneev, Konstantin Saradzhev, and Nikolai Roslavets. Asafev and Shcherbachev became involved in a similar though separate organisation by the same name in Leningrad. The positions occupied by many of these individuals in conservatories, state agencies, and all divisions of Narkompros in particular allowed them to achieve their objectives and to influence and encourage a younger generation of composers that included Alexander Mosolov, Leonid Polovinkin, Vissarion Shebalin, Vladimir Deshevov, and Dmitrii Shostakovich. The ASM published periodicals and sponsored a series of chamber and orchestral concerts that featured the music of European composers such as Hindemith, Milhaud, Béla Bartók, Arthur Honegger, Erik Satie, and Karol Szymanowski, as well as compositions by the Russians Feinberg, Miaskovskii, Roslavets, Mosolov, Polovinkin, and Shebalin. Within the modernist circle, two composers are particularly noteworthy: Nikolai Roslavets (1881–1944) and Alexander Mosolov (1900–73).

Representing the older generation, Roslavets was a leading fgure in the most avant-garde sphere of the modernist cause, a relatively prolifc composer during the 1920s, and initially a dedicated Communist who held positions in Rabis, the Moscow Proletkult, the Administration of Professional Education (Glavprofobr) in Narkompros, and the State Publishing House (Gosizdat) among others. Between 1913 and 1919, he developed a system of tone organisation, which he continued to apply to his chamber and orchestral compositions throughout the next decade. Based on the manipulation of 'synthetic chords', it resembles Skriabin's late compositional practice, and its complexity attracted comparison at home and later abroad with the dodecaphonic work of Arnold Schoenberg.7 After the Revolution, Roslavets naively defended his pre-Revolutionary compositional creed by drawing an analogy between his emancipation of music from outdated conventions and the new socialist structuring of society. His modernism, however, soon proved to be unacceptable, and, by the early 1930s, his music was silenced and his name disappeared from reference sources. Mosolov, on the other hand, was a promising young composer who gained international notoriety in the late 1920s and early 1930s for his orchestral piece Zavod [The Iron Foundry], the frst movement of a suite excerpted from the ballet Stal' [Steel], which was never staged. Often associated with constructivism, the composition's portrayal of machines in motion through a layering of motoric, dissonant, and percussive ostinatos actually has much in common with the earlier Cubo-Futurist aesthetic. First performed along with Roslavets's cantata 'October' and Shostakovich's Second Symphony at an ASM concert in 1927 to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Revolution, The Iron Foundry was subsequently acclaimed at the ISCM festival in Liège in 1930 and was featured at the Hollywood Bowl in 1932. In 1923, the Association of Proletarian Musicians (later the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians, or RAPM) was founded by members of the propaganda division (agitotdel) of the State Publishing House. Originally consisting of individuals who were 'just beginning musical training or had been more active in revolutionary politics than in the mainstream of musical life',8 it was committed to promoting music that was readily accessible and ideologically clear in the manner of revolutionary songs and mass choruses. The organisation was frmly set against modernism and rejected cultivation of any ties with the West. Consequently, in its struggle for power and infuence, the RAPM targeted the alliance between the musical establishment and the

agencies of Narkompros by accusing the ASM of propagating 'decadent', 'bourgeois', 'formalist' ideology. While members of the RAPM produced music of little lasting value, the efforts of the Production Collective at the Moscow Conservatoire (Prokoll) founded in 1925 were a little more successful. Embracing the proletarian cause, but distancing itself from the simplistic, militant rhetoric of the RAPM, Prokoll aimed to operate as a collective, though its best work was accomplished by the gifted student Alexander Davidenko. Confusion over defining and developing a truly Soviet music for the new uneducated proletarian audience fuelled growing ideological debates in which the communist membership of proletarian forces eventually gained the upper hand. In 1929, Lunacharskii left his post in Narkompros, and the ASM ceased its activities shortly thereafter. To escape the increasing political turmoil, certain composers such as Roslavets and Mosolov spent time in Central Asia composing music based on indigenous folk melodies. Miaskovskii, on the other hand, having emerged as the foremost Soviet symphonist, abandoned the ASM. In the twilight of NEP culture, a cry for central intervention in musical affairs was raised in all quarters. Guidance came on 23 April 1932, in the form of the Party resolution 'On the Reformation of Literary and Artistic Organizations'. This dissolved all existing proletarian organisations, replaced them with unions containing a communist faction, and instituted the elusive aesthetic doctrine of 'socialist realism', advocating the portrayal of an idealistic reality in its 'revolutionary development'.9 In so doing, the resolution ended a period of fexibility and began an era of state-controlled cultural regimentation.

Music after 1932: centralisation and cultural control A single Union of Soviet Composers (Soiuz sovetskikh kompozitorov) for composers and musicologists was established in 1932 in Moscow and Leningrad. By 1940, branches existed in many other urban centres throughout most of the republics. An Organisational Committee (Orgkomitet), directed by such recognised composers as Shostakovich, Reinhold Glière, Iurii Shaporin, Dmitrii Kabalevskii, Aram Khachaturian, and Viktor Belyi, was set up in 1939 to coordinate activities in Moscow. Its mouthpiece was the periodical Sovetskaia muzyka [Soviet Music], founded in 1933, whose aim was to oppose 'the ideology of modernists as well as the leftist interpretation of Marxism' and to promote 'the development of a Marxist-Leninist musicology'.10 In the musical community, the goal from now until the death of Stalin in 1953 would be to uphold the directives of the 1932 resolution and, with help from the central authority, to root out counterrevolutionary, formalist (read 'modernist') tendencies. In the midst of these new developments, Prokofiev returned to Moscow from his sojourn abroad. After many extended visits that began in 1932, his repatriation was completed in 1936. Overtaken by nostalgia for his homeland and a desire to compose for the Russian people, Prokofiev was not entirely averse to writing music that was more accessible as long as it did not lead to 'provincialism'. In adjusting to Soviet musical sensibilities, Prokofiev welcomed the challenge of composing for a proletarian audience. Though several of his works dating from the 1930s were unsuccessful, others, such as the orchestral suite from Podporuchik Kizhe [Lieutenant Kijé , 1934], the ballet Romeo i Dzhul'etta [Romeo and Juliet, 1935–6], the symphonic tale Petr i volk [Peter and the Wolf, 1936], and the Second Violin Concerto (1935), brought him much repute. Semen Kotko, premiered in 1940, was Prokofiev's first attempt at composing a Soviet opera. His search for an appropriate middle ground between aria and recitative produced a melodic style that was unacceptable to the authorities, who ultimately discarded the work. The artistic versatility displayed by the young Shostakovich worked at frst to his advantage. Although his training under Glazunov linked him with preRevolutionary traditions, as a graduate of the Leningrad Conservatoire in 1925, Shostakovich belonged to the frst generation of musicians educated

under Soviet rule. His frst symphony and graduation piece, which was premiered in 1926, launched him immediately into an international career. It was followed by such inventive compositions as his frst Piano Sonata (1926), a collection of piano miniatures titled Aforizmy [Aphorisms], and the opera Nos [The Nose] – a satirical masterpiece after Gogol conceived in 1927 and first performed in 1930. At the same time, Shostakovich paid homage to the proletarian side of musical developments in his two subsequent symphonies. Written to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Revolution in 1927, the Second Symphony was dedicated 'To October', while the Third Symphony of 1929 was subtitled 'The First of May'. Both are single-movement compositions that include choruses on revolutionary texts set in a sharplycontrasting, straightforward fashion. Thus, while proletarian critics denigrated The Nose for its misguided experimentation and lack of appropriate ideological content, they found signs of promise in the composer's symphonies and film music. Shostakovich's second opera accomplished what had heretofore been frustratingly unattainable: the creation of a Soviet opera of high quality that refected contemporary realities and aspirations. Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda ( Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, also known as Katerina Izmailova, composed in 1930–32) was premiered in Leningrad in 1934 to critical and popular acclaim. In addition to nearly 200 Russian performances, the work was exported internationally to New York, London, Stockholm, Prague, Zurich, Ljubljana, and Copenhagen. However, although originally hailed as 'a great achievement of Soviet culture',11 it was soon officially condemned for its vulgarity by an article in Pravda on 28 January 1936 headlined 'Muddle instead of Music' ('Sumbur vmesto muzyki'). Stalin, who had attended a performance of the opera, is known to have regarded Nikolai Leskov's story of lust, greed, rape, and murder in pre-Revolutionary provincial Russia as entirely inappropriate subject-matter for Soviet art. The Pravda editorial (no doubt composed at his behest) criticised the dissonance and confusion of Shostakovich's musical setting, and also its 'pornographic' qualities. A week later, a second article in Pravda singled out ideological shortcomings in Shostakovich's ballet, Svetlyi ruchei [The Limpid Stream]. Though the strategic assault targeted one composer, it was appropriately interpreted as a warning to the entire musical community. In subsequent Union meetings that took place to discuss the official pronouncement, few composers came to Shostakovich's defence. It became clear that, as Stalin's

control tightened and the cultural purges heightened, adherence to the Party line was mandatory and that any sign of modernism was intolerable. Shostakovich responded by withdrawing his Fourth Symphony from performance and writing a Fifth – the subtitle, 'A Soviet Artist's Response to Just Criticism', was not Shostakovich's, but he never repudiated it – which was well received at its premiere in 1937 and restored the composer's status until the next cultural onslaught in 1948. While Lady Macbeth was removed from the stage (it was rehabilitated in 1963), the opera Tikhii Don [The Quiet Don] by Ivan Dzerzhinskii rose to fame on Stalin's personal approval. Dzerzhinskii's work was patriotic, uncomplicated, and featured melodies reminiscent of revolutionary songs. It became the prototype of a new genre of 'song opera' of which Tikhon Khrennikov's V buriu [ Into the Storm, 1939] counts as the most successful example. As composers began to avoid abstract music for safety's sake, a parallel development in the orchestral repertoire became the song symphony, which included simple, politically correct vocal passages within large-scale symphonic forms. Alternatively, indigenous folk music became an invaluable compositional resource. The work of the Georgian-born Armenian composer, Aram Khachaturian, is particularly noteworthy in this regard for its effective infusion of traditional forms with elements of Armenian folk music. Many composers also turned to writing film music. None were as fortunate here as Prokofiev, whose collaboration with Sergei Eisenstein produced such classics as Alexander Nevskii (1938) and Ivan Groznyi [Ivan the Terrible, 1942–45]. However, Isaak Dunaevskii's scores for G. Alexanderov's musical comedies Tsirk [Circus , 1936], Veselye rebiata [The Cheerful Lads, 1939], Svetlyi put' [The Shining Path, 1940], and Volga-Volga (1941) were some of the greatest popular successes of all time, with a number of songs from the films (especially 'Song of the Motherland') becoming known to every Soviet citizen, and loved by a great many. The German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 brought a certain relaxation in artistic ideological constraints. In face of the real possibility of national annihilation, the protection of culture was paramount, but policing it for potential formalist deviation was trivial. All significant cultural institutions of Moscow and Leningrad, as well as such leading musical figures as Miaskovskii, Feinberg, Shaporin, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Khachaturian, were evacuated. Musicians took up arms, continued to perform, supplied a repertoire of patriotic war songs, and composed works of

more lasting artistic value. Of all the compositions written during the war, including the notable war symphonies of Prokofiev, Miaskovskii, and Khachaturian, the most celebrated at home and abroad was Shostakovich's Seventh or Leningrad Symphony. Written in the heat of battle, its direct emotional appeal struck a chord in both Russians and their allies. Completed in December 1941, the symphony was premiered in Kuibyshev early in 1942 by the evacuated Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. Even before the work made its Leningrad debut in August of that year, it was conducted in London and performed in the United States under Toscanini on a national radio broadcast. The symphony continued to be heard throughout the war and, for Russians, it transcended musical boundaries to become a symbol of the nation's struggle and indomitable will to survive. By contrast, the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies that followed elicited mixed reactions. Whereas the Seventh Symphony offered a heroic depiction of the war, the Eighth, composed in 1943, represented a grim contemplation of its horrors. Most striking and powerful, but also most disappointing, was the composition's anti-climactic ending, which undermined any sense of triumph by deliberately avoiding the resolution of tension built up over the five movements. The Ninth Symphony, written to mark the end of the war and premiered in 1945, surprised listeners who were expecting a heroic, monumental, apotheosis to refect images of a glorious, hard-won victory. Instead, Shostakovich presented a brief, exuberant, light-hearted orchestral piece with no grand choruses and no extramusical programme. Following on the heels of the Great Patriotic War, the Cold War and the Iron Curtain marked a return to Party vigilance in cultural affairs through the launching of even harsher ideological campaigns, supervised from 1946–48 by Andrei Zhdanov. During this period of zhdanovshchina, the cultural policies established in the 1930s were revisited and so militantly enforced that they remained intact even after Zhdanov's unexpected death in August 1948. Particularly objectionable, from the Party's viewpoint, was the prevalence after the war of non-programmatic instrumental music at the expense of vocal genres. This trend towards the abstract in music was deemed antithetical to the aesthetic needs of the people. Such critically independent and ideologically misguided expressions as Shostakovich's latest symphonies were unacceptable. Three Party resolutions in 1946 concerning literature, theatre, and film

foreshadowed the blow eventually dealt to music on 10 February 1948 by the resolution 'On the Opera The Great Friendship by V Muradeli'. Muradeli's opera was conceived as a tribute to Stalin's native Georgia, and was the major musical work composed to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Revolution. However, Zhdanov did not approve of either the music or the libretto. Using the work as a point of departure, the 1948 resolution set out to subjugate all musical creativity once and for all to the dictates of a MarxistLeninist doctrine according to Stalin's interpretation. It targeted specifcally the work of Prokofiev, Miaskovskii, Shebalin, Khachaturian, Gavriil Popov, and, again, Shostakovich. These pillars of the musical community were found guilty of 'formalistic distortions and anti-democratic tendencies … alien to the Soviet people and its artistic taste'.12 For them, the official alienation translated into loss of employment, cancellation of performances, and delays in future endeavours. At the Composers' Union, the leadership of the Orgkomitet was deposed and Tikhon Khrennikov was appointed to the post of the Union's General Secretary which he was to hold for many years. A similar censuring of musicologists ensued. In the following year, Russia's best musical scholars were reproached for their interest in foreign music, for approaching Russian music with Western concepts, and for their own associations with composers now out of favour, and were forced to rethink historical developments in light of the official Party line. The resolution of 1948 'initiated a musical witch-hunt and stifed creativity', and also 'exposed the cultural policy of the Soviet Union to world-wide ridicule and contempt'.13 The setback suffered by the musical community was certainly great. In Prokofiev's case, his failing health during his last five years made him more apt to cooperate than to protest. His late works, such as the ballet Kamennyi tsvetok [The Tale of the Stone Flower, 1948–50], the Cello Sonata (1949), the Seventh Symphony (1951–52), and the oratorio Na strazhe mira [On Guard for Peace, 1950] are characterised by lyricism and conventionality. Though he continued until 1952 to revise his masterpiece opera Voina i mir [War and Peace], begun in 1941, a complete performance of it, albeit with cuts, did not take place until 1957, four years after the composer's death. Shostakovich, on the other hand, responded to the situation by working in two musical idioms: one, represented by patriotic film scores, choruses, and the oratorio Pesn' o lesakh [Song of the Forests], conscientiously avoided controversy; the other was a clandestine expression of his artistic voice in such works as the First Violin Concerto (1947–48), the

Fourth String Quartet (1949), and the song-cycle Iz evreiskoi narodnoi pesni [From Jewish Folk Poetry, 1948], all of which were deliberately withheld from performance until well after Stalin's death in 1953. On the eve of the ensuing cultural thaw, it seemed that the musical community fnally understood the ideological path it was to follow. However, a younger generation would soon discover that they were not entirely cut off from foreign ideas. In 1946, the Romanian-born musicologist and composer Filip Herschkowitz (Gershkovich) arrived in Moscow. Having studied with Alban Berg and Anton Webern in Vienna, he fed east to escape Nazi persecution. Barred from the Composers' Union, he nevertheless had opportunities to pass on the teachings of the Second Viennese School through private instruction to such future luminaries as Edison Denisov, Alfred Schnittke, Sofa Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Leonid Hrabovsky, Alexander Vustin, and Elena Firsova. When a Party resolution in 1958 rehabilitated the masters condemned ten years earlier, those embarking on a similar path found support for cultivating their own individual voices.

Notes 1 V. Lenin, New Economic Policy (New York: 1937), p. 274, quoted in B. Schwarz , Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917–1981, enlarged edn (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), p. 42. 2 B. Schwarz, p. 43. 3 L. Sabaneev, 'Die Musik und die musikalischen Kreise Russlands in der Nachkriegszeit', in Muzikblätter des Anbruch, 7, 1925, p. 106. 4 L. Mally, Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), p. 122. 5 See A. Nelson, 'Music and the Politics of Culture in Revolutionary Russia, 1921–30', Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1993, p. 32. 6 See Ibid., p. 31. 7 See, for example, N. Miaskovskii, 'Nikolai Roslavets. I. Tri sochineniia dlia peniia i fortepiano. II. Grustnye peizazhi dlia peniia i fortepiano', in Muzyka, 197, 1914, pp. 542–544, and D. Gojowy, 'Nikolai Andreevic Roslavets, ein früher Zwölftonkomponist', in Die Musikforschung, 22, 1969, pp. 22–38. 8 A. Nelson, p. 59. 9 On socialist realism, see P. Kenez and D. Shepherd, ' "Revolutionary" models for High Literature: Resisting Poetics', in C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (eds), Russian Cultural Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 21–55. 10 B. Schwarz, p. 114. 11 Ibid., p. 119. 12 Ibid., p. 219. 13 Ibid., p. 227.

2 The ways of Russian popular music to 1953

Richard Stites

Twilight zone Urban songs – including composed 'folk' songs – date back to the eighteenth century and became widespread long before 1900. Written by people of various social classes and often published anonymously in penny song-books, they differed from the art song and the folk song in content, melody, performance style, and social appeal. They were broad, sometimes 'vulgar,' accessible, and sensual, while the words, melodies, and rhythms possessed a sharpness rare in other song genres. The style of delivery, a combination of facial expressions, gestures, and postures, differed strikingly from the body language of salon and village street and suited well the timeliness and banality of the words and music. They also frequently suggested individualism or a mild posture of lawlessness and contempt for respectability, which of course explains the appeal to 'the better sort' who were out on the town. The dominant subset of this genre was the 'gypsy' song. All over Eastern and Central Europe, ethnic gypsies were an emblem of freedom, sensuality, and hot temper. In Russia, that freedom signifed the open steppe, rolling wagons, savage dignity, and wanton abandon. Gypsy music evoked a favourite Russian mood of longing for something lost or far away. Offcers, nobles, and rich merchants in particular found a temporary release from 'civilisation' in the great gypsy choirs of taverns and restaurants. The gypsy idiom offered violent and rhythmically exotic fourishes of uncontrolled passion by means of sudden changes in tempo and accelerando– crescendo phrasing. This was brilliantly displayed in staples of the genre, such as Dorogoi dlinnoiu [Endless Road], Ochi chernye [Dark Eyes], and Dve guitary [Two Guitars]. Such songs offered socially unifying entertainment that was perfectly suited to the mixed milieu of the urban restaurant and tavern. Turn-of-the-century 'gypsy' singing stars, rarely real gypsies, sang songs made up of elements borrowed from ethnic gypsy music. The new singers shaped wild sensibilities into a manageable performance art suitable for stage and the intimate restaurant cabinet. The repertoire of Anastasia Vialtseva (1871–1913), for example, combined the sweep and rebelliousness of the older gypsy song with the bitter-sweet nostalgia of urban life. She elicited unabashed tears and sighs of upper- and middle-class patrons who were, through her art, able to make contact with the 'primitive' without ever being

engulfed by it. Vialtseva, who made annual tours all over the empire and became a national fgure, lived out her songs in a private life of extravagant love affairs, conspicuous consumption, lavish spending, and heavy drinking. Nadezhda Plevitskaia (1884–1941), another gypsy star, toured Europe, and was even able to melt the starched audiences of London. Varia Panina (1872– 1911), a true gypsy by birth, dominated the famous Iar Restaurant in Moscow with her ensemble until lured into the concert circuit. Although Panina acquired huge wealth, she died penniless. People who adored gypsy music included the writers Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Blok. Those appalled by it voiced their hostility in racist references to 'hot blood' or tropical passion in almost the same way Americans of the time did about urban 'Negro' music.1 The so-called 'cruel song' or 'urban romance' was more elegiac and more Russian than gypsy in its makeup, but added a coarsening element in the music and a verbal formula of blatant self-pity. Alexander Vertinskii (1889– 1957), the genius of the form, drew a clientele of artists, intelligentsia, students, and a wide assortment of society people who liked their sadness and longing adorned with a touch of cosmopolitan chic. Vertinskii, a tall, slender man and a master of expressive, nuanced gestures, performed in the costume of Pierrot with powdered face and closed eyes his own bittersweet songs of broken love, elegant variants of gypsy and cruel song. His rendition of Dorogoi dlinnoiu (known in English as Those were the Days ) is one of the classics of the repertoire. Vertinskii bathed his verses in images of palm trees, tropical birds, foreign ports, plush lobbies, ceiling fans, and 'pink-tinted seas' (see note 2), treating his patrons to such songs as Jamais, Little Creole Girl, Lilovyi negr [Lily White Negro], and Vashi paltsy pakhet ladanom [Your Fingers Smell of Incense]. The blending of refned irony, decadent wit, and elegiac sorrow made Vertinskii a star of the intimate stage from 1913 to 1914. His fame was broadcast throughout the country through concert tours, movies, sheet music, and phonograph records that were played in Russia long after he emigrated.2 The Russian dance revolution of the early twentieth century was European and American in both form and social function. The tango, the cakewalk, the one-step, and the foxtrot were brought into Russia by foreign visitors and Russian travellers abroad and by choreographic spies sent out to record the new steps. The new dances, originally an upper-class affair, became part of its revolt – as in New York café society of the same period – against the stiffness and formality of traditional balls and suppers. In America, the

popular dance filtered up from Blacks, immigrants, and workers, while it came in at the top and then filtered down to a larger public in Europe and Russia. The charm of ragtime and jazzy dancing lay in its exotic tone and its suggestion of rebelliousness, sensuality, and bodily freedom.3 The world of radical music, wholly remote in spirit and purpose from mainstream popular culture, emerged from the revolutionary subculture. It flourished in a tiny segment of the radical intelligentsia and a small but growing layer of industrial workers, among whom singing was almost the only form of performance possible in an underground milieu. Many songs were European in origin, such as the Rabochia marseieza [Workers' Marseillaise], Internationale, and Varshavianka. The latter opened with an ominous verse about 'the hostile winds raging about us' and the oppressive forces of darkness and evil. The melody, dressed in a driving staccato march beat, was incorporated by Dmitrii Shostakovich into his Eleventh Symphony (1957), a celebration of the 1905 revolution. Russian radical songwriters – like those elsewhere – discovered that almost any kind of music could be radicalised by adding the right words. For example, the melody of the rousing Smelo v boi poidem za vlast' sovetov [Boldly to Battle for Soviet Power] was a café song of the period called Belaia Akatsiia [White Acacia]. Revolutionary lyrics were funereal, visionary, accusatory, or menacing, and the tunes were overwhelmingly mournful. As illegal sounds of protest, they had small audiences under the tsars. After 1917, as hymns of a Bolshevik ideology, they nearly drowned out all other forms of public celebratory music.4 An important, but little observed, historical point is that popular music in tsarist times for the most part dwelt in a world separate from that of classical music. The last great wave of nineteenth-century composers were academic figures, highly professional, and writing in the European idiom perfected in the conservatories of St Petersburg and Moscow that were founded by the Rubinstein brothers in the 1860s. Both the Mighty Five and their alleged opposites made use of the diatonic scale and Western orchestration to great brilliance. Almost all of them, and particularly the last great survivor, Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov (died 1907), employed supposed folk material in operas in both story lines and musical themes. Beyond this homage to the folk, there was little or no interaction with popular genres and certainly not with the dominant genre of urban song. This would change after the revolution, however.

The sound of Revolution After the October Revolution of 1917, music became one of the clearest examples of the dichotomy between the values of the new Bolshevik or Communist regime and popular taste. Classical music had to stand in line as an equal in the ferce debates over what kind of music was suitable for a socialist society. The main positions in this running debate were: nineteenthcentury (i.e. up to 1917) classical music; modernist serious music, mostly European (Hindemith, Ravel, Honegger, Bartók, and others), with some daring Russian practitioners such as Nikolai Roslavets; proletarian choral music exalting revolution; and machine music.5 The offcial position was one of reverence for the high art of the past heard in classical music – Beethoven for his revolutionary spirit, and Tchaikovsky for his Russian soul – and a pious celebration of the revolution heard in proletarian songs. A potent marriage therefore of the mind and the heart, but the canon did not go unchallenged. Throughout the 1920s, members of the avant-garde exalted modernism and the twelve-tone scale; others experimented with machine music, factory whistle concerts, and electronic sonorities. These experiments, however, found little favour either with the regime or with the people. The revolutionary songs that were heard in the early Soviet years filled hundreds of thousands with euphoria and were cherished by them to the end of their days. Thousands of choruses flourished in workers' clubs throughout the land where they sang the old radical songs.6 Although audiences never seemed to tire of singing or hearing these works, there was a thirst for new ones as well. Pre-war popular tunes and folk songs were set to political words: even the notorious Two Guitars was reworked for Party meetings. Martial and folk styles were enlisted to create stirring war songs. The songwriters of the Proletarian Culture movement and in the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) tried to write 'pure' political or factory songs cleansed of all folk elements and with lyrics about foreign enemies and lazy workers. These were so pretentious and abstract that they won few fans. The fetish over 'proletarian music' led to one of the many cultural wars of the 1920s and early 1930s against all forms that were considered alien to working-class sensibilities by those – mostly intellectuals – who waged it. Classical music was condemned for its association with the past, jazz for its links with the West, gypsy and related genres for its roots in

the bourgeoisie, and folk music for its peasant 'backwardness'.7 One of the more unpleasant discoveries of the Communist cultural leaders was that the people, including the glorifed working class, when given a choice actually loved the music they were supposed to despise: light melodies, popular songs, dance tunes, and words that were fun to sing. Even in offcial parades, the masses sometimes broke into such favourites as Gypsy Girl or O Why Did You Kiss Me? Private sheet music frms had been nationalised during the revolution. The allowance of a limited market called the NEP (New Economic Policy, 1921–1928) saw the return of private restaurants and cafés with their familiar strains of prewar dances, sentimental gypsy ballads, and foreign hits. Urban popular music began pouring off the presses, reaching a peak in the last years of the NEP. Censors decided which gypsy songs were suitable for proletarian ears, and which ones promoted anti-social behaviour. The foreign-inspired dance tunes included foxtrot, Boston waltz, tango, and telephone step; works by 'Viennese' operetta composers – Johann Strauss, Emmerich Kalman, and Franz Lehár – and the Americans, Irving Berlin and Vincent Youmans; and exotica such as Rickshaw from Nagasaki, Kreolita [Creolita], and Bagdadskii vor [The Thief of Baghdad] (the film was showing in Moscow at the time). Songwriters who tried to have it both ways produced songs about the new socialist life with catchy melodies, but very non-socialist lyrics. Proletarian composers consequently dismissed such songs as 'music hall chansonettes'.8 A fresh wave of Western jazz re-entered Russia after the Civil War under the more liberal atmosphere of the NEP. Visiting German bands and AfricanAmerican 'Negro revues' laid down a new foundation, and Soviet bands were on hand by the late 1920s. The new jazz found a place for a time in elitist circles. Some serious composers were fascinated by it and some early jazz performances shared the stage with poetry reading. Soviet jazz, highly derivative, had by 1928 conquered large segments of the urban middle classes, NEP businessmen, some workers, and a few powerful government officials who considered it suitable to play at congresses. Both the foreign and the domestic bands ranged from hot and swingy to smoother salon styles, à la the American Paul Whiteman. The original Soviet jazzmen, such as A.K. Lvov-Veliaminov, Sigizmund Kort, Georgii Landsberg, and the better known Utesov and Tsfasman, came mostly from educated ethnic minorities, just as the pioneers of rock music decades later were usually the sons of the intelligentsia. This followed a pattern in many societies where marginals,

intellectuals, and elites spearheaded the innovation (and often importation) of popular culture. When the dance craze inevitably followed the jazz incursion, trouble began. It was one thing to watch a clever group of jazzmen on stage in a sedate setting, but quite another when it was performed in its original habitat: a dance milieu. In the higher-toned dining rooms, the salon dance reigned, and celebrity dance couples sometimes performed imported and erotically suggestive acrobatic steps such as Tango of Death there. The new and revived dance styles won over young and old. However, when jazz dance modes spread to workers' clubs and the restaurants haunted by the new rich of the NEP, some prudish Communist moralisers saw fokstrotizm and tangoizm as harmful; for them a pretty song was like a malady. Though many a party member 'trotted' through the 1920s, some thought dancing was counterrevolutionary or morally indecent, and were repelled by the swaying of female bottoms. Various remedies were suggested. One leader promoted evenings of revolutionary marching for young people. Another suggested creating a Soviet mass dance – the frst of many unsuccessful attempts to head off the spontaneous and near universal Russian passion for shaking the body to the sound of music. Opposition to jazz and the dances it spawned sprang, as elsewhere, from a fear of the body and of mass corruption. These danceand-music battles lasted through the 1920s.9 Unlike in tsarist times, Russian classical composers did not always remain aloof to music of the street and the café. Dmitrii Shostakovich, who had cut his teeth as a taper (cinema pianist), took to jazz idioms for their own sake (as in his pert arrangement of Youman's Tea for Two) and for use as a satirical weapon against decadent capitalism (as in the ballet Age of Gold). Much later, in the 1950s, he also wrote one of the most popular Soviet musical comedies ever produced, Cheremushki, which was recently mounted on the London stage.

Dancing in the dark: the Stalinist 1930s The Proletarian Musicians became militant during the frst fve-year plan and the accompanying Cultural Revolution. They called Western popular music 'the song and dance of the period of the catastrophe of capitalism', the foxtrot a 'dance of slaves', and the tango 'the music of impotents'.10 'Among [Proletarian composers'] typical beliefs were', recalled a contemporary, 'the pre-eminence of vocal over instrumental music, simplicity of form, clarity of harmony, hatred of Western modernism and the importance of folklore.'11 They excoriated all forms of music, whether it be gypsy, jazz, traditional folk, operetta, and classical, except for that propagating industrial construction and collectivisation. To them 'alien' music was a form of sabotage, a dangerous charge in an era when 'wreckers' in industry were tried and sometimes shot; and an American heard a proletarian musical fgure exalt the rhythm of industrial machinery over the music of Bach and Chopin.12 Private sheet music publishing ended in 1929, and gypsy music was banned on radio. Proletarian composers formed shock brigades to churn out songs for workers and collectivised farmers. The campaign against jazz turned nasty in 1928 when the writer Maxim Gorky identifed jazz with homosexuality, drugs, and bourgeois eroticism – charges that were later recycled to ft the rock culture of the late twentieth century. Young Communists patrolled public dance places, and anti-jazz teachers marched into classrooms. Yet the proletarian musicians still failed to produce popular substitutes. They were generally poor composers who could create only simple songs with primitive harmonies, march-like rhythms, and some folk elements. Their iron musical dictatorship was broken in the early 1930s. The success enjoyed by songs from the frst sound film hits revealed that the masses wanted more than proletarian hymns to sing. In 1932, the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians was abolished, and the Soviet leaders now promoted a lightening up of feelings. As a result, popular music of every kind re-emerged.13 The Soviet cultural system that was established in the early 1930s, and lasted with some modifcations until the late 1980s, has often puzzled scholars who look for some kind of standardised and unifed 'totalitarian' culture. If the 1920s featured a relatively lightly controlled pluralism, the Stalinist era produced a carefully controlled pluralism. The pluralism of the 1920s, however, emerged from below and from outside, and was created by forces

outside the state. That of the 1930s, on the other hand, was manufactured, and its pluralist character did not indicate freedom of form and style, but only their variety. The coexistence of neo-gothic skyscrapers, Stanislavsky doing Chekhov, Swan Lake at the Bolshoi Theatre, kitschy musical comedy films, and jazzy music in Moscow hotel dining rooms refected the eclectic viewpoint of political leaders and their cultural managers. Accessible pleasure for the masses, familiar and comfortable High Culture for the elite, monumentalism to match the gigantism of the great construction projects, and themes of happiness and heroism to underpin the Stalinist ideology were all allowed. The Nazis took a similar approach with their Bavarian tent festivals, Prussian-style parades that were captured by Leni Riefenstahl on film, slightly Germanised jazz ensembles, and Wagner, Wagner everywhere. Both Stalin and Hitler thrived on a combination of deep national forms tethered to super-modern factories and weapons systems. The revival of folk music that was viciously assaulted during the Cultural Revolution therefore became a natural part of the 1930s normalisation in culture. Its peasant content, though stylised, reinforced love of the land and thus of the nation or narod. It also sought to project the message of a peasantry now adjusted to collectivisation. In many ways, it resembled the 'happy peasant' image offered all across Eastern Europe between the wars, a device used to defect away thoughts of real poverty and to co-opt themes of the various oppositional agrarian parties. Folklorism – i.e. politicised folk adaptation – became a major industry in the Stalin era. Folk song and dance came back into favour on the wave of the Stalin's 'Great Retreat', a campaign to preserve or revive certain elements Russian history and culture. In 1936, Igor Moiseev established a Theatre of Folk Art in Moscow and his own folk dance ensemble that brilliantly combined the rigour of classical ballet with folkloric steps and village scenes. The State Russian Folk Orchestra and the famed Red Army Band that performed marches and folk music, taken together, represented a familiar blend of military virtue with the simplicity and loyalty of sturdy farm people. Paralleling this Russian effort, composers from all the republics, often assisted by Russian professionals from the capital, folklorised certain Stalinist themes and Sovietised elements of their own native traditions in the creation of a body of new and synthetic ethnic music for each republic. The adaptation and sweetening devices employed resemble those used by American Big Bands in the 1930s and 1940s who 'Yankifed' and smoothed out some of the great tunes from Cuba, Brazil, and

elsewhere in Latin America.14 Like folk music, jazz benefted from the closing down of the dogmatic proletarian Cultural Revolution in 1931–32, but the beneft was short-lived. Frederick Starr has given a moving and amusing account of the zig-zags of Soviet jazz policies in the 1930s. During the 'red jazz age' of 1932 to 1936, European and Soviet bands were heard in dozens of cities. Odessaborn Leonid Utesov was the most popular Soviet jazzman of the era. But, even in the United States, the word jazz had such a wide diapason that it could include the 'society' bands of Lester Lanin and Guy Lombardo, as well as Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington. Utesov more resembled the American Kay Kaiser and his so-called 'college of musical knowledge', a group whose cornball humour counted for more than its musicality. Utesov's spectacular success derived from the comedy film Veselie rebiata [The Happy Go-Lucky Guys] (1934), as well as his wit and versatility. Audiences were enchanted by the bouncy and slightly syncopated sounds of saxophones, muted trumpets, and drum traps. The melodies were mostly Slavic, gypsy, and Jewish; the rhythms often tangoesque, rather than swinging. Utesov offered familiar pop music dressed up in a jazz idiom. Alexander Tsfasman, son of a Jewish barber in the Ukraine, rose to become one of the richest men in the Soviet Union, and led half a dozen bands. A star of radio, concert hall, and film, Tsfasman also cultivated an American style by calling himself 'Bob', marrying an American, and saturating the Soviet musical scene in the 1930s and 1940s with songs like The Man I Love, Shanty Town, and the Glenn Miller classic, Chattanooga Choo-choo from the movie Sun Valley Serenade. Tsfasman thus came closer to the American model, but the model itself was rather conservative. Some critics go so far as to claim that the Big Band sound of Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller was not really jazz at all. The jazz age corresponded with the breathing spell that gave way in 1936 to a new wave of violence unleashed in the form of bloody purges. At the moment of its peak, jazz fell victim to a new assault by envious musicians from other genres, and nationalists and conservatives resentful of imported culture. Division and ambivalence reigned for a while, even among the leaders, but the purge hit hard when it came. One bandleader was arrested on the podium, while others were sent to camps to perish in certain cases. Tsfasman, Utesov and a few others remained untouched only at the price of converting their jazz into a Soviet product, cleansed of decadence. Unwilling wholly to repudiate jazz, the government formed the State Jazz Orchestra in

the late 1930s, a large well-dressed ensemble that played an assortment of ballroom music, classics, and smoothed-out 'jazz' in carefully written arrangements with an emphasis on orchestral colour and texture, rather than on swinging spontaneity. This orchestra, far from being a victory for jazz, in fact represented its temporary death. Yet, local versions of it, approved by the regime, were able to modulate into genuine jazz ensembles that would fourish in the war years.15 Stalinist 'mass' song filled the gap left by the purge of jazzy dance music in the 1930 and for decades afterwards. Unlike the mass songs of the 1920s, which were hardly more than pious revolutionary hymns of protest or funerary lament, the new version of the genre tended to affirm the happiness and enthusiasm of the new era of socialist construction in optimistic, humanitarian, and positive lyrics and accessible tunes. They were given a tremendous boost by their association with Soviet musical films, which in turn were made popular by the songs performed in them. Mass song swelled to a crescendo in the years 1936–41 when jazz was being Sovietised. Most of the songwriters were Jews who had received classical training and then had turned to light music. This was also true of the main figures of the operetta and jazz worlds. Jewish origin was no more an obstacle to this than it was for the Russian-born American Irving Berlin who wrote the hymn-like God Bless America as well as Alexander's Ragtime Band. Isaak Dunaevskii, the acknowledged master of the genre, produced hundreds of marches and songs, twenty film scores, two ballets, music for thirty dramas, and a dozen operettas. He was born near Kharkov of a Jewish family, studied classical music, flirted with avant-garde trends, and then moved into jazz and variety in the 1920s. In the 1930s he was decorated, highly paid, and honoured throughout the country. Facility and a melodic gift brought him success. His compositions, especially the film tunes, were and are undeniably enchanting, and they became enormous national hits precisely because he fused different styles: revolutionary hymn, light romance, operetta, and jazz.16 What we might call the musical status-striving of Dunaevskii and company was mostly a one-way street. In the 1930s, the 'serious' composers, such as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Kabalevskii, and others, remained serious when writing symphonic scores and did not attempt to incorporate popular themes. Shostakovich, however, composed a Jazz Suite and the gloriously melodic score for the film Vstrechnyi [Counterplan], whose main theme formed the melody for an allied wartime anthem entitled the Hymn of the United

Nations.17 On the other hand, Soviet serious composers resembled the popular ones in one important way: they were commissioned by the Stalinist state to exalt through music the achievements and aspirations of the Soviet working class and the Communist Party. In this sense, the meanings (or alleged meanings) of many of their works, like the mass songs, smacked of propaganda and programme.

Notes from the front: the Great Patriotic War A virtual song frenzy was released by the Axis invasion of 1941, indicating a deeply held belief in the magic power of word and melody. Soldiers, sailors, nurses, and officers wrote their feelings into songs, set to old Russian pieces, such as Ei ukhnem [Song of The Volga Boatmen]. Amateur and professional songwriters churned out thousands of new ones, some devoted to particular battles such as the defence of Moscow and, later, the battle of Stalingrad. The Soviet Union was probably the only belligerent that produced songs about female aviators, including fghter pilots who perished in the air, a refection of the massive wartime participation of every element of the population.18 Predictably, no reference to the barbarism of the Nazi occupation policies made it into popular songs; this was consigned to other modes of expression – film and journalism. The anti-Nazi song in Russia – as elsewhere among the Allies – dealt in ridicule: a semi-scatological anti-German satirical number ironically set to the Yiddish song Bei mir bist du shein popular in Russia and in the West in the 1930s and 1940s; and Baron von der Pshik [Baron Zilch], written in the spirit of the American Spike Jones's once famous hit, Right in der Fuhrer's Face. Novelty tunes such as these had no deep impact. Most popular songs dealt with loved ones and hometowns. Prewar songs that evoked associations from school and teenage years, the golden days of youth, courtship and romance, hometown and loved ones also remained popular or enjoyed a revival. The broad Russian land, with its rivers and forests, possessed the same power of geographical association as did the White Cliffs of Dover in Britain or the trysting place under the apple tree in the United States. Nostalgia for the familiar ruled the day. The 1938 hit Katiusha illustrated perfectly how a simple idyll could be adapted for wartime emotions: The apple and pear trees were in bloom. Mists had foated out over the river. Katiusha came out to the river bank, To the high steep bank.

Though a modern composed song, Katiusha drew readily from folk styles – contraction, repetition, a natural setting, and a young maiden. The peasant lass Katiusha (Cathy or Kitty) was transmogrifed by songsmiths into a soldier, a nurse, a partisan, or in the most famous version the Katiusha rocket which 'embraced Fritz' and 'kissed [the fascists] on the forehead'. Katiusha

achieved international fame, but on the home front, two sentimental love-andwar songs that outshone all others were Zhdi menia [Wait for Me], with lyrics by the journalist and novelist Konstantin Simonov and melodic versions by dozens of composers, and Temnaia noch' [Dark is the Night] (music by N. Bogoslovsky, words by V. Agatov). Dark is the Night sings of bullets whistling across the steppe in ferce battle while far away the soldier's wife wipes away a tear beside the cradle of their child. It appeared in the famous film Dva boitsa [Two Warriors]. The film makers used an unfailing device to engage the emotions of the viewers: in a troop dugout between battles, the young and handsome Mark Bernes sings all the verses in a deadpan manner and fat voice with unembellished guitar accompaniment; in the victorious fnale, the tune swells up fortissimo in a lush orchestral arrangement, played maestoso. Both these songs, almost six decades later, are on the lips of virtually every Russian over thirty whom I have ever met. American style jazz re-emerged in the looser cultural milieu of the war, especially after the United States entered it as Russia's ally in December 1941. Utesov successfully blended sweet jazz elements into the wartime mood: his Bombardirovshchiki [Bombardiers] was a straight adaptation of the American hit Comin' in on a Wing and a Prayer and sounds like a Russian theme being played by the Glenn Miller band. Railwaymen, aviators, cooks, and the Secret Police had their own jazz bands, and jazz ensembles were warmly received at the front. There was never enough jazz music for the troops. The wartime jazz star was 'Eddie' (Adolph, although called Adi or Edi) Rosner, born in Berlin, the son of a Polish-Jewish shoemaker. Rosner fed into Soviet territory at the beginning of the war. Along the way from Berlin to Russia, he made the transition from violin to trumpet and from conservatory music to big band. As head of the Belorussian jazz ensemble before the invasion of 1941, he was an affuent Soviet prince under the protection of the local satrap, an avid jazz fan. In 1941 he moved to Moscow, and then toured the front. An admirer of the American trumpeter and bandleader Harry James, Rosner banished the balalaika and concertina from his orchestra and played straight American jazz. A few years after the fghting ceased he and other jazzmen were put under arrest.19

Bye-bye Blues: the Cold War purge The end of the Great Patriotic War ushered in the Cold War and its accompanying Russian chauvinism and anti-cosmopolitanism, a retightening of ideological orthodoxy and control, an austerity programme that was covered over with a glistening cultural smile, and the escalation of the Stalin cult to unprecedented heights. The Cold War with America now as the principal adversary brought back the talk of Western decadence that had dwelt inside the Russian mentality for generations. A great cultural pogrom, the zhdanovshchina, was launched in the years 1946–48. What Andrei Zhdanov and his associates, the guardians of Soviet culture, disliked most of all was foreign inspiration which produced both frivolity (as in jazz) and 'formalism' – a code word for excessive difficulty in classical music. Novelty was the enemy of familiarity and familiarity seemed to guarantee both political and psychological security through comfort and tranquillity. Nostalgia, represented most vividly by 'folk' music, became the handmaiden of stability or even stasis. This is why folksong writing and performance grew so luxuriantly from this time onward. Conservatives feared the far away and the new that were both embodied in the young, and the authorities easily took up the old moralistic critique of popular culture as the ally of vice, sex, and alienation from the system. The deadly purge of American jazz was a by-product of the cultural pogrom. Jazz bandleaders were arrested, jazz groups dissolved or toned down and renamed, and, in 1949, saxophones confscated. What Max Lerner once called 'the American instrument' was to Soviet high priests the evil emblem of an alien civilisation. A stunning irony of late Stalinism was that American jazz, though virtually outlawed, flourished in the vast prison camp system known as the GULag, where arrestees such as Eddie Rosner performed it. Since jazz was labelled an alien form, it was persecuted for that and also in a sense for being too popular and accessible to the Soviet people. The opposite, as is well known, occurred in the realm of symphonic music. When Andrei Zhdanov, the cultural enforcer of the early days of the Cold War, cracked down on Shostakovich and Prokofiev in 1948, it was partly because their music had allegedly strayed from its natural purpose: to refect Soviet patriotism, highlight deeply Russian themes, sing with soaring melodies, and be accessible to the masses.

With renewed vigour, folk ensembles were again promoted by the state and balalaikas mass-produced. Communist snoop squads raided performances, and guards were posted on the dance foor. Dances were even renamed: the foxtrot became the 'quickstep', the tango the 'slow dance', and the waltz the 'ballroom dance'. To fill the ears of loyal Soviets, the mass song composers turned out cheerful operettas, musicals, and songs of sugary patriotism. The 1930s film musical was revived, sunny and optimistic. Dunaevskii showed no signs of diminishing enthusiasm for painting a smile across the Soviet land. His musical film Kubanskie kazaki [Kuban Cossacks] (1949), released at a time of severe shortages and the ravages of recovery, was said to be one of Stalin's favourites. It was a horse operetta with a couple of love plots about Cossack collective farmers competing in a country fair, very reminiscent of Rodgers and Hammerstein's State Fair (1945). The similarity was not coincidental: both involved a double romance amid pastoral and communal celebration and an aura of prosperity. Both also seemed to refect a turn away from urban themes to a more 'authentic' Russia and America of rural values. When Stalin died in 1953, those musicians who wanted to dance to a different piper and march to a different drummer, with ears aching and hearts weary of offcial Stalinist musical culture, wondered what would happen next.20

Notes 1 See I.I. Rom-Lebedev, Ot tsyganskogo khora – k teatru 'Romen': Zapiski moskovskogo tsygana (Moscow, 1990) for the gypsy tavern milieu; G. Soboleva, Russkii sovetskii romans (Moscow, 1985); Ia.I. Gudoshnikov, 'Gorodskoi romans kak sotsialnoe i khudozhestvennoe iavlenie', in Folklor narodov RSFSR (Ufa, 1979), pp. 98–104; R. Rothstein, 'Death of the Folk Song?', in S. Frank and M. Steinberg (eds), Culture in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 108–20. For song stars, see I.V. Nest'ev, Zvezdy russkoi estrady , 2nd edn (Moscow, 1974); Rampa i zhizn', 3, 1910, p. 46 and ibid. 23, 1911, pp. 10–11; A. Kugel, Teatralnye portrety (1923; Leningrad, 1967), pp. 284–93; recordings of Panina, Vialtseva, and Plevitskaia in the collection of Hubertus Jahn of Cambridge University. I thank him for its use. For American reactions to early jazz, see L. Erenberg, Steppin' Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture, 1890–1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). 2 E. Kuznetsov, Iz proshlogo russkoi estrady (Moscow, 1958), pp. 350–52; L. Gendlin, Iz pesen A. Vertinskogo (Stockholm, 1980); A. Vertinskii, Zapiski russkogo Pero and Pesni i stikhi 1916–1937 (New York, 1982); Konstantin Rudnitskii, record jacket notes to Aleksandr Vertinskii (D026773– 026774), made shortly before his death, containing Endless Road [Dorogoi Dlinnoiu ] and Nad rozovym morem [On a Pink-Tinted Sea], amongst others. A more complete and recent collection is Pechalnyia pesenki A.N. Vertinskago: k stoletiia so dnia rozhdeniia, 1889–1989 (M60–48689–001 and 48691–001). 3 S.F. Starr, Red and Hot: the Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 20–36; compare with L. Erenberg, pp. 1–109. 4 Numerous recordings of the more famous revolutionary songs are available on cassette and CD. Analysis in S.D. Dreiden, Muzyka-revoliutsii , 2nd edn (Moscow, 1970); P.G. Shiriaeva, 'Poetic Features and Genre Characteristics of the Songs of Russian Workers (Pre-Revolutionary Period)', in Soviet Anthropology and Archaeology, Summer–Fall, 1975, pp. 71–95, which shows the rich variety of workers' songs; S. Ament, 'Russian Revolutionary Songs of 1905 and 1917: Symbols and Messengers of Protest and Change', M.A. Thesis, Georgetown University, 1984; and V. Frumkin, 'Tekhnologiia ubezhdeniia', Obozrenie , 5, July 1983, pp. 17–20. 5 Machine music came in two forms: that of Alexander Mosolov, whose symphonic fantasy Zavod (1928) was performed with standard orchestra and various pieces of metal in the coda, and that created by the Engineerists who gave performances by orchestrating machinery on the factory foor. 6 B. Schwarz, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917–1970 (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972); G.I. Ilina, Kulturnoe stroitelstvo v Petrograde (Leningrad, 1982), pp. 124–140; for machine music, see R. Stites, Revolutionary Dreams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 159–160. 7 E. Uvarova (ed.), Russkaia sovetskaia estrada, 3 vols (Moscow: 1976–81), vol. 1, pp. 204–39; V. Frumkin, 'Tekhnologiia ubezhdeniia', pp. 17–20. 8 In addition to works cited above, see R. Rothstein, 'Popular Song in the NEP Era', in S. Fitzpatrick et al. (eds), Russia in the Era of NEP (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), pp. 268–94 and R. Stites, Russian Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), chapter 2. 9 The best treatment by far is in S.F. Starr, pp. 37–78. See also A. Gorsuch, Youth in Revolutionary Russia: Enthusiasts, Bohemians, Delinquents (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). 10 L. Lebedenskii, Dovesti do kontsa borbu s nepmanskoi muzykoi (Moscow, 1931), p. 19. 11 J. Jelagin, Taming of the Arts, tr. N. Wreden (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1951), p. 187. 12 E. Winter, Red Virtue (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1933), p. 284. 13 For proletarian composers, see N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000); and A. Nelson, Music for the Revolution: Russian Musicians and Soviet Power, 1917– 1932 (University Park, PA: forthcoming).

14 See F. Miller, Folklore for Stalin (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1990) for the general background. For a nationality-by-nationality musical history from the Soviet point of view, see Iu. Keldysh (ed.), Istoriia muzykoi narodov SSSR , 2 vols (Moscow, 1970). Current scholarship is in the process of revisiting this entire enterprise. See the essays by Michael Rouland, Andy Nercessian, Matthew O'Brien, and Pekka Suutari in this volume, for example. 15 S.F. Starr, pp. 107–80. To get a visual sense of the smoothed-out 'jazz' of the late Stalin and early Khrushchev eras, see the film Carnival Night (1955). The band includes violinists and accordions along with a reed section; the players wear reindeer sweaters fashionable in the United States about five years earlier, and their piece (which I have not identifed) is hardly more than a variant on Lady in Spain. 16 See R. Stites, 'Isaak Dunaevsky', in Encyclopedia of Russian History (New York/London: Macmillan, forthcoming). 17 That was regularly sung in class in the United States during the Second World War. For more information on The Counterplan, see John Riley's essay in this volume. 18 The fghter pilot Lieutenant Valeriia Khomiakova shot down a German Stuka. R. Pennington, 'Wings, Women, and War', Ph.D. Dissertation, University of South Carolina, 1993. 19 For the wartime years, aside from S.F. Starr, pp. 81–203 and R. Stites, Russian Popular Culture , pp. 103–10, see R. Rothstein, 'Homeland, Home Town, and Battlefeld: the Popular Song', in R. Stites (ed.), Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 77–94. 20 For a fine summary of the post-war scene, see E. Zubkova, Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945–1957 (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1998). For the popular musical and its context, see S.F. Starr, pp. 204–34; and R. Stites, Russian Popular Culture, pp. 116–22.

3 Declared dead, but only provisionally Shostakovich, Soviet music-hall and Uslovno ubityi Gerard McBurney On 2 October 1931, a new show opened at the Leningrad Music-Hall under the curious title, Uslovno ubityi.1 This has been variously translated into English as, among other versions, 'Declared Dead', 'Conditionally Killed', 'Conditional Death', 'Provisionally Killed', 'Allegedly Murdered' and 'Hypothetically Murdered'.2 The show was a passing piece of local popular entertainment, never revived, and might hardly seem worth attention were it not for one curious aspect: it brought together a remarkable and at frst sight unlikely combination of leading talents from Soviet estrada3 and loftier domains of artistic practice. The most famous person involved was the composer Dmitrii Shostakovich, and it is because of him that Uslovno ubityi is nowadays remembered.4 But at the time he was by no means the only high-profle participant. A publicity photograph (Plate 3.1)5 shows the project's three leading lights: Shostakovich; Isaak Osipovich Dunaevskii (1900–1955), the most prominent Soviet popular composer of the period and the show's musical director and conductor; and Leonid Osipovich Utesov (real name Vaisbein or Weissbein, 1895–1982), its star performer, already very well-known and soon to become what he was to remain for the rest of his life: the Soviet Union's best-loved entertainer. Other important names involved, but not seen in the photograph, included one of the Soviet Union's major choreographers of classical ballet, Fedor Lopukhov, the brilliant designer and director Nikolai Akimov, and Klavdiia Shulzhenko, at that time only beginning her career, but afterwards one of the most prominent popular singers in the land. This essay sets Uslovno ubityi against the background of Soviet music-hall in general and unpicks some of the implications of the roll-call of those who took part in the show. It also explores what is known of the show's structure and subject matter, using Shostakovich's surviving sketches for the music as a source of

information. It will not look in detail at the intriguing reception history of Uslovno ubityi, nor at the question of the signifcance of this usually disregarded work in the context of Shostakovich's overall musical output in the 1920s and 1930s. These matters have been discussed by, amongst others, the Shostakovich scholar and biographer Laurel Fay and will, one hopes, receive further investigation by others in the future.

Plate 3.1 I. Dunaevskii, L. Utesov, and D. Shostakovich.

Music-hall into Art, Art into music-hall It seems the English term 'music-hall' first appeared in Russian as miuzikkholl in the twentieth century. By contrast, in Britain, the United States and elsewhere, establishments called music-halls that were 'licensed for singing, dancing, and other entertainments exclusive of dramatic performances' had been a lively element of urban popular culture since well before the 1880s,6 and by the early 1900s had become a byword for lowbrow and even louche entertainment. The arrival of the term in Russia, however, was the result not of the spontaneous and commercially driven migration of fashions in popular entertainment, but of self-consciously new and aggressive trends in highmodernism. According to a recent dictionary of popular entertainment in twentieth-century Russia:7 'In Russia, talk about the music-hall began after the visit of Marinetti, the head of the Italian Futurists, and the publication of "The Manifestos of the Italian Futurists", where music-hall was announced as "the theatre of the future".'8 By the early 1920s, miuzik-kholl is mentioned frequently in the writings of the Russian modernists. It is evident from such references, which are nearly always approving, that the term was intended to signal up-to-theminute and thoroughly highbrow intentions to shock traditionally genteel bourgeois artloving audiences with aggressively lowbrow styles and materials. At the same time, it appears that, to start with, music-hall was something more talked about than seen by these modernists, and those who approved of it did so more because of the idea it represented than because of much practical experience of its realities. It is noteworthy that keen references to 'music-hall' are often found in combination with equally keen references to the circus and clowns, and with little distinction between the two.9 For example, in 1923 we fnd Sergei Eisenstein, in his famous essay 'The Montage of Attractions', clarifying his aesthetic programme as follows: The school for the montageur is cinema and, principally, music-hall and circus because (from the point of view of form) putting on a good show means constructing a strong music-hall/circus programme that derives from the situations found in the play that is taken as a basis.10

The previous year, the Factory of the Eccentric Actor (Fabrika ekstsentricheskogo aktera), a group of would-be avant-garde actors, directors, and film-makers,11 published 'The Eccentric Manifesto' in which, among many other references to music-hall, they renamed the city of Leningrad

'Eccentropolis', announced the 'Americanisation of the Theatre',12 and proclaimed that: In song – The Torch singer, Pinkerton, the cry of the auctioneer, slang. In painting – The circus poster, the jacket of a cheap pulp thriller. In music – The jazz band, (black street orchestra), circus marches. In ballet – American song and dance routines. In theatre – Music Hall [sic], cinema, circus, cabaret, boxing13

According to Konstantin Rudnitsky, the source of this 'music-hallisation' of the early Soviet performing arts was the 'pioneer and enthusiast' Nikolai Foregger, who in 1921 founded his theatre workshop in Moscow (Mastfor) specifcally to pursue this idea.14 'The future', said Foregger, 'belongs to the cinema and music-hall.'15 Among those who worked for Foregger in Mastfor were both Eisenstein and Sergei Iutkevich, one of the founders of the Factory of Eccentric Actors and later, as a film-maker, a colleague of Shostakovich.16 In retrospect, Mastfor was given a mixed press. It was evidently an amateurish organisation and came to a sudden end in January 1924, when a fire destroyed the sets and costumes. But its infuence was nonetheless important, and Foregger's ideas touched artists as different as Vladimir Maiakovskii and Vsevolod Meyerhold.17 Although this original enthusiasm for the term 'music-hall' came specif ically from the Futurists, the general idea that music-hall, circus, and other rough and lowly entertainments should influence and shape whatever was newest in theatre, cinema, writing and music, soon became widespread among Russian modernists of different kinds – especially in Petrograd/ Leningrad – and continued to make its presence felt throughout the 1920s and into the next decade. As a result, music-hall as an image or inspiration surfaces in an impressive variety of different works, theatrical, cinematic, literary, musical and visual. The works of Shostakovich, who was certainly not a Futurist, furnish an excellent illustration of this. For instance, in the composer's first ballet, Zolotoi vek [The Golden Age] (1929–30), not only is the form, at least of the first two acts, dictated by the popularly perceived manner of music-hall (sequences of swiftly alternating numbers in a variety of different brightly contrasted styles of entertainment), but the plot by the film-director Alexander Viktorovich Ivanovskii (1881–1968) involves signifcant scenes set in a music-hall in the unnamed 'large capitalist city'18 where the ballet's action takes place: Act l Scene II … In the meantime, the Director of the exhibition and the Chief of Police take a closer

look at the Leader of the Soviet [soccer] team. They are considering holding an advertising and propaganda festival in the Music Hall and exploiting the situation … for their own purposes … A foxtrot bacchanalia ensues … Act 3 Scene V … In the Music Hall a show celebrating the exhibition of 'The Golden Age' is taking place. One of the dances is conceived as a demonstration of the 'coming-together of the classes', and the bourgeois public enthusiastically applaud the duet of the Diva [a 'famous dancer'] and the 'Leader of the Soviet football team'. No one suspects that Diva's [sic] partner is the Fascist in disguise. The elated audience breaks into dance, a cancan … Scene VI … A prison building beside the Music Hall. Worker-sportsmen are calling for the release of the Leader of the Soviet football team and head for the Music Hall. The Fascist is exposed. Panic takes hold of the bourgeois audience …

The music Shostakovich provided for this farrago shows a near obsessive alertness to the dramatic possibilities of parodying musical idioms that an audience of the time would have been likely to have associated with the music-hall. More specifcally, in scene V, the one actually set in a music-hall, he provides a compressed imitation of a real sequence of music-hall numbers with a tap-dance, a tango and a polka (this last to this day is the most famous and frequently performed musical item from the whole ballet). It is not only in The Golden Age, with its declared music-hall setting, that we fnd such references. In Shostakovich's slightly earlier and more abrasively modernist opera, the Gogol-inspired Nos [The Nose] (1927–28), which was frst staged in Leningrad in January 1930, we fnd several musichall and circus-style routines, which are used to uproarious dramatic effect. In Scene 1, for example, the cowardly barber Ivan Iakovlevich has an absurd argument with his termagant wife while she beats him regularly over the head (an old clown gag). In Scene 6, there is a servant singing an inane satirical song of the music-hall kind usually called in Russian kuplety ('couplets'), and the joke is compounded by the fact that the words are taken from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.19 Finally, in Scene 7, a group of comically incompetent policemen, who are supposed to be staking out an arrest, keep popping up from their hiding-places like puppets to utter distracting irrelevancies. This is another old and trusted clown routine, which was deliberately introduced into the story by Shostakovich and his librettists, since it does not appear in Gogol's story. Much of the music of The Nose obeys the rules of a quite different kind of aesthetic than the dance numbers from The Golden Age. It is more atonal, dissonant and heterophonic, and is more frequently constructed of nonrepeating material. Nonetheless, Shostakovich fnds plenty of space to accommodate references to the forms of cheap dance-music popularly associated with the music-hall including gallops and cancans (chorus-line

dance routines, often in the Offenbach manner, were an important aspect of music-hall that traditionally made the genre distinct from the circus). There are also suggestions of barrel-organ waltzes and the corny tunes used for kuplety, as well as for the more sugary shliagery (popular sentimental songs), which were also part of music-hall fare. As the self-conscious references in The Golden Age would suggest, in the five or six years following his composition of The Nose, Shostakovich made the exploitation of 'lowbrow' material of this kind an ever-greater feature of his style and technique. In his larger-scale and stylistically more populist second opera, Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda [Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, 1930–32], we find many more echoes of music-hall and circus routines in the drama, including a good deal of stage violence of varying kinds and, in Act 3, another chorus of absurd policemen. More importantly, the more abstruse modernisms of The Nose, such as its atonality and dissonance, have now been almost systematically replaced in the music of Lady Macbeth by an intense concentration on sometimes lengthy parodies of, and references to, cheap song-and-dance idioms. These low-down stylistic gambits were by no means confined to Shostakovich's theatrical music of this period, but occur in 'purely' instrumental works as well. For example, in the last movement of his Fourth Symphony (1935–36), there is a notoriously20 extended passage from fg. 191 in the score to fg. 216 where 'serious' music is interrupted by a whole sequence of parodistic episodes, with passing suggestions of polkas, foxtrots, waltzes, cancans, chase-music and, most tellingly from just after fg. 211, a popular song of the kuplety kind (Plate 3.2). This tune is begun by the bassoon, which, like the typical satirical ditties that it is mimicking, comes equipped with answering choruses from other members of the

Plate 3.2 Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, Figures 211–212.

orchestra. These absurdly contrasted numbers follow one another at great speed, in the approved revue or sketch-style of the music-hall, and the cumulative effect is one of mounting aggression and excitement. The result is striking: a sequence or scene from the music-hall has been transposed into a symphonic environment.21 This youthful fascination of Shostakovich's with music-hall can appear somewhat curious when viewed against the background of the well-known sombreness of his own later musical language from the mid-1930s onwards. But viewed against the wider artistic background of the time when these pieces were written (from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s), it seems wholly typical. For example, similar stylistic allusions, games and devices can be found all over Soviet literature of this period. References to the gags and idioms of music-hall and circus (once again with these two terms reflexively bracketed together) feature particularly in the works of those writers loosely referred to as the 'Leningrad Absurdists'. The mostly unsuccessful performing efforts of members of the experimental theatre-group Radiks, for instance, were 'generally accompanied by a ballerina and a magician',22 both of which

were classic music-hall diversions. The one-off show Tri levykh chasa [Three Left Hours], given by Radiks's successor organisation OBERIU at the Press Club in Leningrad on 24 January 1928, was also constructed as yet another imitation of the revue format of music-hall entertainment. It consisted of a deliberately jumbled sequence of self-contained sketches and numbers including music, gags, a ballerina and a silent film. One major participant in Three Left Hours was the writer Daniil Kharms,23 and we continue to fnd themes of this kind in his later work, especially the collection of 30 sketches Sluchai [Incidences] (1933–39)24 and the extended prose-tale Starukha [The Old Woman] (1939). The latter, in particular, contains several slapstick episodes, one involving mishaps with a set of false teeth, another depending on the unexpected contents of a suitcase. In yet more of his works we fnd written-out variations of popular conjuring tricks or trompes-l'oeil, which were also a feature of music-hall rather than of circus.25 Similar features may also be observed in the works of Kharms's colleagues: Alexander Ivanovich Vvedenskii (1904–41) and Nikolai Makarovich Oleynikov (1898–1937). Vvedenskii's play Elka u Ivanovykh [Christmas-tree at the Ivanovs] (1938) contains violent clown-style slapstick, and many of Oleynikov's humorous verses are recognisably in the kuplety manner.

The early years of the Leningrad Music-Hall In tandem with this high-culture approach to music-hall went the more practical and down-to-earth story of the appearance of working establishments of theatrical entertainment that actually called themselves music-halls. According to one recent writer: attempts to create a music-hall were for some time [in the 1920s] unsuccessful … [At frst] common concert programmes in restaurants were labelled 'music-halls'. In the Moscow cabaret-restaurant 'Akvarium' in 1922–24, a combined concert with foreign performers was called music-hall. In 1926 with the aid of Lunacharskii a Moscow music-hall opened, first as the 'Circus Music-Hall', then as the ' Estradnyi Theatre Music-Hall'. In 1928 a music-hall was opened in Leningrad, first as the 'Circus Music-Hall', then as the 'Estradnyi Theatre-Circus'.26

This Leningrad establishment began life in the Narodnyi Dom Opera Theatre, before moving to the Palace Theatre, 13 ulitsa Rakova (nowadays, as in preSoviet times, Italianskaia ulitsa) in October 1929. The signifcance of this address is worth noting. The Palace Theatre (now the Theatre of Musical Comedy) was in the artistic centre of Leningrad, in the south-west corner of ploshchad' Lassalia (later ploshchad' Iskusstv, but now Mikhailovskaia ploshchad'). It was practically next door to the Philharmonia, across the square from the Malyi Theatre of Opera and Ballet, and only a few feet away from the building that once housed the Stray Dog (Brodiachaia sobaka) café, the social centre of St Petersburg modernism and avant-garde cabaret performances from 1911 to 1915. It was also round the corner from the Evropeiskaia Hotel, still remembered in local anecdote as the inevitable watering hole for performers during this period. Music-hall had therefore been given a place in the centre of Leningrad cultural life.27 The repertoire of the Leningrad Music-Hall in its early years was never quite the pure stream of brief, disconnected and contrasting acts, numbers, novelties, song-and-dance routines, conjuring and acrobatic tricks, and spectacular stage effects that had originally been the defining fare of Western music-halls. From the beginning most shows staged there were themed in some way, and some were effectively musical plays, so therefore by strict definition not music-hall.28 Nonetheless, the musical diet was lively, and S. Frederick Starr notes that during this period, the Leningrad Music-Hall 'welcomed jazz-type orchestras'.29 The first show of the new Music-Hall in its original home of the Narodnyi Dom Opera Theatre in December 1928 was Chudesa XXl veka, ili Poslednyi

izvozchik Leningrada [The Marvels of the 21st Century, or Leningrad's Last Cabby].30 Others that followed included the litmontazh (literary montage) Karta Oktiabrev [Map of Octobers], a collage of selections from the works of Maiakovskii, Aseev, Svetlov, and Bednyi,31 which also involved two names later to take part in Uslovno ubityi: the designer Nikolai Akimov, and the reciter Vladimir Koralli. The following year, the company moved to its new home by order of the city council, and two new directors were appointed: D.Ia. Grach and, as his assistant, N.S. Oreshkov. According to one of Isaak Dunaevskii's biographers, Avgusta Saraeva-Bondar', it was Grach who drew in the young jazz-band leader, singer and all-round performer Leonid Utesov, who at that period was performing regularly in different venues (mostly hotels) around the city. It may then have been subsequently on Utesov's recommendation that Isaak Dunaevskii was invited from Moscow, where he was already a successful composer and conductor of operettas, to become the Music-Hall's new musical director. This was a post Dunaevskii held until the mid-, or possibly late, 1930s.32 The opening of the new theatre was announced in the magazine Rabochii i teatr on 29 September 1929: The reftting of the Music-Hall is coming to an end. The opening of the season is scheduled for October. The opening show will be Odisseia [The Odyssey] by Erdman and Mass in a production by the director Smolich and with sets designed by Sokolov. The Moscow composer I.O. Dunaevskii has been invited to be musical director.33

The Odyssey was a comic play, based on the satirical premise of retelling the familiar Homeric story in an impertinently up-to-date manner with songs and dance music by Dunaevskii. Among those who took part were two subsequently well-known performers, Nina Tamara,34 who played Penelope, and Nikolai Konstantinovich Cherkasov (1903–66), who took the main role of Odysseus.35 The show was a success by comparison with its predecessors, and it launched a series of further productions. It also encouraged what was soon to be a distinctive feature of the Leningrad Music-Hall: the way it drew its cast and contributors from a wide range of sources, ranging from the world of circus and travelling entertainers to distinguished artists (often satirists) with established reputations. Amongst the early writers to work there apart from Mass and Erdman, for example, were the celebrated doubleact of Ilf and Petrov, and Mikhail Zoshchenko.36 In March 1930, The Odyssey was followed by a different kind of show. Described as a 'light-entertainment circus spectacle' ('estradno-tsirkovoe

predstavlenie'), Attraktsiony v deistvii [Attractions in Action] contained a score by Dunaevskii, declamations by Vladimir Koralli, and a starring role for Utesov's ensemble Tea-dzhaz, or Teatralizovanyi dzhaz [Theatricalised jazz] to give it its full title.37 The repertoire of this group, which Utesov founded early in 1929, was a highly popular and successful mixture of arrangements of American tunes, local spoofs and parodies, and novelty numbers sending up familiar classics in addition to a liberal sprinkling of the lighter sort of tear-jerker. Many of these items were composed or arranged by Dunaevskii.38 Even more important than their repertoire, though, was the fact that Utesov's musicians danced and moved and performed acrobatic stunts as they played. Utesov's band was also not the only new 'attraction in action', since the same show saw the Music-Hall debut of Klavdiia Shulzhenko (1906–84). Shulzhenko was originally from the Ukraine, where she had been a successful singer in clubs and theatres. She arrived in Leningrad in 1928, but it was this show that kick-started her eventually astonishingly successful career as a 'Soviet songbird'.39 In October 1930, came a show that struck a different chord and recalled Map of Octobers. Sotsial2nye portrety [Social Portraits], according to one commentator: stepped out of the frame of the usual estradnykh 'shliagerov' [light-entertainment anthologies of sentimental popular songs] and gave the audience something like a small sharply satirical show, ruthlessly unmasking human vices and social phenomena by parodying them. A representative of the banking aristocracy, the Banker, an exploiter and executioner, undergoes moral and fnancial disaster.40

Other similarly unpleasant characters included the Toady and the Temptress, while the different scenes were presented by a lone dancer to the accompaniment of readings from Pushkin and Maiakovskii amongst others. A few months later, on 16 January 1931, a new show called Dzhaz na povorote [Jazz on the Turn]41 was staged. It recalled Attractions in that it was light-hearted, and it featured a number of Dunaevskii's novelty arrangements of the classics, up-tempo versions of mass songs and lighthearted suites of familiar folk songs (mostly called 'Rhapsodies'). Several of these are preserved in the recorded legacy of Utesov, which gives us some idea of the astonishing musical virtuosity of many of the Tea-dzhaz players, even if we cannot see their physical movements.42 The stylistic twists and turns of these shows may have refected a normal desire on the part of the management to serve up to the public a suitably amusing diet of fresh fare. But it also undoubtedly refected the political

pressures and criticism that were constantly applied to the Leningrad MusicHall by various organs of the press. As E.D. Udarova notes: Attractions in action and other diverting programmes appealed to the public. But critics saw the usual capitulation. The question of whether to close the music-hall continued to appear in print, and in the pages of the magazine Rabochii i teatr the suggestion was even raised about transferring its premises [i.e. the centrally placed theatre-building on ulitsa Rakova] to the Red Army Theatre. Only the magazine Tsirk i estrada argued that the music-hall had a right to exist. 'The music-hall must not be abolished, as that would be a blow hard to recover from for the most important form of mass art after the cinema and radio – estrada'.43

On 2 October 1931 came the premiere of Uslovno ubityi, with music not by Dunaevskii, but by Shostakovich. The circumstances that led to this piece are especially revealing of the somewhat delicate political position of the Leningrad Music-Hall at this period. Laurel Fay describes the situation as follows: The music-hall … was experiencing serious diffculties in the attempt to defne a role for itself in 'Soviet' cultural conditions. Its bourgeois roots and low-brow popular appeal made it a conspicuous target of the proletarian critics and cultural organizations, who were then at the peak of their influence. Music-hall shows were designed to entertain and divert … not to morally enlighten or engage in serious ideological or political discourse. Responding to political pressures, in October 1931 the director of the Leningrad Music-hall announced plans for its perestroika in the coming season. In addition to an infux of new, young talent, he specifically promised for the first time the presentation of dramaturgically and thematically unifed shows, each with an underlying instructional purpose. For the four shows scheduled for the 1931–32 season, the themes he announced included 'Socialist construction and the deepening crisis of capitalism,' 'The League of Nations and the conference on disarmament as smokescreens for the armament by capitalist countries,' and 'The mastery of technology, the battle for the technical enlightenment of the masses.' To inaugurate the new strategy, the opening production of the season was devoted to the theme of 'The defence capability of our country, the connection between the work of front and rear, the goals of Osoaviakhím and PVO.' [Osoaviakhím = Society for assistance to defense and the aviation-chemical construction of the USSR; PVO = anti-aircraft defence] The three-act revue on this theme was titled Uslovno ubityi – Declared Dead.44

Before looking more closely at Uslovno ubityi, it is worth adding a few remarks about the subsequent history of the Leningrad Music-Hall, for what it reveals of the changing significance and briefy continuing influence of this kind of entertainment in the Soviet Union in the decade leading up the Second World War. In early 1932, soon after Uslovno ubityi, another apparently more light-hearted show opened called Muzikal'nyi magazin [The Music Store] with a score by Dunaevskii again, and a new text by Erdman and Mass.45 The action took place in a Soviet music-shop where Kostia Potekhin, played by Utesov, is serving behind the counter.46 An American jazz-band conductor comes into the shop, buys scores and performs them on the spot with an orchestra (the Tea-dzhaz in action, naturally), the pieces in question being jazzed-up versions of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov,

Rachmaninov, Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven.47 Starr, making a passionate case for the history of real jazz in the Soviet Union, is unsurprisingly unenthusiastic about these pieces of bopped-up classics, and it is certainly true that they are not proper jazz. But they are brilliant and virtuosic exercises in the style of entertainment known as kapustniki (satirical comedy-concerts traditionally given, and often improvised, by students or schoolchildren at end-of-year parties). In that sense, they belonged to a far older tradition of irreverent and subversive send-ups. As such they were at least closer to the true spirit of music-hall than the heavy-handed propaganda of, say, Sotsial'nye portrety, let alone the campaigning intentions of Uslovno ubityi. From this it would seem that the Music-Hall director's earlier grand plans for more thematic seriousness and ideological engagement were not being continued. According to Starr, it was Boris Shumiatskii, the deputy president of the State Committee of Artistic Affairs, who was so delighted by The Music Store that he set in motion the project of turning it into a film.48 After various vicissitudes, the film emerged with a completely different story – but the same hero, Kostia Potekhin – as one of the most famous musical comedies in the history of Soviet cinema, Veselye Rebiata [Happy Guys ] (1934). This evergreen entertainment was directed by Eisenstein's long-time friend and colleague Grigorii Alexanderov, and written, once again, by Mass and Erdman. The score by Dunaevskii includes tunes still widely remembered in Russia even today. The complex history of the film's reception and its role in the making of Alexanderov's reputation has been discussed elsewhere.49 As far as Leonid Utesov is concerned, the huge success of Veselye rebiata established him as the greatest star in Soviet popular culture, a position he was to retain until the 1960s. From the point of view of the history of the Leningrad Music-Hall, though, Veselye rebiata is most interesting for the vivid and astonishingly funny performance given by the musicians of the Tea-dzhaz ensemble. It is also notable for the fact that the film's central episode takes place inside a musichall in Moscow, and includes shots of the orchestra (amongst which are a cascade of harps and four grand pianos), the stage effects, the backstage corridors, the audience and even the view of the theatre from the street. Thus this delightful film offers perhaps the only – albeit highly exaggerated – impression we have of what a Soviet music-hall might have looked like, and how it might have felt to have been at one of its performances.50

Udarova notes that after a rough critical ride around the beginning of the 1930s, the Leningrad Music-Hall experienced something of a second wind in the next two or three seasons.51 In 1933, for example, the theatre had considerable success with a light-hearted entertainment called Nebesnye lastochki [Heavenly Swallows], a rewrite by Dunaevskii and others of an operetta by the French composer Hervé. Udarova also notes that the commitment of Nikolai Akimov to this kind of entertainment was crucial.52 At this period Akimov set up an experimental workshop as part of the MusicHall where he could develop more unusual approaches. Though heavily criticised for this, he vigorously defended his new approach in 1934 in Rabochii i teatr, the magazine most consistently hostile to the Music-Hall. Nonetheless, the days of Soviet music-hall were numbered. It would be possible to attribute the genre's rapid decline in the mid-1930s to many years of consistent and highly politicised harassing from journalists on Rabochii i teatr and elsewhere, but the more likely truth is that tastes were changing and this kind of light entertainment was moving away from live theatre into the newer and soon much more popular and certainly more lucrative feld of musical cinema. Alexanderov's Veselye rebiata, which had involved so many stars of the music-hall world, was swiftly followed by a number of other equally successful films in much the same manner, including Tsirk [The Circus] (1936) and Volga-Volga (1938), both of which had scores by Dunaevskii and involved many of the same artists who worked on Veselye rebiata. In a sense, Soviet music-hall did not die; it simply transferred itself into another form of entertainment. Naturally, the actual theatres could not survive this move. As Udarova puts it: … the Moscow and Leningrad music-halls had gone up a dead end, from which they were not destined to return. In 1936 the Moscow Music-Hall was closed. Its premises were given to a theatre of folk creativity, which lasted one season and then made way for the Moscow Theatre of Operetta. The Leningrad Music-Hall closed, and so did those in other cities.53

The selling of Uslovno ubityi Several original advertisements for Uslovno Ubityi survive. One is a poster announcing the piece for the 'Opening of the Season' on 2 October (Plate 3.3).54 In the lower centre is a single letter 'U' (the Cyrillic letter 'Y') that begins the three words uslovno, ubityi and Utesov. Above and to the left is a dog (a German Shepherd) with what appears to be a hand-grenade in her mouth. Facing her, with right leg stuck straight out in stripy clown-trousers, is a cartoon man, possibly Stopka Kurochkin (the character played by Utesov). He is drawn in a style recalling or parodying the work of avantgarde theatre-designers and illustrators of the early 1920s, such as Alexander Vesnin, Varvara Stepanova and Konstantin Vialov.55 It is also worth noticing before looking at the theme of the show that this clown-like cartoon figure is wearing a gas mask. Characters wearing strange, alienating, and sometimes (as here) comical forms of military and industrial clothing were a regular feature of modernist theatre productions in Russia as far back as Kazimir Malevich's designs for Pobeda nad solntsem [Victory over the Sun] (1913). More particularly, a very similar character in a gas mask turns up famously in Rodchenko's designs for Meyerhold's 1929 staging of Maiakovskii's Klop [The Bedbug], for which Shostakovich wrote the music.56 Another advertisement (Plate 3.4) took the form of a notice that appeared on 20 September 1931 on the inside front cover of the journal Rabochii i teatr [Worker and Theatre].57 The inscription GOMETS at the top of the

Plate 3.3 Poster announcing Uslovno ubityi . (Source: E. Udarova, Estradnyi teatr: Minitiury, obozreniia, miuzik-kholly (1917–1945) (Moscow, 1983), p. 220.)

Plate 3.4 Advertisement for Uslovno ubityi. (Source: Rabochii i teatr, 24, 1931 (inside front cover).)

page was the acronym for the State Union of Music, Estrada and Circus, which was founded earlier in 1931 to draw together the different performing organisations. After mistakenly announcing the frst performance as scheduled for the end of September (v kontse sentiabria), and also advertising this as the opening of the season, the page continues by describing the show as a 'lightentertainment circus presentation in 3 acts'.58 It then lists the participants, beginning with the authors V. Voevodin and Evg. Ryss. Vsevolod Petrovich Voevodin (1907–73) was a young poet before he moved into the theatre in the late 1920s with a stream of plays that included in 1929 P'esa, kotoroi net [The Play which isn't There], Sukiny deti [Sons of a Bitch] the following year, and with Evgenii Ryss, Nebylitsy [Cock-and-Bull Stories]. These were evidently busy times for Voevodin, since the off-cial Biographical List of Leningrad Writers records that 'In 1930–31 he actively participated in the

collectivisation of villages.'59 This indicates the nature of Voevodin's distinctive political position, and fts into the music-hall director's plans for greater political commitment. His collaborator Evgenii Samoylovich Ryss (1908–c.1970) was mainly a children's writer. However, in the 1930s after Uslovno ubityi he joined Voevodin and wrote popular adventure stories as well as flm scripts.60 Next named on the poster are the director, N.V. Petrov, and the composer, D.D. Shostakovich. Nikolai Vasilevich Petrov (1890–1964) was by this time an extremely distinguished fgure in Russian and Soviet theatre. From 1909 he worked at the Moscow Arts Theatre and was a student of Meyerhold's, before moving to St Petersburg where he built a reputation as a director and cabaret artist, using the pseudonym Kolia Peter.61 Petrov was also one of the founders and principal organisers of the 'Stray Dog' performances, and continued in cabaret into the early revolutionary period when – at the opposite end of the scale – he was among those who put together so-called 'mass spectacles' like Vziatie zimnego dvortsa [The Storming of the Winter Palace] (1920). He maintained at different times shifting links with such organisations as RAPP and TRAM,62 and was clearly regarded as one of the main 'Left' directors in the Leningrad theatre. As well as putting on shows in the Leningrad and Moscow Music-Halls, Petrov staged important productions in the straight theatre, including Molière's Tartuffe at the Leningrad Academic Theatre of Drama (LATD) in 1929, for which his fellow director and designer was Nikolai Akimov. In 1931, just before Uslovno ubityi, he was also responsible at the LATD for a much-discussed production of Alexander Afnogenev's Strakh [Fear].63 With regard to Dmitrii Dmitrievich Shostakovich (1906–75), it should be stated at this point that in the previous two to three years he had gained extensive experience in the Moscow and Leningrad theatre and cinema. As noted, he wrote the music for Meyerhold's Moscow production of Maiakovskii's The Bedbug in 1929, and also three scores for the Leningrad TRAM: for Alexander Bezymenskii's Vystrel [The Shot] (1929), Arkadii Gorbenko and Nikolai Lvov's Tselina [Virgin Soil] (1930), and Adrian Petrovskii's Prav' Britaniia! [Rule Britannia!] (1931). Of his two ballets so far, The Golden Age (1930) was staged at the Leningrad Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet (GATOB), with apparently undistinguished choreography. However, the designs were by Valentina Khodasevich, an important theatre artist remembered for her collaboration with Sergei Radlov and for her work

at the Leningrad Music-Hall.64 Shostakovich's second ballet, Bolt [The Bolt] (1931), which received a disastrous premiere at GATOB on 8 April 1931, was choreographed by Fedor Lopukhov, who immediately afterwards joined the Uslovno ubityi team. Earlier, in January 1930, Shostakovich's frst opera, The Nose (1929), was staged at the Malyi Opera Theatre, on which occasion the designer was Vladimir Dmitriev, who was to be one of the designers on Uslovno ubityi. The advertisement for Uslovno ubityi states that there were no less than three designers: N.P. Akimov, V.V. Dmitriev and E.I. Okurokov. The first two of these names are highly significant. As noted, Nikolai Pavlovich Akimov (1901–68) was by this stage an experienced designer and director who had worked in the avant-garde theatre in Leningrad and at the Music-Hall. Immediately after Uslovno ubityi, he embarked on a notoriously irreverent production of Hamlet for the Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow in May 1932 for which Shostakovich wrote the score. According to E.I. Strutinskaia, Akimov's work during this period, especially in the popular theatre, 'stressed laconic and dynamic qualities, avoided picturesque backdrops, showed a preference for elemental structure as the basis of the design, and made play with the effect of sudden changes and transformations'.65 In other words, he was fond of all the modernist tricks of the day. In 1933, Akimov took overall charge of design at the Leningrad Music-Hall, but resigned the following year when his production of Evgenii Shvarts's The Princess and the Swineherd66 was banned. In the post-war period, he was also a major figure in the conventional theatre.67 Akimov's colleague, Vladimir Vladimirovich Dmitriev (1900–48), was also an important and infuential figure in the history of Soviet theatre design and very significant in the Shostakovich story. Like Petrov, he had been a pupil of Meyerhold's, after which he moved towards opera, designing productions for both Leningrad opera theatres including Schreker's Der ferne Klang [Dal'nyi zvon, The Distant Sound] at the Malyi in 1925, Prokofiev's Liubov' k trem apel'sinam [Love for Three Oranges] at GATOB in 1926, Krenek's Der Sprung über den Schatten [Pryzhok cherez ten', The Leap over the Shadow] at the Malyi in 1927, Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov at GATOB in 1928, and Tchaikovsky's Evgenii Onegin at GATOB in 1929. His design for the first production of The Nose at the Malyi in 1930 included 'moveable sets which gleamed through a fine metal screen'.68 Later, in 1934–35, he was responsible for designing the first three Soviet productions of Lady Macbeth of the

Mtsensk District at the Malyi in Leningrad and the Nemirovich-Danchenko and Bolshoi theatres in Moscow. At the same time, he shifted from a modernist style to a more realistic one, especially when he was working in the Moscow Arts Theatre.69 Next in the advertisement are listed the choreographers, F.V. Lopukhov and N.A. Glan. The long career of Fedor Vasilievich Lopukhov (1886–1973) is well documented and does not need much attention here. Suffice to say, however, that during the 1920s his reputation was largely based on two different kinds of work: perpetuating the nineteenth-century classical tradition, including restoring the great dance-spectacles of Marius Petipa; and experimenting with new and modernist idioms and themes of various kinds.70 The climax of this period, according to Elizabeth Souritz, was Lopukhov's 1927 ballet Ledianaia deva [The Ice Maiden], using music of Grieg.70 From 1922 to 1930, Lopukhov was director of the ballet troupe in GATOB, where he later mounted the catastrophic premiere of Shostakovich's The Bolt in 1931. From 1931 to 1936 he directed the ballet at the Malyi Opera Theatre, and it was there that he also staged Shostakovich's Svetlyi ruchey [The Limpid Stream] in 1935. By contrast, Natalia Alexanderovna Glan (real name Rzhepishevskaia) (1904–66) began in the early 1920s as a striking performer in a style mixing the latest in modern dance with clowning (plasticheskii tanets i ektsentrika ).72 She made a more serious name for herself in 1926 when she provided acclaimed choreography for Alexander Tairov's production of Lecocq's operetta Day and Night.73 In 1929, she also worked alongside Shostakovich as the choreographer for Meyerhold's production of The Bedbug. Following this starry line-up, the next name on the advertisement is E.P. Gershuni, one of the leading directors at the Leningrad circus in the 1930s, and in charge of the circus effects for the show.74 Then come enormous letters to leave us in no doubt about who is the biggest draw of the evening: IN THE MAIN ROLE LEONID UTESOV Below this headline the following are listed: the dog, Alpha (Al'fa ) and her trainer; Utesov's Tea-dzhaz ensemble (playing The 12 Apostles); a high-wire act called 'the 4 Giovannis'; a dressage performer (K.S. Dmitriev); the Orlik Troupe; and the promise of 'a series of other Russian and foreign acts'.

Beneath the next headline –'The Ballet Ensemble of the Music-Hall'75 – are more promises of attractions: 'Comoufage [sic]. Military dances. Efficient Waitresses. Rejoicing Seraphim'.76 Finally, there is a list of actors, and mention of the orchestra and their conductor, Dunaevskii. Curiously enough, two of the performers most often mentioned in subsequent accounts as having taken part in the show are not named on this poster: Klavdiia Shulzhenko and the already familiar kupletist (singer of comic songs or declaimer of comic verses), Vladimir Koralli.77 Dunaveskii's role as the most important Soviet composer of light music has already been noted. Nowadays, he is remembered by Russians for his innumerable popular songs and also for his film-scores including Veselye rebiata and Deti kapitana Granta [The Children of Captain Grant] (1936). However, during his early career in Moscow, before he was invited to take over the musical directorship of the Leningrad Music-Hall, he worked mostly as a composer of operettas. He wrote fve of them between 1927 and 1929, and continued to write operettas for Moscow even while he was living in Leningrad and working at the Music-Hall. By any standards the list of collaborators on this project was impressive. It is also highly revealing. Even by the standards of the Leningrad Music-Hall, it is clear that the best available talent has been enlisted, and that was for several reasons. The frst was the need to make a show politically committed enough to withstand the sniping of the proletarian critics.78 At the same time, it can also be deduced from this line-up of not always politically correct participants that the management had the intention of making sure the public and the critics knew it was putting on a show which would be as theatrically and musically famboyant and ambitious as possible. This was perhaps in part to compensate for the fact that Osoaviakhím and the PVO were hardly themes that leapt to the eye as starting points for a good relaxing evening out at the Music-Hall. There is also another reason why this 'list of collaborators' is interesting. It vividly demonstrates the close-knit condition of the worlds of music and theatre in Leningrad at this period, and especially the often complex interrelations of practitioners of different kinds of highbrow and lowbrow art and entertainment. In particular, with regard to Shostakovich, it locates him at this time in his life in the centre of a spider's web of connections. These connections help us place the historical achievements of his music at this period (including his operas, ballets and early symphonies) not only where

they are usually seen, in the particular context of Soviet art-music or international art-music, but in the somewhat different context of the broader stream of Soviet and particularly Leningrad culture.

The plot of Uslovno ubityi Given the varied plots and themes of the other more or less contemporary productions at the Leningrad Music-Hall noted above, and also the particular political pressures on the theatre management in the autumn of 1931, it is worth examining the evidence that survives to see what can be deduced of the shape, themes and character of Uslovno ubityi. Using various sources, including press reports and memoirs as well as the evidence of Shostakovich's sketches, Laurel Fay summarises matters as follows: The plot … centered on the adventures of the character played by Utesov, Stopka Kurochkin,79 a fasttalking show-off with a cowardly streak, and his girlfriend Mashenka Funtikova (played by Shulzhenko), characterised as a dippy young maid80 with a primitive appreciation of love and happiness. In the first scene, strolling arm-in-arm along the streets of Leningrad unaware that a scheduled air-raid drill is in progress, the two are apprehended and 'declared dead', over their vociferous protests. Stopka cried out: 'Citizens! What is this? A working bloke wants to relax with a working gal, to gab with her on non-Party themes, and you grab him like a lunatic!'.81 Stopka's escape from the stretcher bearers and the subsequent pursuit set up the basic premise for a series of fantastic escapades…. Judging from the surviving sources, among a wide variety of songs, dances, and comic turns, the attractions of the show also included: the antics of a famous trained sheepdog Alpha (or Alma according to some sources), acrobats, film sequences, a puppet presentation 'On the River Bottom', juggling cooks, clown waiters and dancing waitresses, tricks of aerial acrobatics performed over the auditorium, a lengthy melodeclamation by a character called Beiburzhuev ('Mr. Beat-the-Bourgeois', played by a renowned satirist Vladimir Koralli) which was declaimed over a cemetery of locomotives, the demonstration of 'an advanced school of horseback riding', and a dream sequence in Paradise featuring God, the devil (Utesov), the 12 Apostles (Utesov's 'tea-jazz') and the Music-hall's ballet ensemble as the rejoicing seraphim.82

Using this account as a guide, it is revealing to turn to Shostakovich's surviving musical sketches for the show. There we fnd the following structure (the titles are in Shostakovich's handwriting):83 1 Uvertura (Overture) 2 Razrushenie goroda (The destruction of the city) 3 1-aia pes'nia Mashen'ki [sic] (Mashen'ka's 1st song) 4 2-aia pes'nia Mashen'ki (Mashen'ka's 2nd song) 5 [no surviving movement with this number] 6 Perekhod na lazaret (Transition to the field hospital) 7

[no title, but the music is half-'galop', half-cancan] 8 Perekhod na pole (Transition to the field) 9 Pole (peyzazh) (The field (landscape) ) 10 [no surviving movement with this number] 11 Pol'ka (Polka) 12 Marsh. Kamufiazh (March. Camouflage) 13 [no surviving movement with this number] 14 [no surviving movement with this number] 15 Dno reki (The bottom of the river) 16 Final 1-go akta. Tanets vremennykh pobediteley (Finale of 1st Act. Dance of the temporary victors) 16a Vstuplenie ko 2-mu aktu. Petrushka (Introduction to 2nd Act. Petrushka) 17 Petrushka (garmoshka) (Petrushka (concertina) ) 17a [illegible title, perhaps Kuplety] 17b Buria (Storm) 18 Priezd gruzovika (Arrival of the lorry) 18a Tanets (Dance) 19 [no surviving movement with this number] 20 [no surviving movement with this number] 21 Zhonglery i podaval'shchitsy (Perekhod na kukhniu) (Jugglers and waitresses (Transition to the kitchen) ) 21a Podaval'shchitsy (Waitresses) 22 [no surviving movement with this number] 23 [no surviving movement with this number] 24 Monolog Beiburzhueva (Beiburzhuev's monologue) 25 [no surviving number] 26 Ray. Polet kheruvimov (Paradise. Flight of the cherubims)

27 Polet angelov (Flight of the angels) 28 Adazhio (Adagio) 29 Vakkhanaliia Ioanna Kronshtadskogo i Paraskevy Piatnitsy (Bacchanalia of John of Kronstadt and Paraskeva Piatnitsa) 29a Val's (Waltz) 30 [no title, but a heavenly chorus] 31 [no title, but a heavenly chorus] 32 [no title, but a heavenly chorus] 33 [no title, but a heavenly chorus] 33a 12 apostolov (12 apostles) 34 Nomer Arkhangela Gavriila (The Archangel Gabriel's number)

In addition to these numbered items, there survive two unnumbered items in partial sketch-form. First, there is a send-up, kapustnik-style, which turns the tsarist national anthem Bozhe tsaria khrani [God Save the Tsar] into a foxtrot. Second, there is the climax of a substantial orchestral interlude that, as it ends by dying away, is probably not the end of the show but what remains of some kind of interlude or transition. The first thing we notice about these sketches, as suggested by my spacing, is the division into three acts.84 At the same time, it is perhaps advisable to treat Shostakovich's numeration with caution. It is possible that the order of these pieces of music does not refect their order in the show. For example, did the two 'Mashenka' songs for Shulzhenko really happen in quick succession near the beginning? They certainly might have done, given that the first song is slow and sentimental and the second one quick and funny. At all events, it seems from these titles that Act 1 started in the city and then shifted to the countryside where the practice-manoeuvres were perhaps taking place. To listen to the music is to get a slightly more precise idea at least of the character of the entertainments on stage. For example, it is scarcely possible to imagine that the decidedly Offenbach-like no. 7 (the 'galop'cancan) was not a major dance-item,85 although it might also have been a chase. Laurel Fay notes that there was a chase in the show involving 'Utesov … running down the aisle with Alpha … in hot pursuit, scrambling up a rope

ladder and then (ingeniously replaced by a look-alike stuntman) performing aerial acrobatics above the audience'. Similarly, no. 12 (a military march) can only have been for an entry or parade of soldiers. 86 It has also been noted that no. 15 ('The bottom of the river') accompanied a puppet performance.87 If so, then to judge by the character of this languorous waltz, what the puppets were doing at the bottom of the river must have been a dance of rusalki (water-nymphs).88 The act ends with what can only have been a spectacular dance-number, a 'hopak' or 'gopak', which gets faster and sillier as it goes along. Act 2 takes the opposite journey, beginning outside the city and then moving in for what was evidently a substantial scene in a restaurant. The act ends with the single largest number from the show, an extended comic monologue or melodeclamation for Koralli while he sits on a pile of abandoned steam locomotives. This scene, one assumes, could not have taken place in the restaurant. All the surviving music from Act 3 has titles suggesting a 'dream sequence in Paradise'.89 We can assume therefore that the action of the whole act took place there. Here one notes the participation of a chorus of 'rejoicing seraphim', although it should be added that the choral numbers listed here are among the most perfunctory pieces in the sketched score. They are so perfunctory in fact that after reading them, one wonders how they could possibly have been given any dramatic or musical weight at all. Also noticeable is the absence from these sketches of an ending to the show. With regard to sketch no. 33a, '12 apostles', the poster would suggest that it was written for performance by the Tea-dzhaz ensemble themselves. It begins as a send-up of Mephistopheles's famous 'Song of the Golden Calf' from Gounod's Faust and segues into a relentless stream of dances based on popular tunes, including a version of the most famous Russian tune of all, Chizhik, pyzhik [Birdie, birdie]. Presumably, if Utesov was playing the role of the Devil in this act, as Fay suggests, then he would have sung the Gounod fragment at the beginning. Sketch no. 34, 'The Archangel Gabriel's number', is even less likely to have been the ending of the show. It is an amusing reworking of an 'urban' song that Shostakovich frst used in his fnale added to the Malyi's production of Erwin Dressel's opera Armer Columbus [Bednyi Kolumb or Poor Columbus in English] in 1929.90 He then reused it in The Golden Age in 1930, and again in his First Piano Concerto in 1933. However, it is no ending to an evening, so the true ending must be missing.

This last act's now odd-sounding 'dream sequence in Paradise' was at the time not a completely isolated or unusual device, and there are occurrences of similar anti-religious satire in other shows of the period. Whether or not anything quite like this had been presented in the Leningrad Music-Hall's previous seasons, a few months after the premiere of Uslovno ubityi, in May 1932, the Moscow Music-Hall put on a spectacle called Kak 14-ia diviziia b ray shla [How the 14th Division went to Heaven] with a script by Demian Bednyi, the well-known Bolshevik satirist. To judge by E.D. Udarova's account of it, the theatrical manner of this atheist comedy must have had a certain amount in common with the last act of Uslovno ubityi.91 In the case of How the 14th Division went to Heaven , moreover, Udarova suspects the infuence of Meyerhold's once notorious but long forgotten 1921 production of Maiakovskii's 1918 play Misteriia-Buff [Mystery-Bouffe].92 All three of these shows certainly contained scenes in paradise with a chorus of singing and dancing devils. The lack of an ending to Uslovno ubityi raises various questions about the status of the surviving music. When Fay was writing 'Mitya in the Musichall', she only had access to piano sketches nos. 3–34. From that evidence she suggested that it might have been possible that Shostakovich had left the business of orchestration to Dunaevskii.93 Since then, autograph fullorchestral scores of the opening two numbers have been discovered,94 and they reveal that Shostakovich certainly did this part of the orchestration himself and very probably orchestrated most, if not all, of the rest of the score. Moreover, it turns out that he pillaged these opening two numbers (along with no. 9, The field (landscape) ) from his unsuccessful ballet The Bolt.95 This cunning move cannot be seen as merely lightening the composer's workload, for it required him to reorchestrate the borrowed music; a significant labour, if certainly not as great as writing entirely new pieces. With the failure of the ballet only months earlier, it must have been tempting to use the occasion of Uslovno ubityi to recycle attractive and lively music that was otherwise going to waste. There is also the problem of the missing numbers. All the evidence, including the final Bolshoi Theatre scene of the film Veselye rebiata, shows that there were two kinds of music involved in any music-hall show with the Tea-dzhaz ensemble. First, orchestral music played by the house-band that was sitting in the pit and conducted by Dunaevskii. Second, the Teadzhaz 's own repertoire, which was performed on stage and led by Utesov. It might seem likely that

even in Uslovno ubityi, the group would have performed popular numbers from their own repertoire that were perhaps written by Dunaevskii. However, the advertisement from Rabochii i teatr specifically promises that the Teadzhaz will perform as the '12 apostles', and as noted, music by Shostakovich with this title exists. This music was presumably written for the ensemble, rather than the orchestra, although it was possibly for both.

The texts of Uslovno ubityi Although parts of Shostakovich's full-score have recently turned up, so far there has been no reported sighting of Ryss and Voevodin's script. But there are fragments of it embedded in Shostakovich's sketches in his handwriting, and they are revealing, both about Shostakovich's working practices and about what actually happened in this particular show. The first of these fragments are Mashenka's two songs (nos. 3 and 4) written for Shulzhenko, and it seems that Shulzhenko herself retained … sympathetic memories of her experience of working on Declared Dead and of Shostakovich's contribution: 'To sing his songs was easy … they were such "striking" material that it inevitably provoked the laughter and applause of the spectators. But the main thing was something else. The dramaturgy wasn't very generous to my Mashenka, but Shostakovich's music allowed me to express the character of the heroine more fully – as such a sweet, little bourgeois and primitive lass.'96

Mashenka's first song is a parody of the kind of early twentieth-century (i.e. bourgeois) urban romance that was unpopular with proletarian ideologues, but much loved by just about everyone else. To general relief, such romances came back into the approved repertoire with a vengeance when the various proletarian organisations were wound up in 1932. Once again these songs became ubiquitous in restaurants, theatres and on the radio, and performances of such music by Shulzhenko herself as well as by colleagues like Izabella Iureva (1899–2000) became widely available on record. The rather amusing words of Mashenka's first song are clearly intended to give a waspish favour of those old-time lyrics and make a point about the bourgeois idleness and selfshness that flourished during the period of NEP:97 Okh, kak priiatno vecherkom, Pod okoshkom na skameyke, Pod cheriomukhoi v alleyke, Slushat' pen'e solov'ia … ili kanareyki; Na balkonchike riadkom, Kushat' kofe s molokom, Gladit' volosy tvoi, I govorit' naschet liubvi. [Oh, how pleasant of an evening, Under the little window on the little bench, Under the cherry tree in the little alley, To listen to the song of a nightingale…or a little canary; On the little balcony nearby, To sip coffee with milk in it, To stroke your hair And talk about love.]

Mashenka's second song, a lively quickstep number, is at first glance odder: Milyi, vidish' tam i tut Smeshalis' v kuchu koni, liudi, I zalpy tysiachi orudii Mne pokoiu ne daiut. Milyi, strakh menia beret Vdrug v ugare strasti Razneset nas pulemet Na melkie chasti. [My dear, you see here and there Horses and men mingled in a heap And volleys from a thousand guns Give me no peace. My dear, a terror grips me that Suddenly in the heat of passion A machine-gun will scatter us Into little pieces].

The joke here is that this ditty is a parody of extremely well-known lines taken from Mikhail Lermontov's Borodino, a poem once learnt by every Russian and Soviet schoolchild: Zemlia triaslas' – kak nashi grudi; Smeshalis' v kuchu koni, liudi, I zalpy tysiachi orudii Slilis' v protiazhnii voy … [The earth shook – like our breasts; Horses and men mingled in a heap And volleys from a thousand guns Blended with a drawn-out wailing …]

Apart from the scrap of Utesov's dialogue quoted by Laurel Fay in her description of the show's plot, these two songs are to date the only known parts of the text of Act 1. The texts surviving from Act 3 are similarly exiguous. In the manuscript of no. 33a, under the frst few bars of the vocal part of the opening rendering of the 'Song of the Golden Calf' from Gounod's Faust there are a few scribbled words: Na zemle ves' rod liudskoi Chtit odin kumir sviashchennii, Upravliaet on vsele …[nnuiu …]') [On earth all human kind

Honours one holy idol, He directs the uni … [verse … ]] This text then peters out, leaving only the vocal line without words. The first three 'seraphic' choruses in Act 3, nos. 30, 31 and 32, all begin Sviat sviat ('Holy! Holy!'), and are set each time as a blasphemously jaunty waltz-

refrain. Perhaps they were indeed a refrain, to interrupt, for example, a long speech from Utesov. The seraphim are busy taunting God: No. 30: Sviat sviat starovat, v borodu serebro, bes v rebro [Holy holy old man, silver in the beard, a devil in the rib] No. 31: Sviat sviat starovat, vygnali s dachi raskulachen i pridurkovat [Holy holy old man, [they] threw you out of your dacha, dekulak ised and an imbecile] No. 32: Sviat sviat starovat, ty sidi na nebe, na vode i na … [Holy holy old man, you sit on the sky, on the water and on … [illegible]]

The fourth chorus, no. 33, has rather different words: Na more i sushe greshnye dushi, a u nas na nebesakh dushi vzvesiat na vesakh. [On sea and dry land there are sinful souls, and where we are in the heavens souls will be weighed in scales].

There is a similarly brief lyric to no. 17a from Act 2. The hastily scrawled title is hard to read but appears to be simply 'kuplety': Posmotrite posmotrite, kak mi bystri i lovki, Nalegayte, nalegayte, vy na lodki ribaki [Look, look, how quick and nimble we are, Row, row, you are fishermen on a boat]

The sense here is odd, but the expression nalegayte na vesla ('pull on your oars') seems to be implied. As to what these 'fisherman' are up to, for the moment it must suffice to note that their number is immediately followed by a 'storm' (no. 17b). Act 2 also contains the longest and also most revealing text in Shostakovich's sketches: no. 24 entitled 'Beiburzhuev's Monologue'. A photograph (Plate 3.5) published in Rabochii i teatr, no. 28, 28 October 1931, shows the scene with Beiburzhuev, played by Koralli, standing by a steam locomotive. Beiburzhuev begins his monologue by talking about 'war veterans on crutches', and pours scorn on those who feel 'pity' for such people: 'Pity? What's pity got to do with it? You should feel indignation, fury … This is what we take away with us when we meet a veteran on crutches.' Fired by these thoughts, he sits down on the pile of trains, lights a cigarette, gazes around him at the ruined machinery, and exclaims: The cripples around me aren't likely to tell me who maimed them. A shame, though. And now I'm going to talk not about people but about engines… There are so many of them here. A whole graveyard. Who should be fogged for letting them get crippled and rusty?

Plate 3.5 Koralli and a locomotive.

Gradually Beiburzhuev begins to recognise some of the engines he is sitting on as old friends and starts to sing them a song: Hey, old-man steam-engine, have you been scrap-metal for long? Hang on! I know you! You were a good friend to us workers. You were beautiful and did a good speed. If you worked yourself up And were given your head for a few yards, You'd waddle along like a duck.

Overcome with emotion, Beiburzhuev then recalls times past with the different engines: We were in the same factory in the Donbass for three years … and did you recognise me? … Let's concentrate on life, let's not get down, you'll only panic. Let's light up, folks, we'll talk more easily with a cigarette. We're not done for yet.

He then launches into another song, recalling the fighting in different places that he and the engines have witnessed together ('We went together to fight the good fight! … A song followed our trains over the steppe …'), before altering tack.98 He explains to the engines that if in normal times he was their driver, 'in the feld I'm just like a commander'. He scolds them, as though they were lazy soldiers, and launches into a march-like declamation to spur them on, pursuing the fantasy that the engines are soldiers and he their offcer: 'Take care not to be blown to bits … Save your ammo … Don't let [the enemy] take the mountain …'. Calming down, he then feels sorry for them again, commiserating with them on their broken boilers, wheels and furnaces ('My leg aches a bit too, mate, just below the knee …'). He suggests that the engines have not been properly taken care of – 'We've a funny attitude to fne

steam-engines, no sympathy for them, no respect' – and wonders whether they have simply been fed the wrong fuel: You probably remember how we used to go from forest to forest in 1919. You'd chop a bit of frewood, then off you went. Those were happy days. But the fuel made the engines sick. And now they use coal …

Beiburzhuev then muses to the accompaniment of more sinister music that perhaps this is the result of the famous sabotage he has heard so much about. But he brushes such thoughts away and briskly commands the broken-down engines: Get yourself fixed and we're off to the front. But not to face the Poles, the Cossacks or the French. To another front with a heavy cargo of machinery. Off you'll go, under Caucasian and Volga skies, where there are other trains already, taking machinery there and bringing back grain. You'll have to huff and puff, old fellow, that's for sure. (Underneath this declamation, chugging train-like music is getting louder and louder and faster and faster.) You'll have to blow harder than the wind. Have you heard? Within five years we want to lay 25 [?] kilometres of railway track and it won't be steam engines like you that'll use them, not old engines, but powerful high-speed trains. Those are the kind of trains we'll have!

What a fun-loving audience at the Leningrad Music-Hall in October 1931 made of this laboriously peculiar scene it is hard to imagine. To judge by the harsh review in Rabochii i teatr, the proletarian critics were far from pleased. Reading this text now, one can sympathise. It does not seem funny. However, we should also remember that matters might have sounded differently with Shostakovich's bubbly and impertinent music chugging along underneath, not to mention that the words were delivered by Vladimir Koralli, who was an experienced and popular performer. Maybe, though it seems hard to believe, Koralli could actually have made this scene amusing.

A coda In 1991 the author made a performing restoration of some of the sketches of Uslovno ubityi that was frst performed by Mark Elder and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, Birmingham, on 27 November 1991. For the second performance, by Elder and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Promenade concert on 27 August 1992, BBC2 television sent out a crew to St Petersburg to make a short documentary flm about Uslovno ubityi. After advertising in a local newspaper for anyone who remembered those long-ago performances in the Leningrad Music-Hall, they were contacted by Boris Bychkov who summed up in a few evocative sentences his memories of a long-vanished moment in the history of Soviet popular (and not only popular) culture: I was young, I was a 16-year-old schoolboy at the time. I loved theater [sic]. I had a school chum who was involved in circus acrobatics . . . and he said to me, come on Boris, we'll hang out there, there's nothing else to do in the summer, and so I frequently attended the rehearsals as they prepared this show. Everyone was preparing the acts and it was all very lively … Dmitrii Dmitrievich Shostakovich wrote very merry music, there were songs and couplets, and he wrote accompaniments to circus numbers. In short, people were simple in those days and they responded very well to all of this.99

Notes The author would like to thank three much-valued friends and colleagues for their indispensable help and advice, although all mistakes and opinions are completely my own. Laurel Fay, Shostakovich's biographer, was generous enough to lend me the text of her unpublished lecture 'Mitya in the Music Hall', which I shall extensively draw on throughout this essay, and respond with advice and criticism to what I had written. 'Mitya in the Music Hall' was presented by her at Cornell University, 23 January 1995; at New York University, 23 February 1995; and at Hunter College, 27 September 1996 as part of 'Speaking of Shostakovich: A Symposium'. A version of this lecture was published in Muzykal'naia akademiia, 4, 1997, pp. 59–62, as 'Mitia v miuzik-kholle: eshche odin vsgliad na "Uslovno ubitogo" ' ['Mitya in the music-hall: one more look at "Declared Dead" ']. Olga Komok, a wise musician and sceptical scholar in St Petersburg, pursued on my behalf a maze of references and connections that I was unable or too ill-informed to track down myself, while Liudmila Kovnatskaia, the doyenne of St Petersburg musicologists, read the manuscript and offered several criticisms. 1 For this date, sometimes given as 20 October, see L. Fay, Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 63. 2 No one version is entirely satisfactory. 'Declared Dead' is the neat invention of Laurel Fay and used in her biography of Shostakovich (ibid.), and has the distinct advantages of alliteration and a witty take on the original sense, which should make it standard. It does, however, miss the special senses of uslovno, which Robin Aizlewood has suggested in conversation with the author was something of a jargon word of the 1920s. The sensational and commercially useful (but misleading) 'Hypothetically Murdered' was provided at my request by Grigorii Gerenstein for the frst concert performance of my reconstruction of some of Shostakovich's music from the show in Birmingham in 1991. There are also some pretty peculiar translations in other languages, such as French and German. 3'Estrada' is typically translated as 'variety'. In my experience, the term 'light entertainment' as used in the Britain comes closer to the meaning, since 'variety' carries the constricting connotation of too specifc a kind of performance. See the opening remarks in the introduction to E. Udarova, Estradnyi teatr: Miniatiury, obozreniia, miuzik-kholly (1917–1945) (Moscow, 1983), n.p. 4 The music from the show figures in Shostakovich's worklist as op. 31. 5 For example, S. Khentova, Shostakovich: zhizn' i tvorchestvo, vol. 1 (Leningrad, 1985), pp. 256–57. 6 C.T. Onions (ed. and rev.), Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 1375. 7 E.D. Udarova (ed.), Estrada Rossii. 20 vek. Leksikon (Moscow, 2000), p. 377. 8 Marinetti's first manifesto was printed in a St Petersburg newspaper in 1909. Following this, early reactions to his ideas can be found in the works of Khlebnikov, Maiakovskii and Kruchenykh. Marinetti visited Russia himself at the beginning of 1914, in which year also 'The Manifestos of Italian Futurism' appeared in a Russian translation by Vadim Shershenevich. V. Terras, A History of Russian Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), p. 410. 9 I am not suggesting that Eisenstein and others did not understand that there was a difference between music-hall (with its typically quickfre sequence of comic songs, patter routines, dances and conjuring tricks) and circus (with its clowns, large animals, and spectacular acrobatics); simply, that they tended in a refex fashion to bracket the two together (frequently along with references to detective movies, boxing matches and other popular entertainments) for the approved vulgarity they suggested. 10 From the translation by Richard Taylor and William Powell in R. Taylor (ed.), The Eisenstein Reader (London: BFI Publishing, 1998), p. 31. 11 'The Russian word ekstsentrik means initially "clown", but was adopted by the Petrograd-based Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS), led by Grigorii M. Kozintsev (1905–73), Leonid Z. Trauberg (1901–90) and Sergei I. Iutkevich (1904–85), whose self-proclaimed models in both theatre and cinema

included circus and music-hall techniques and American cinema'. Ibid., p. 193, 16n. 12 E. Braun, 'Futurism in the Russian Theatre, 1913–1923', in G. Berghaus (ed.), International Futurism in Arts and Literature (Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2000), p. 91. 13 Taken (including some odd typography which I have not been able to check against the original) from M. Pytel (trans.), Eccentric Manifesto (London: The Eccentric Press, 1992), p. 4. Pytel gives an original publication date for the manifesto of 9 July 1922, though the introduction to the manifesto is dated 5 December 1921. 14 K. Rudnitsky, Russian and Soviet Theatre: Tradition and the Avant-Garde (London: Thames & Hudson, 1988), pp. 97–99. 15 Ibid. 16 Shostakovich wrote music for three of Iutkevich's films: Zlatye gory [Golden Mountains] (1931), Vstrechnyi [Counterplan] (1932), and Chelovek s ruzhem [The Man with a Gun] (1938). 17 Edward Braun notes that Foregger's pioneering work was anticipated by a 1919 production in the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace of Lev Tolstoy's play The First Distiller. This, comments Braun, 'gave new focus to the current debate on the hybridisation of the dramatic stage – its "circusization" and "music-hallization", to use the terms then current. It also marked the advent of a new genre that would shortly be called "Eccentrism".' E. Braun, p. 85. 18 All quotations and references to the plot and libretto of The Golden Age are taken from the English translation of the 'synopsis' in D. Shostakovich, The Golden Age Op. 22, A Ballet in Three Acts and Six Scenes Story for the Ballet by Alexander Ivanovsky (Edited and Introductory Article by M. Iakubov). Piano Score (Moscow: 1995), pp. 8–9. 19 Knock-about parodies of familiar literary classics seem to have been a fairly familiar format for such songs, and there was a parodying of a poem by Lermontov's Borodino in Uslovno ubityi. 20 Notorious, that is to say, among conductors and orchestral players for the practical problems of performance that it creates. 21 I am grateful to David Fanning for a stimulating conversation on this aspect of the Fourth Symphony. It is worth adding that although Shostakovich's overwhelming fascination for low-life entertainment music declined thereafter, especially following the official and public attacks on his music early in 1936, traces of music-hall (among other sources of banal imagery) remained an important part of his musical language right up to his last works in the 1970s. 22 G. Roberts, The Last Soviet Avant-garde: OBERIU– Fact, Fiction, Metafiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 6n. 23 Real name Daniil Ivanovich Iuvachev (1905–42). 24 The title chosen by Neil Cornwell for his translation: D. Kharms, Incidences (London: Serpent's Tail, 1993). 25 It should be added that though the examples given here are somewhat capriciously chosen, it would not be difficult to fnd many other such examples of the self-consciously avant-garde appropriation of popular and especially music-hall forms and styles all over the high culture of the period. 26 E.D. Udarova (2000), p. 377. Despite these changes of name, the theatre most often appears in the literature simply as the Leningrad Music-Hall, which is how it will be referred to in this essay. Elsewhere Udarova notes that 'already in the 1920s the question of the creation of Soviet music-halls was widely debated in the press' and she adds in a note that such debates were especially common in the magazine Zrelishcha [The Spectacle] between 1922 and 1924. E.D. Udarova, Russkaia sovetskaia estrada 1930–1945; ocherki istorii (Moscow, 1977), p. 15. 27 The close personal involvement of Anatolii Lunacharskii (1875–1933) in the setting up of the new Soviet music-halls has often been noted. See, for example, E. Udarova (1983), p. 195ff. 28 Throughout this period, the Music-Hall found itself 'swinging between operetta theatre and satirical theatre'. Ibid., p. 203. 29 S.F. Starr, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 95, referring to E. Stepanov, Kulturnaia zhizn ' Leningrada 20-kh-nachala 30-kh godov,

(Leningrad, 1976), p. 259. 30 A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', Dunaevskii v Leningrade (Leningrad, 1985), p. 13ff. 31 Nikolai Aseev (1889–1963) was later the librettist of Shostakovich's aborted operetta The Big Lightning (1932). The poetry of Mikhail Svetlov (1903–64) was later set by Shostakovich in Victorious Spring (1945), a patriotic show for the NKVD Song and Dance Ensemble. In the summer of 1929, Demian Bednyi (1883–1945) was supposed (but failed) to provide the lyrics for the fnale of Shostakovich's Third Symphony (subtitled 'The First of May'). 32 The year 1934 is the end-date given in L. Fay (2000), p. 367. However, one Soviet source claims it was 1941. G.B. Bernandt and I.M. Iampol 'skii (eds.), Sovetskie kompozitori i muzikovedi, vol. 1 (Moscow, 1978), p. 224. Other Soviet sources also seem unclear on this point, as they are on the exact date of the closure of the Leningrad Music-Hall. E.D. Udarova in a comment on the declining years of Soviet music-hall in the mid-1930s observes: 'the music-halls were closing by 1937'. See E. Udarova (1983), p. 238. In Dunaevskii's worklist, compiled by D.M. Person, it would seem that he composed his last music for the Music-Hall in 1937. D.M. Person, I.O.Dunaevskii. Notobibliografcheskii spravochnik (Moscow, 1971). Presumably, he was still music-director at that stage. 33 Quoted in A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', p. 14. Nikolai Robertovich Erdman (1902–70) was most famous for his two early satires Mandat [The Mandate] (1924), which was staged to scandalous effect by Meyerhold in 1925, and Samoubiitsa [The Suicide] (1928), which was not staged, but led to considerable political diffculties including his imprisonment and exile. Vladimir Zakharovich Mass (1896–1979) was a playwright and poet who like Erdman suffered imprisonment and exile. He frst came to prominence in Foregger's Mastfor workshop with his dramatisation of Maiakovskii's poem Good Treatment for Horses (1922) for a production by Eisenstein and Sergei Iutkevich. The previous year, he was also a signatory of the Eccentric Manifesto, and was the director of the film The Golden Mountains (1931), the score of which Shostakovich wrote immediately before Uslovno ubityi. After the Second World War, Mass reappeared as a popular humorist and was one of the two librettists of Shostakovich's operetta Moskva, Cheryomushki (1958). 34 The singer Nina Tamara was a star of the early music-hall who later moved into operetta. She took part in the original launch of the Eccentric Manifesto (see nn. 11 and 12 above, and E. Braun, p. 91). 35 Cherkasov began as an acrobat, but graduated to being one of the Soviet Union's leading movieactors and a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. He was the star of Eisenstein's Alexander Nevskii (1938) and Ivan Groznyi [Ivan the Terrible], pts. 1 and 2 (1944, 1945), and the author of memoirs that include an account of the Leningrad Music-Hall. A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', p. 19. 36 Ilia Ilf (real name, Ilia Arnoldovich Fainzilberg, 1897–1937), Evgenii Petrov (real name, Evgenii Petrovich Kataev, 1903–42), Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko (1895–1958). Ibid., p. 20. 37 Some of the first accounts of this group can be found in S. Dreiden, 'Tea-dzhaz', in Zhizn' iskusstva, 1929 (no issue number given). Reprinted in G. Skorokhodov, Neizvestnii Utesov (Moscow, 1995), pp. 58–62. 38 Many of these items can be heard in original 78 rpm recordings and 33 rpm reissues. A complete list can be found in G. Skorokhodov, pp. 178–202, including several versions of one of the band's early hits, Dunaevskii's Schastlivyi put' [The Happy Way] (1932) to words by Mass and Erdman. 39 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', p. 1. 40 A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', pp. 20–21. 41 Starr translates this title as 'Jazz at the Crossroads'. S.F. Starr, p. 150. 42 There seems to be some confusion about the date of Dzhaz na povorote. I am following SaraevaBondar', but G. Skorokhodov in the sleeve notes to the LP Pamiati Leonida Utesova (1), Melodiya, M60 44997 001, gives 1930, while S. Frederick Starr implies that the show was after Uslovno ubityi at the end of 1931. Indeed, he makes a case that Dzhaz na povorote was written as a reaction to the failure of Uslovno ubityi. However, this seems unlikely as by then the company was almost certainly already at work on the next show, Muzykal'nyi Magazin. S.F. Starr, p. 150. 43 E.D. Udarova (1983), p. 212.

44 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', pp. 5–6. 45 It was presumably Mass and Erdman who subtitled the piece 'A Jazz Clownade' [Dzhaz klounada], a coinage that looks back to the bouffonades [buffonadi] of the old Mastfor days. 46 A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', p. 26. 47 The Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov numbers were recorded and are available on Melodiya M60 44997 001. 48 S.F. Starr, p. 153. Saraeva-Bondar' makes the same point at greater length. A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', pp. 40ff. 49 Among passing details worth mentioning here are: the starring debut of the actress Liubov' Orlova, who then became Alexanderov's wife; the unhappy aspects of the involvement of Mass and Erdman, both of whom were under a political cloud; and (most famously) Stalin's fondness for this movie, which he watched many times. 50 David Fanning has pointed out in conversation that there is also a curiously serendipitous if entirely spurious connection with Shostakovich in this film. The comic misunderstandings of the opening scenes of Veselye rebiata, set in a Black Sea seaside resort, depend on the fact that everyone knows that there is a famous composer staying in the resort. The Utesov character, Kostia Potekhin, the simple shepherd, is mistaken for this composer with preposterous consequences. It happened that at the time of the premiere of Uslovno ubityi in October 1931, Shostakovich had preferred to skip those performances and travel south to the Black Sea to work on Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. He was hardly the only one, though, as everyone who could took their holidays on the Black Sea. 51 E.D. Udarova, Russkaia sovetskaia estrada 1930–1945: Ocherki istorii (Moscow, 1977), p. 51. 52 Ibid., pp. 52–53. According to Udarova's note, Akimov's article appeared in Rabochii i teatr, 1934, no. 17, p. 6. 53 E.D. Udarova (1977), p. 53. 54 Reproduced in E.D. Udarova (1983), p. 220. 55 See N. van Norman Baer, Theatre in Revolution: Russian Avant-garde Stage Design 1913–1935 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991) for more details of these artists' work in the theatre. 56 Both the Rodchenko drawing, and a photograph of its realisation, can be found in K. Rudnitsky, p. 259. It is also worth noting that Sergei Eisenstein's fnal theatrical production, before he moved permanently into the cinema, was his 1924 staging of Sergei Tretiakov's agitprop drama The Gas Masks. Ibid., p. 96. 57 Rabochii i teatr, 24, 1931. 58 The same description as that of Attraktsiony v deistvii. 59 V. Bakhtin and A. Lur'e (authors and comp.), Pisately Leningrada. Bibliografcheskii spravochnik (Leningrad, 1982), page number not given. 60 Kratkaia Literaturnaia Entsiklopedia, vol. 6, page number not given. 61 E.D. Udarova (2000), p. 449. 62 The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers and Theatre of Working-class Youth respectively. 63 See K. Rudnitsky, pp. 265–66. 64 A.M. Saraeva-Bondar', p. 20. 65 E.D. Udarova (2000), p. 22. 66 Ibid. This is the Shvarts title given by E.I. Strutinskaia, the author of this entry on Akimov. But it appears that no such work is listed in Shvarts's output. It is therefore not clear what play or fairy-tale is meant here. 67 Akimov was also a gifted painter and his well-known portrait of Shostakovich can be viewed on the Chandos Multimedia DVD-ROM, DSCH Shostakovich, Chandos 55001 2001. It is merely dated 'Early 1930s'. 68 E.M. Kostina, Dmitriev (Moscow, 1957), pp. 6–7; F.Ia. Syrkina and E.M. Kostina, Russkoe teatral'no-dekoratsionnoe iskusstvo (Moscow, 1978), p. 154. 69 Ibid.

70 E. Souritz, Soviet Choreographers in the 1920s (London: Dance Books, 1990), pp. 255ff. 71 Ibid., pp. 301–15. 72 E.D. Udarova (2000), p. 134. 73 K. Rudnitsky, p. 238. 74 Evgeni Pavlovich Gershuni (1899–1970) played a major role in the development of Soviet estrada, and is still remembered at the St Petersburg Circus for his work in the 1930s. He also wrote a volume of memoirs: E. Gershuni, Rasskazyvaiu ob estrade (Moscow, 1968). 75 A photograph of this ensemble can be found in S.F. Starr, following p. 192. 76 This translation follows L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', p. 7. 77 Vladimir Filippovich Koralli (real name Kemper, 1906–95), renowned as a performer of monologues. E.D. Udarova (2000), p. 266. 78 Many of whom were writing in the frequently ferocious pages of Rabochii i teatr. 79 There was evidently a genre of names for Utesov's characters: compare Mass and Erdman's Kostia Potekhin to Riss and Voevodin's Stopka Kurochkin, for example. 80 E.D. Udarova notes that 'In 1931 [Shul'zhenko] performed two songs in Uslovno ubityi as Masha Funtikova, an ice-cream seller'. E.D. Udarova (2000), p. 672. 81 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music-Hall', p. 7, footnotes this scrap of dialogue to G. Skorokhodov, p. 30. 82 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall' pp. 6–7. The Osoaviakhím and PVO practice manoeuvres, which underpin the plot of Uslovno ubityi, also reappear much later in Russian culture in Nikita Mikhalkov's Oscar-winning movie Utomplennye solntsem [Burnt by the Sun] (1994), complete with images of gasmasks and stretcher-bearers. Mikhalkov's clear point is to parody these goings-on as absurdly typical and evocative of the terrifying political atmosphere of the early Stalinist period. 83 For numbers 3 onwards, I am working from photographs given to me in 1988 by Gennady Rozhdestvensky and taken from the original piano sketches then held in the TsGALI (now RGALI), f. 2048, opis'.1, ed. khr. 45. The full orchestral score of the frst two numbers turned up more recently in St Petersburg, where it was found by Andrei Nikolaievich Kriukov. It is now held in the Shostakovich Family Archive in Moscow, and photocopies were kindly supplied to me by Irina Antonovna Shostakovich. 84 My suggestion that the missing no. 25 was the beginning of Act 3 is of course hypothetical. It could just as well have been the end of Act 2. 85 Possibly using the immense line-up of female dancers seen in the illustrations included in S.F. Starr, following p. 192. 86 A few months after Uslovno ubityi, Shostakovich reused this same march for the entry of Fortinbras and his soldiers in Akimov's Moscow production of Hamlet . Could it have been this music too that the harsh reviewer of Uslovno ubityi in Rabochii i teatr noticed as having already been used by Shostakovich in his (currently missing) score for the 1930 TRAM production Tselina [Virgin Soil]? The reviewer noted his irritation that music used in Virgin Soil to accompany the outing of the kulaks was unfatteringly recycled in Uslovno ubityi as a Red Army dance. While this comment clearly refects the politics of Rabochii i teatr, it also tells us that the music in question was sufficiently distinctive that the critic was able to recognise the recycling. L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', p. 8. 87 Ibid., p. 7. 88 Underwater ballets were a feature of early music-hall entertainments in Britain and survive there in Christmas pantomimes, which have inherited much from music-hall. 89 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall' p. 8. 90 In Shostakovich's worklist as the Overture and Finale to Bednyi Kolumb, op. 23. Laurel Fay notes that in this score the tune is cued to coincide with 'the appearance of the Yankees' and a film showing an expanding dollar sign. Ibid., p. 14. 91 E.D. Udarova (1983), p. 217–22. 92 Ibid., p. 219. There is an account of Meyerhold's production of the Maiakovskii play in K. Rudnitsky, pp. 62–64.

93 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', p. 13. 94 Derek Hulme, in his revised catalogue of Shostakovich's works, suggests that the whole of the original full score of Uslovno ubityi has turned up. He gives no reference to support this case and I can fnd no evidence for it. Certainly DSCH, the Shostakovich family archive and publishers, had no knowledge of such a fnd when asked in February 2003. See D.C. Hulme, Dmitri Shostakovich: A Catalogue, Bibliography, and Discography 3rd ed., (London: Scarecrow Press, 2002), p. 97. 95 These three numbers are derived from The Bolt as follows: the Overture to Uslovno ubityi is a truncated version of no. 1 in The Bolt (Overture); The Destruction of the City in Uslovno ubityi is no. 5 in The Bolt (Pantomime of the Installation of Machines); The Field (landscape) in Uslovno ubityi is an altered version of no. 18 in The Bolt (the Introduction to Act II). 96 L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', p. 12. 97 The author acknowledges the help of Grigorii Gerenstein who deciphered the texts of Mashenka's songs, and of Helen de Bray, who deciphered and translated the whole of the rest of the surviving text in the sketches. 98 The tunes of the four or fve songs used in this monologue are not identifed. They are either actual mass or campaigning songs of the period, or Shostakovich's imitation of the genre. 99 Quoted in L. Fay, 'Mitya in the Music Hall', p. 12.

4 From the factory to the fat Thirty years of the Song of the Counterplan John Riley The song is one of those that will long continue to keep green the memory of that amazing heroic epoch.1

Shostakovich worked in virtually every genre. But some genres are more equal than others and his film scores and songs have not had the exposure or level of analysis that some of his other works have enjoyed. So a song that appears in a film may appear to be doubly blighted. But despite being one of his least studied works Pesnia o vstrechnom [Song of the Counterplan] is one of his most intriguing compositions, perhaps his most popular work and almost certainly his most frequently heard. And just as he reused it at several points through his career, so we can use it to track political changes and his responses to them. As well as featuring in the film Vstrechnyi [The Counterplan, 1932]2 Shostakovich reused the song in three places: the cantata Poema o rodine [The Poem of the Motherland, 1947]; the film score Michurin (1949) and the operetta Moskva, Cheremushki [Moscow, Cheremushki, 1959], filmed in 1962 with the name of the city dropped from the title. There were also various other uses of it, both at home and abroad, and they will also be briefy discussed even though they are more tangential. By 1931 Shostakovich had already written three film scores: Novyi Vavilon [New Babylon, 1929], Odna [Alone, 1931] and Zlatye gory [The Golden Mountains, 1931]. With each he had taken forward lessons for his work both in and out of the cinema. For Kozintsev and Trauberg's New Babylon he composed seven large movements to be performed live to the film's seven single-reel 'acts'.3 Avant-garde, politically contentious and poorly performed it was hugely unpopular with both musicians and audiences and was only shown in cinemas for a few days. But whatever political lessons he learned, there was a musical one as well. New Babylon was reedited after Shostakovich had completed the score, considerably shortening it, but the large blocks of music were unwieldy and re-editing them to match the new

version of the film proved difficult, contributing to its failure. Despite this, the directors kept faith, inviting Shostakovich to score their next flm, Alone. Here he had the advantage of a synchronised soundtrack so that at least the music could not go awry in performance. He had also realised that on its way to completion, film is a fuid medium and that his music needed structural fexibility. Hence, he composed a mosaic of small fragments that could be shuffled, cut and repeated as necessary.4 But there was another difference between the two types of score. In New Babylon Shostakovich used popular pieces, such as The Marseillaise, and melodies by Offenbach like Wagnerian leitmotifs. For the next films he did this through original songs. Kakaya khoroshaya budet zhizn'! [How Good Life Will Be!] recurs at crucial points in Alone5 and Kogda b imel zlatye gory [If Only I Had Golden Mountains] is a kind of leitmotif for the dreams of the proletariat in The Golden Mountains. However, he really struck gold with the song for his next film, The Counterplan (1932).6 The only film specifcally commissioned to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the revolution, The Counterplan was so important that Leningrad Party chief Sergei Kirov gave advice from early on.7 But it was also part of a minigenre that had recently emerged called the 'industrialisation film' that included Entuziasm aka Simfonia Donbassa [Enthusiasm aka Symphony of the Donbass, 1931], Liudi i deli [Men and Jobs, 1932], and Ivan (1932). Appropriately for a revolutionary commission The Counterplan successfully opened on 7 November 1932 despite heavy criticism leading to it being reedited at the last minute. It was directed by Sergei Iutkevich, Shostakovich's friend and former lodger, and Fridrikh Ermler, father of the conductor Mark. They divided the work between them, with the 27-year-old Iutkevich directing the younger characters and the six-year-older Ermler the senior cast members. Perhaps Ermler was also expected to draw on his experience in the Cheka (the forerunner of the KGB) to keep an eye on things, though he later claimed to have had no particular enthusiasm for the subject.8 Both directors are complex figures. Iutkevich was denounced as a leftist in the 1930s and a cosmopolitan in the 1940s, and had Rassvet nad Rossiia [Light Over Russia, 1947] banned, but also produced a series of iconic biographies of Lenin. He restored Eisenstein's banned Bezhin lug [Bezhin Meadow, 1935–7, unfinished] and oversaw the publication of his writings, but re-edited Sergo Paradzhanov's films to make them acceptable for release. Ermler made the two-part Velikii grazhdanin [The Great Citizen, 1937 and 1939],9 a

fictionalised 'explanation' of the assassination of Kirov and the necessity for retribution and, coincidentally in this context, Bolshaia sila [The Great Force, 1950], which deals with the campaign to end 'obeisance to foreign science' echoing the Lysenkoist hijacking of agronomic theory which is behind Michurin. But his films are well made and he attempted to produce rounded characters, escaping the clichéd one-dimensional portrayals that some directors provided. Though for some critics The Counterplan was not successful in this regard, others were favourably disposed towards it.10 The Counterplan is a troubling but also an ambiguous film. The wrecker Skvortsov endangers the work of a Leningrad factory, but his sabotage is discovered and corrected by good communists. But can it be entirely serious when Party Secretary Vasia enthusiastically declares: 'Numbers! If numbers are against the fulfilment of the plan then they are hostile numbers! And the people who bring them forward are not our people but enemies!' But there is also a love interest as he struggles with his growing love for Katia, the wife of his friend Pavel. In a beautifully filmed White Nights sequence, Vasia and Katia walk through a Leningrad undergoing redevelopment; she is explaining her unhappiness and he concealing his feelings. This was criticised as a distraction, but apart from being an attractive romantic subplot it touches on recent re-evaluations of social structures including love and the relationship between men and women, even though it has a conventional outcome.11 Nevertheless, at a time of show-trials and the 'unmasking of wreckers' The Counterplan is supportive of the regime's tactics, though the makers had less than total choice in the matter. Shostakovich got the job of composing the music to The Counterplan through Iutkevich and co-writer Lev Arnshtam, a fellow piano student and sound engineer on Alone and The Golden Mountains.12 Shostakovich worked hard on the film's most famous song, drafting several versions but fnally producing one that became and would remain immensely popular.13 Perhaps it was envy of this that led to charges of plagiarism.14 However, this is not the place to comment on the similarity of the melody of Khrennikov's song Proshchal'naia [Parting] in the 1944 film V shest' chasov posle voiny [At Six o'Clock PM after the War]. However, just a fortnight after the film had opened, an article appeared under Shostakovich's name condemning the state of Soviet music and blaming clichéd incidental music and the poor quality of sound recording for flms. More outspokenly the article said that 'we must do away with the

depersonalisation of the composer'.15 Hand in hand with the industrialisation which The Counterplan celebrated had gone an increasing downgrading of the importance of the individual. Society was described in terms of a machine with its individual members as cogs, and Alone included several declarations that individual desires were to be overridden by the needs of society. Several years later Shostakovich laconically announced that 'Finally the melody's author becomes anonymous, something of which he can be proud.'16 On a more practical note he added that 'The Song of the Counterplan has taught me that music composed as an integral part of a film must not lose its artistic value, even outside it.'17 This was a lesson he would very much take to heart with the song, exploiting its artistic value to the full in several contexts. Given the subject matter and the conditions under which it was made, Shostakovich must have had mixed feelings about the project and his contribution to it. These may have been intensifed when, after a 1933 cinema conference, it was held up as 'the leading model for entertainment films', and again in 1938 when the song's lyricist Boris Kornilov was purged.18 The lyrics are a simple call for workers to 'meet the cool of the morning' and go joyfully to work, but it was undoubtedly the tune – a brisk march – that caught people's imagination. Shostakovich had a knack of writing these catchy melodies and none is more so than this one. Having worked hard on the song Shostakovich made the song work hard for him and much of the film's score is based on variants of it, interleaving it with other pieces in the same way he had approached The Golden Mountains. Amongst the variations are choral, solo vocal, and orchestral versions as well as one accompanied by guitar in the manner of a melancholy Russian romance. Despite the crudity of the recording, which must have pained Shostakovich, all three of his frst sound films have adventurous sound-scapes that pointedly mingle speech, music and sound effects, and it did not go unnoticed.19 There are even moments in The Counterplan where it is not clear where the music stops and the sound effects start as the factory sounds merge into or echo the score.20 The popularity of the Song of the Counterplan must have started as an almost exclusively urban phenomenon as less than 1 per cent of projectors were equipped with sound and so most cinema-goers outside the major cities would not have heard it.21 But it may have been helped along by radio broadcasts and the publication of the sheet music in 1933. The film was also distributed overseas though not everyone fell entirely under its spell.

According to one British reviewer the film's one big fault was 'its inordinate length and an occasional slowness of development indicating a certain carelessness in the construction of the scenario', but that this had been recognised and it was to be re-edited for its British release. But, though the final reel 'provides one of the fnest instances of the dramatic use of sound that we have seen', neither Shostakovich nor the music are mentioned.22 Moreover, as so often with his incidental music, Shostakovich almost immediately raided it for other works, though curiously he left the song alone, using another piece in his unfinished operetta Bol 'shaia molniia . [The Great Lightning , 1932]. But if Shostakovich was steering clear of the song, others were not, and it turned up in 1936 in Jean Renoir's La vie est à nous, under the title Song of the Komsomols. This propaganda film for the French Front Populaire combines fiction and documentary footage, including speeches by Maurice Thorez and Marcel Cachin. Hitler's image is accompanied by the barking of a dog, and images of Mussolini alternate with battle scenes and corpses. In contrast the Soviet regime is shown in a positive light. The song was also taken up by at least part of the left wing in Britain as Nancy Head gave it a new lyric and it was published at the beginning of the war by the Workers' Music Association under the title Salute to Life. These 'left' associations may have been problematic in the pre-war West but when East and West joined in fighting Nazism the song's communist overtones were overlooked in the excitement of the pact. This was the impetus for a furry of appearances including a BBC Symphony Orchestra concert celebrating Stalin's birthday at which Henry Wood conducted Nancy Head's arrangement. Then, in 1942 the song was reworked by Harold J. Rome as The Hymn of the United Nations, although as the organisation did not as yet exist, it refers only to the loose confederation and cooperation of various countries. This proved popular enough to record under the title The United Nations in an orchestral arrangement by Charles O'Connell. So popular was it that another orchestration was made at the same time by Charles Brendler. In the same year, the words were also slightly changed and added to by E. Yip Harburg, and it was arranged by Herbert Stothart and an uncredited Roger Edens for soprano solo (Kathryn Grayson), huge orchestra and choir, conducted by José Iturbi, for the film Thousands Cheer (1943).23 This morale-booster featured just about every MGM star and includes a vaudeville show allowing them all to do their turns, climaxing with

Shostakovich's rearranged song, rounded off with a 'Victory V' from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. With the Cold War yet to start, Shostakovich is properly credited and is even mentioned by Judy Garland in The Joint is Really Jumpin' in Carnegie Hall.24 This boogie-woogie number is bizarrely prefaced by Iturbi's Lisztian introduction and features the lines: They're playing Ta-tlee-a-ti, Ta-tlee-a-ti, with Shostakovich, Ta-tlee-a-ti, Ta-tlee-a-ti, Mozart and Bach,

But perhaps Shostakovich got off lightly compared to the scansion of: Tchai-Tchai-Tchai-kovskii would really be hurt to hear 'em jivin' his Piano Concért.

Even though the West should have found the film politically unobjectionable there were controversies. During training, the leading character (Eddie) shoots cartoon cut-outs of Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito, but Swedish censors removed the scene, and in the final show the black performers were removed in the southern states of the United States, and of course there were none to be seen in the 'multinational' choir. It was Oscar-nominated for Best Scoring of a Motion Picture, but This is the Army won. In any case Shostakovich would presumably not have been required to receive the statuette. All this helped Shostakovich's image, if not his finances.25 But throughout this period he stayed away from the song. He returned to it perfunctorily in 1947 as his amanuensis Lev Atovmian arranged the cantata The Poem of the Motherland, which was little more than a concoction of popular hits by Shostakovich and others that ended with the Song of the Counterplan. Rushed into print and rehearsal for the thirtieth anniversary of the revolution, Tikhon Khrennikov denounced it as inadequate for the celebrations. Consequently, it was not performed live and had to wait until 1956 for its concert premiere, although it was broadcast on the radio and recorded. This failure adequately to recognise the revolution must have been a black mark against Shostakovich, and though it may not have weighed particularly heavily in the totality of the events of 1948, it could not have helped his situation. On this occasion the Song of the Counterplan had failed him, but he would continue to use it at politically signifcant moments. If The Poem of the Motherland had been a failure, Shostakovich had greater hopes for Michurin. This biopic of the agronomist was one of many flms dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s showing the lives of Soviet pioneers or Russian precursors of the revolution. Here was potential for political capital as it refected Soviet science's attempts to unshackle itself

from its Western counterpart. As the Cold War developed the Soviet regime began to realign history in various ways. Marconi's development of radio was downgraded at the expense of Alexander Popov, and although Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright Brothers were acknowledged in aviation, the role of Russian balloonists was emphasised.26 The importance of agronomist Ivan Vasilievich Michurin (1855–1935) was to lay a path for Trofm Lysenko's denunciation of bourgeois Mendelism, dividing supporters and dissenters on political rather than scientifc lines. But even as the film was being made, Lysenko, claiming to be basing his theories on those of his teacher Michurin and the tenets of Marx and Engels (particularly The Dialectics of Nature), proposed that learnt behaviour was genetically transferable. Though this had implications for animal husbandry its social importance was unmistakable. Once one generation of socialists had been bred they would thereafter be self-perpetuating. The 'Michurin— Lysenko Path' was hailed for disposing of the last vestiges of religious mysticism and superstition, and Lysenko, who is now commonly described as a charlatan, used his political favour to become the Zhdanov of Soviet science until the death of Stalin. Khrushchev wasted no time in severely criticising him in March 1953, and he was relieved of his post as president of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1954, but somehow retained a position as personal adviser to Khrushchev on agriculture until the latter's fall in 1964. Ironically and perhaps a pointed comment on Lysenko's career, it was at this time that Lev Atovmian extracted a suite from the score of Michurin. Michurin himself invented many of the stories of his humble origins, the absence of any precedent for his work, his reliance on empirical research as opposed to abstract theorising, and the rejection he suffered by the tsarist regime until the Party (and by implication Stalin) realised his worth.27 Blaming the church for opposing his work, promising that his techniques would feed the country and claiming their derivation from Soviet Marxist theories won the authorities over, and he became the subject of yet another Soviet cult. His hometown of Kozlov was renamed Michurinsk,28 he was recognised with state prizes, received a congratulatory telegram from Stalin, and stories and poems joined the film in honouring him.29 Unfortunately, however, so sloppy were his methods that by 1931 only one of the hundreds of strains of fruit tree he claimed to have developed was suitable for commercial use.

The director of Michurin, Alexander Dovzhenko, had recently been reprimanded for the Ukrainian nationalism of his films and the fact that they ignored Stalin's massive contribution to Soviet life. He started adapting his play Zhizn' v tsvetu [Life in Bloom] for the screen in 1944, but it was sent back for endless rewrites, and the film was only completed in 1948.30 However, Stalin rejected it, and Dovzhenko had a nervous breakdown. After this, Dovzhenko reworked the film yet again, and typical of the regime's alternation of praise and condemnation, it was awarded a Stalin Prize.31 Michurin was for Dovzhenko a rare excursion outside the Ukraine, but he may have been attracted by a vehicle to show his loyalty, and the chance to shoot in colour and experiment with time-lapse photography. As it turned out, much of the film's fnal part was revised by Dovzhenko's wife, Iulia Solntseva, under instruction from the Party. Initially the film's release was held up to allow for the Congress of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Sciences. On the same day that it appeared on Soviet screens 1 January 1949, Lysenko, the president of the organisation, forecast that his methods would bring 'limitless growth in harvests' for the Soviet people.32 The congress had celebrated the success of 'the struggle to ideologically rout Mendelism– Morganism', and by that time Lysenko's advocacy had helped make Michurinism 'the sole correct line in the biological sciences'.33 Although politically committed, Dovzhenko's films include many lyrical interludes, but in Michurin he had to add cruder material, such as lampooning visitors from America and the church. After the glories of his silent films, Michurin was a sad end to Dovzhenko's career and it was omitted from the 1975 retrospective of his work at London's National Film Theatre, although his wartime documentaries were included even though they were a much more slender part of his work.34 Shostakovich had not been the frst choice as composer of the music to Michurin, but Gavril Popov's score was criticised for its 'formalism and excessively complicated musical language' so that 'even correctly reproduced Russian songs were distorted by the composer's harmonic refinements'.35 For Khrennikov, Shostakovich's work was much more acceptable, making one 'glad of its warmth and humanity'.36 Though not a lover of Dovzhenko's work in general, Shostakovich admired the photography and enjoyed working on the film.37 Possibly inspired by the rural theme, Shostakovich also claimed that his work on the film prompted him to compose the oratorio Pesni o

lesakh [The Song of the Forests].38 In the event, the Song of the Counterplan makes only a brief appearance in the film and provides no thematic material for the rest of the score. With a stirring speech, Michurin sends a trainload of people to introduce his methods in the collective farms, and they leave singing the song. As in the Leningrad factory of 1932, their efforts will doubtless lead to the 'limitless growth in harvests' and an overfulfilment of the plan – but this time of fruit rather than turbines. Naturally, the song was included when Atovmian came to compile the suite in 1964, the centrepiece of Michurin's Monologue. In the late 1940s, the Song of the Counterplan was still an immense hit overseas despite the state of East–West relations, and when a Soviet delegation (including Shostakovich) arrived at the American Congress of Scientifc and Art Workers in Defence of Peace in March 1949 they were greeted by 25,000 people singing the song.39 It was also sung in school assemblies all over the world for many years, and in New York it was only in the 1950s that this practice died out. Shostakovich also wrote of it being used as a wedding song in Switzerland,40 and by now the 'united nations' and 'peace' associations of the song had obviously stuck in the West. On Human Rights Day (10 December 1949) at Carnegie Hall Leonard Bernstein conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Collegiate Chorale in an arrangement by a composer identifed only as Langendoen. This was followed a few years later by Leopold Stokowski's orchestral arrangement under the title The United Nations March, which was performed at the first United Nations Day Concert (24 October 1954) in the General Assembly Hall of the newly built United Nations Headquarters complex in New York. The year 1956 marked Shostakovich's fftieth birthday. At the offcial celebrations, he was regaled with a Young Pioneers' performance of the Song of the Counterplan that perhaps inspired him to arrange it for voice and piano, and reuse it in Moscow, Cheremushki, which he wrote in 1957–8.41 Cheremushki is a large 1950s housing estate to the south-west of Moscow named after the bird cherry tree and the plot follows various residents' attempts to secure a fat there. The 1959 premiere was the occasion for several articles under Shostakovich's name.42 He had 'worked on the operetta with great enthusiasm' and hoped it would not be his last. The plot 'touches in a gay, dynamic form, on the vital question of the housebuilding programme in the Soviet Union' in order to make a 'jolly and lively show'. He also claimed that 'Now and again I parody elements from music that used to be popular not

long ago and quote some songs by Soviet composers.' If it means anything at all, this allusion to music that had fallen out of favour is a tongue-in-cheek reference to his own music. But in private he was less enthusiastic about the work, written as a favour to Grigorii Stoliarov, the Moscow Operetta Theatre director, and director of the production of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk that had enraged Stalin. Shostakovich wrote to Glikman that he was 'burning with shame', and that he need not waste his time on this 'boring, unimaginative, stupid' piece.43 Despite this, however, Glikman suggested a film version some years later, and Shostakovich acquiesced. Glikman cut some of the dialogue that they agreed was too slangy44 and Shostakovich wrote some new numbers for Rapoport's film with the result that the composer revised his opinion, even preferring the film to the stage production because of the effectiveness of the fantasy sequences.45 The audience shared his enthusiasm and it became a regular fxture on Soviet television for many years. There was also one unexpected outcome as, when it was prepared for publication, one of the editors was Irina Supinskaia, later to become Shostakovich's third wife. Writers Vladimir Mass and Mikhail Chervinskii took the opportunity of the more relaxed atmosphere to make the sort of criticisms that also appear in films such as Karnival'naia noch' [Carnival Night, 1956] and Letiat zhuravli [The Cranes are Flying, 1957] and Ehrenburg's era-defning novella Ottepel' [The Thaw] that was published in Novyi mir in spring 1954. However, the satire is mild and certainly never questions the correctness of socialism or the Party, but only the behaviour of certain individuals. Even so, events were moving so quickly that the observation that Cheryemushki itself was a sugary view of Soviet life, a comment acceptable in 1959, was cut from the film version three years later. Its subject matter and characters such as a construction worker make Cheremushki sound all too close to dreary propaganda or the 1930s 'industrialisation' films, and it was this and the large forces demanded by the score that made Western producers overlook the piece. Soviet operetta theatres had large musical resources and could fulfil stage directions such as 'The stage changes into a cosy room. From the wings a ZIL refrigerator emerges followed by two armchairs and a vase with fowers. The furniture dances.'46 But as Gerard McBurney notes: 'there is after all something intrinsically hilarious about silly tunes, not to mention the soap opera-like passions of the characters, being belted out by or over a large symphony

orchestra'.47 Although kept from the Western stage, the film was briefy released in the United States under the title Song over Moscow, but its British stage premiere took place only in 1994.48 Shostakovich added to the fun of Cheremushki by including musical quotes from Tchaikovsky and Soviet pop songs, as well as, most glaringly, V. Soloviev-Sedoy's worldwide hit Podmoskovskaia vechera [Midnight in Moscow]. Mocking petty officials was acceptable at the time, but Shostakovich went one step further by combining The Dance of the Bureaucrats from The Bolt, the long-forgotten ballet about wreckers, and a fanfare heralding Stalin's arrival from the secretly written satire Rayok. None but his closest friends would have known this piece and even they may not have spotted the joke, which was probably more for his own amusement than anyone else's. Shostakovich also regurgitated the Song of the Counterplan in Cheremushki, but the new words could hardly be a bigger contrast to the original's call to industrial arms as Lidochka laments that the time she spent studying at school has left her ignorant of love. Audiences could not have missed the tune and the witty 'realignment' of the words. It also reappears in Act Two when the 'lovers' agree to part but, in a slow variation, each regrets that they cannot get the other to see how they feel. As in the 1930s, the role and nature of love was being analysed in films such as The Cranes are Flying, with its deep erotic charge, and Urok v zhizn' [Lesson of Life – released in Britain as The Wife, 1957], which questions whether a woman should stay in an unsatisfying marriage. Though the times and the context may have changed, Lidochka was a contemporary character struggling with the same sorts of questions. She was not looking for something revolutionary, but for a traditional relationship, just as Natasha in Lesson of Life decides to stay with her husband despite his inadequacies. This constitutes the most complex use of the Song of the Counterplan. At its simplest level, it allows people to feel the familiar return of an old friend. Beyond that it compares Soviet love in the 1930s and the 1950s. But at a third level, as Cheremushki was being constructed in record time using the latest techniques, once again we see an attempt to fulfil a hopelessly ambitious plan that is only achieved through fiddling the figures. Cheremushki still (just about) stands, an indictment of Khrushchev's housing policy, and as Igor Barbashov, the Moscow Operetta Theatre producer, noted: 'The Song of the Counterplan was virtually Khrushchev's theme tune.'49 The area was renamed the Brezhnev District after the death of the leader in 1982 – one might almost think that a

bitter comment on the years of stagnation – but in 1988 reverted to its old name. Shostakovich seems not to have returned to the Song of the Counterplan again after Cheremushki, but others were happy to use it, and it retained its status as an unofficial 'folk' song, rather like Knipper's Meadowland, from his Fourth Symphony.50 Apart from its use in films, it also got an official endorsement as Moscow Radio's call signal,51 and was heard in Elem Klimov's comic semi-'documentary' Sport, Sport, Sport (1971). The tone of Sport, Sport, Sport may be guessed at from the subtitle Neskol' ko istorii, proiskhodiashchikh na arena stadiona, na tribunakh pod tribunami [Several Stories which Happen in a Stadium, on Podia and under Podia]. Weaving footage from various sporting events into his story, Klimov creates a collage where reality and fiction merge, mocking the cold-war use of sporting achievement as a weapon. Oddly, this is reminiscent of Renoir's La vie est à nous, discussed above. The work is astringently scored by Schnittke. At one point the team needs a morale-booster and so someone turns up with an accordion to give a rendition of the Song of the Counterplan, presumably to ensure that the planned output (this time of medals) will be overfulfilled just as happened in the Leningrad turbine factory and the Michurinised collective farms. Therefore, as Shostakovich became more outspoken (musically speaking) in his criticism of the regime after the early 1960s, he was less inclined to reuse the Song of the Counterplan, although he still turned out occasional official pieces. It is tempting to see the various regenerations of the song as talismans or attempts to remind the regime that he could come up with the goods. The wisdom of this is endorsed by the fact that at Shostakovich's funeral, as Mark Lubotskii notes in his diary, the Song of the Counterplan was cited as evidence of his genius. But on another level it was an attack on the constant deceit of the Soviet Union, and the song's popularity illustrated how people were buying into that comfortable self-deception.

Notes 1 I. Shilova, 'The Story of a Song', in Soviet Film, 3, March 1971, p. 13. 2 Unless otherwise noted, film dates refer to the year of release rather than production. 3 The number of acts has been questioned. James Judd's complete recording (Capriccio 10 341/2) is divided into eight parts, but in Rozhdestvensky's suite the fnale is part seven. The directors wrote of seven reels. G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg, 'Novyi Vavilon', in Sovetskii ekran, 31, Dec. 1928, pp. 8–9. 4 He used the technique in several films, but it means that the published scores usually do not refect what is actually heard on the soundtrack. 5 Trauberg later claimed that it was his melody and Shostakovich had merely transcribed it: 'I wrote the song and instructed Shostakovich how to compose it, and he wrote it right away, a very good song' (T. van Houten, Leonid Trauberg and his Films: Always the Unexpected (s'Hertogenbosch: Art & Research, 1989), p. 144). 6 The Encounter is the most accurate of a bewildering array of English titles, including Pozor [Shame ], the title under which it was reviewed in The New York Times , Coming Your Way, The Passer-by, The First Comer and Turbine 50,000. The commonest title, The Counterplan , refers to the contemporary slogan 'Let's have a counterplan to the industrial and financial plan' as factories 'autonomously decided' to exceed their production quotas by a set amount. The working title was Greeting the Future. 7 Curiously, it is little mentioned in the book Quinze ans de cinématographie soviétique (Moscow: Direction Général de l'Industrie Cinématographique près du Conseil des Commissaires du Peuple de l'URSS, 1935). 8 Quoted in P. Kenez, Cinema and Soviet Society from the Revolution to the Death of Stalin (London: I.B. Tauris, 2001), p. 151. 9 Shostakovich wrote the score for both parts. 10 At the first Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, Ilia Ehrenburg criticised the characterisation: 'Mannequins are mannequins.' But the head of the film industry claimed that Babchenko (an old-style worker who undergoes a perestroika to become a valued worker) was one of 'that series of positive heroes produced by the greatest masters of Soviet cinema' (B. Shumiatskii, Kinematografiia millionov (Moscow, 1935). Translated in R. Taylor and I. Christie (eds), The Film Factory: Russian and Soviet Cinema in Documents 1896–1939 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 359). 11 Maiakovskii's ménage-à-trois with Osip and Lily Brik was only the most famous revision of domestic arrangements infuencing Abram Room's film Tretia meshchanskaia [Bed and Sofa] (1927) for which the set designer was Iutkevich. For an analysis of this trend and its antecedents, see J. Graffy, Bed and Sofa (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002). 12 Arnshtam went on to direct and Shostakovich scored five of his films: Podrugi [Girlfriends, 1935], Druzia [Friends, 1938], Zoia (1944), Pyat' dni pyat' nochi [Five Days Five Nights, 1961] and Sofa Perovskaia (1968). He also wrote a march for Arnshtam's unmade film Pogzhigateli voiny [The Warmonger, c.1948]. 13 There are three sketches – two for voice alone (13 bars each) and one with piano (14 bars) – in D. Shostakovich, Collected Works, vol. 42 (Moscow, 1987), p. 476. For the reuse of the song Michurin , see pp. 477–82. 14 S. Khentova, V mire Shostakovicha (Moscow, 1996), pp. 125–26 and 141. 15 D. Shostakovich, 'Deklaratsiia obiazannostey kompozitora', in Rabochy i Teatr , 31, November 1931, p. 6. 16 D. Shostakovich, 'Kino kak shkola kompozitora', in D. Eremin (ed.), 30 Let Sovetskoi Kinomategrafii (Moscow, 1950), p. 355. 17 Ibid. 18 Quotation from M. Turovskaya, 'The 1930s and 1940s: Cinema in Context', in R. Taylor and D.

Spring (eds), Stalinism and Soviet Cinema (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 44. As well as disappearing from histories, many of Kornilov's papers were destroyed. The Song of the Counterplan continued to be popular, but for many years was described as a setting of an anonymous folk text. 19 The New York Times reviewer described The Counterplan's sound reproduction as 'excellent', but there is no doubt that the Soviets were already slipping behind in this technology. HTS., 'Soviet Machine Romance', in The New York Times , 11 March 1933. 20 Kurt London comments on the film's use of 'noise-apparatus' and how 'the use of electrical instruments and special sound-effects interwoven with the music presents quite new sensations to the ear'. The Soviet Union was 'about to solve the problem of film music, both serious and light, in a form that will correspond in quality to its pictures.' K. London, Film Music: A Summary of the Characteristic Features of its History, Aesthetics, Technique; and Possible Developments (London: Faber and Faber, 1936), pp. 178 and 244–45. 21 Figure from E. Kuznetsova, 'Vokrug templana', in Kino , 5, 1933, p. 1. Kuznetsova also claims that in 1933 there were only 200 sound projectors in the entire country compared to 32,000 silent ones. 22 R. Bond, 'Counter Plan' [ sic], in Close Up, vol. 10, no. 2, June 1933, pp. 197–198. 23 It appears in the film credits as United Nations, on the soundtrack recording as The United Nations (Victory Song) and the sheet music (which ignores Harburg's alterations) as United Nations on the March. 24 Later on proper credit would not always be given. The Iron Curtain (1948) led to the Soviets suing 20th Century Fox for using music by Shostakovich, Khachaturian, Miaskovskii and Prokofiev without permission. It is ironic that the composers were being defended abroad whilst being vilifed at home. Of course the Soviets also hoped to extract money from the studio, although why they thought there was any chance of winning the case in an American court at the time is unclear. 25 In their contract with MGM (dated 5 November 1942) Am-Rus, the American distributor of Soviet films, claims to have 'full right and authority from Shostakovitch' [sic] but it is unlikely that he ever saw a contract and perhaps didn't even know about it. 26 Popov was the subject of a 1949 biopic directed by Gerbert Rapoport, who also made Cheremushki. Among the aviators to be honoured was Aleksei Meresiev, subject of Boris Polevoi's novel Povest' o nastoyashchemem cheloveke [The Story of a Real Man, 1946], a radio play (1947), Alexander Stolper's film (1948), and Prokofiev's opera (1948). 27 One example of this would be the article 'Results of My Sixty Years' Work and Prospects for the Future', in Transactions of the I.V. Michurin Plant-Breeding Station, vol. 2, 1934. Reprinted in I.V. Michurin, Selected Works (Moscow, 1949). 28 Unlike many other places that have reverted to their pre-Soviet names, Michurinsk still remains today. 29 Amongst these are Lebedev's story Michurin's Dream, but he had been referred to as early as 1935 in Semyon Kirsanov's poem Rabota v sady [Work in the Garden] with the line: 'Essentially, I'm a Michurinist'. V. Lebedev, Son Michurina [Michurin's Dream] (1940), an extract of which appears in J. von Geldern and R. Stites (eds), Mass Culture in Soviet Russia: Tales, Poems, Songs, Movies, Plays and Folklore 1917–1953 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), pp. 453–55. Originally from F.A. Fridliand and M.F. Robinson, Chteniia (Moscow, 1950), pp. 80–1. 30 Life in Bloom was the title under which the film was released in the United States. 31 Presumably some early forms were considered acceptable as excerpts were published. A. Dovzhenko, 'Zhizn' v Tsvetu', in Iskusstvo Kino, 1, 1946, pp. 6–13. 32 Lysenko quoted in D. Jarovsky, The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), p. 143. 33 Quotations from P.N. Yakovlev, 'Introduction' to I.V. Michurin, Selected Works (Moscow, 1949), p. xix; and T. Dobzhansky, 'Russian Genetics', in R.C. Christman (ed.), Soviet Science (Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1952), p. 1 respectively. 34 Programme, National Film Theatre, August–November 1975, pp. 33–36.

35 L. Schwarz, 'On Modern Film Music', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 3, 1948, 6. Cited in T.K. Egorova, Soviet Film: an Historical Survey (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1997), p. 291. 36 T. Khrennikov, 'Muzyka v kino', in Iskusstvo kino, 1, 1950, p. 27. 37 Even so in 1967 he wrote to Isaak Glikman: 'I really cannot understand why Eisenstein, and for that matter Dovzhenko, are considered such geniuses. I don't much like their work.' I. Glikman, Story of a Friendship: the Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman 1941–1975, trans. Anthony Phillips (London: Faber and Faber, 2001), pp. 146, 298–99. 38 M. Iakovlev, D. Shostakovich: o vremeni i o sebe (Moscow, 1980), p. 178. 39 D. Rabinovich, Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer (Moscow, 1959). 40 Shostakovich in D. Eremin, p. 355. 41 He also composed a version of the Song of the Counterplan for solo voice and chorus in 1961, the year before the operetta was filmed. 42 The following quotes are taken from: Sovetskaia muzyka, 1, 1959; Pravda, 1st January 1959; and Literatura i zhizn', 23 January 1959 (the day before the premiere). All appear in L. Grigoryev and Ia. Platek, Dmitry Shostakovich: About Himself and his Times, trans. Angus and Neilan Roxburgh (Moscow, 1981), pp. 199–201. 43 I. Glikman, pp. 79, 269–71. 44 In the same way he had revised the text of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk to make it 'less coarse'. 45 Interview with Isaak Glikman in the documentary Cheryomushki: Another Bite of the Cherry, BBC Wales, 1995. Broadcasted on BBC2, 20 August 1995. 46 From the stage directions. Quoted in D. Pountney, 'Shostakovich meets Offenbach', in Opera, October 1994, pp. 1160–65. 47 G. McBurney, 'Dear Shostakovich …' in BBC Music Magazine, vol. 3, no. 8, April 1995, pp. 9–10. The magazine was accompanied by a CD with extracts performed by Pimlico Opera using McBurney's reduced orchestration. 48 Pimlico Opera's Cheryomushki 1958 used a reduced orchestration by Gerard McBurney who, with Jim Holmes, arranged it for a larger band under the title Paradise Moscow for Opera North in 2001. 49 Cheryomushki: Another Bite of the Cherry. 50 Both composers 'enjoy' a semi-anonymous status with regard to these works, many people expressing surprise that they are not genuine folk songs. 51 I. Shilova, loc. cit.

5 Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier How the steel was tempered Lesley-Anne Sayers and Simon Morrison The evolution of Sergei Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier [The Steel Step] from idea to finished product spanned the mid to late 1920s. It is the only known ballet to have combined a Soviet revolutionary theme with a Soviet Constructivist staging. Yet, ironically, it was staged not in Moscow, but in Paris and London. Anatolii Lunacharskii, the Soviet Union's frst Commissar of Education, praised the ballet following its Paris premiere and Prokofiev had every reason to be hopeful of a staging in Moscow or Leningrad.1 But the artistic climate in Russia was changing and the work fell victim to the increasingly authoritarian artistic policies of the early Stalinist era, suffering official condemnation in 1929. The politicised contexts of its staging influenced its critical reception on both sides of the future iron curtain, resulting in long-term misunderstanding and neglect. Historians have tended to look at the ballet in terms of its production by Serge Diaghilev's 'Ballets Russes' in 1927, or at Prokofiev's score in isolation. Yet the driving force behind the work and the principal infuence on Prokofiev, was the ballet's designer, Georgii Iakulov, a prominent figure within the Soviet avant-garde. Surviving materials relating to the ballet's early development in 1925 enable crucial insight into the work's radical conception and the incendiary mixture of Soviet politics and Western context that affected its realisation. This essay attempts to explore the ballet as a collaborative creation, and to reconnect the work to its source: the revolutionary avant-garde of the early Soviet period. Most of the music for Le Pas d'Acier was composed in the summer of 1925 in tandem with the development of the designs and a scenario drafted jointly by Iakulov and Prokofiev. At that time the ballet was called Ursignol, a confation of two abbreviations: 'URSS' – the French for USSR – and 'gnol' from the end of 'Rossignol' (Stravinskii's opera Le Rossignol [The Nightingale] was produced by Diaghilev in 1914, while his ballet Le Chant du Rossignol [The Song of the Nightingale] was produced in 1920), which

begins with 'Ros', as in 'Rossiia'. Hence, there is a play on words: 'URS' has replaced 'ROS', and Soviet Russia has replaced 'Russia'.2 Ursignol evolved into Le Pas d'Acier during the transition in Soviet culture from the liberal artistic policies of the late Lenin years to the hard-line censorship of the arts under Stalin. In the mid-1920s Soviet artists were able to travel relatively freely to the West and were a powerful attraction for the French avant-garde. Prokofiev was living in Paris and had yet to make his first return visit to Soviet Russia. He had left his homeland in 1918 and did not return until early 1927, a visit that served as a prelude to his permanent return in 1936. In his autobiography, which was written in the Soviet Union and published there in 1960, he recalls his delight at being approached by Diaghilev, the impresario of Les Ballets Russes, to compose a new ballet in his own style with a Soviet theme. He wrote: 'I could not believe my ears. It was as if a fresh breeze had blown through my window, that fresh breeze of which Lunacharskii had spoken.'3 The year was 1925 and it emerges vividly in Ilia Ehrenburg's writings4 as a time of complex cultural and political interaction between Russia and the West. As the Soviet Union emerged from the chaos and bloodshed of civil war, American culture, especially the world of jazz, rejuvenated post-war Europe. From the early 1920s many Russian artists involved in forging the new Soviet artistic identity at home sought also to renew their connections with the European avant-garde. In Europe, everything 'Russian' was once again exotic and fashionable. Consequently, 'Snobs', according to Ehrenburg, praised all things Soviet and were dubbed bolchévisants. Ehrenburg mocks this stereotype by quoting a tennis champion: 'I hear money's been abolished in your country. That's splendid! I hate having to reckon my expenses.' By the time the ballet was staged in 1927, however, England had witnessed the General Strike and fear of Bolshevism was an increasingly significant factor for the staging of a ballet that purported to celebrate Soviet ideals. Yet Diaghilev's ambition to stage Le Pas d'Acier should not be seen as a vacuous pursuit of fashionable chic or sensationalism. Notoriety was expected from a company whose 'exoticism' and 'modernity' had become equated with a capacity to 'shock', but the logic and seriousness of Diaghilev's intention when he commissioned the ballet in 1925 is clear. Diaghilev's interest in Constructivism produced two ballets for Les Ballets Russes, both staged in 1927. La Chatte [The Cat], the first to be produced, was designed by the Briansk-born brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevzner,

who had exhibited as 'Russian Constructivists' in Paris in 1924. Unlike the Soviet-based Iakulov, Gabo and Pevzner were Russian émigrés resident in Paris, and were working in a style that became known as 'inter national constructivism'. Their design related to general constructivist ideals of abstraction and mechanisation but in new high-tech materials unavailable in Russia and without any direct connection to Soviet revolutionary ideals. The harmonious interaction of a sleekly modern transparent set and angu lar choreography by George Balanchine was striking and successful, but the music by Henri Sauget, as Christina Lodder remarks, 'left a lot to be desired'.5 The music bore little relationship to the Constructivist setting and the setting bore little relationship to the rather trivial scenario based on an Aesop fable (a man in love with a cat asks Aphrodite to change it into a woman, but the catwoman retains her feline instincts and becomes preoccupied with a mouse). With Le Pas d'Acier, Diaghilev looked to Russia not only for innovation in design, but for subject matter, as he had done in 1911 with one of the company's earliest and greatest successes: Petrushka . With Petrushka, Diaghilev exported 'old Russia' to Paris and challenged balletic tradition with a radical new approach on the way. With Le Pas d'Acier, he attempts to bring the 'new Russia' to Paris, along with the lat est innovations in staging. Le Pas d'Acier was Diaghilev's most radical inter action with Constructivism; it was also an attempt to reformulate Petrushka for the new age and reconnect the company with Russian sources of inno vation and inspiration. The theatre of 1920s Russia, to which Iakulov greatly contributed, was dominated by experimental artists/directors such as Alexander Tairov, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Kassian Goleizovskii and Nikolai Foregger. Although based in the West, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes stems from the same roots as these Soviet artists: i.e. from the revolutionary political uprisings of early twentieth-century Russia, and from the search for radical new form. The company's connection with Meyerhold is of particular significance and goes back to its founding years, to the influence of symbolism and the search for new approaches to staging. Meyerhold began his career working with theatre director Konstantin Stanislavskii at the Moscow Art Theatre. By 1907 his abstract approach to the stage, his view of the actor as but one part of the director's creative materials, and his interest in the commedia dell'arte as part of a stylised, anti-naturalist aesthetic, were already in evidence. His infuence played a part in the development of choreographer Michel Fokine's radical reforms in the frst phase of Les Ballets Russes. Fokine cast Meyerhold as the

hero Pierrot in his ballet Carneval of 1910, and as Lynn Garafola has pointed out, Carneval owes much to Meyerhold's production of The Fairground Booth in 1906.6 Meyerhold, moreover, looked to the dance as a form of theatre (physical, stylised and musical) that was not dominated by text, as a model for his search for a new aesthetics of dramatic performance. The possibility of renewed interaction between the Russian and European avantgardes during the 1920s provided the opportunity for Les Ballets Russes to reconnect with its early foundations, and Le Pas d'Acier was the focus of that reconnection. The logic of Diaghilev's motivation in envisaging Le Pas d'Acier is further supported by the sheer impact of Russian Constructivism in the West during the frst half of the 1920s. For example, describing the excitement of the International Exhibition in Paris in 1925, Ehrenburg claims in accordance with other accounts from the time that the Russians were the highlight, with exhibits by 'left' artists including scale models of theatre productions by Tairov and Meyerhold, constructions by Rodchenko, textiles by Popova, and posters by Lissitzky.7 During this period Western audiences were also seeing innovative productions by Tairov and Evgenii Vakhtangov, as well as the first films of Sergei Eisenstein.8 The seriousness of Diaghilev's ambition is refected in his attempts to connect Prokofiev with an entirely Soviet creative team, and by arranging for Prokofiev to collaborate closely with Iakulov on co-writing the scenario prior to composing the music. Diaghilev was well aware that Soviet innovation in theatre involved the central importance of a director who would 'orchestrate' and 'synthesize' the production. He thus approached Tairov and, more energetically, Meyerhold to direct Le Pas d'Acier, but both declined. Meyerhold, who had by this time begun serving as Prokofiev's operatic mentor, opted out with the terse declaration that 'for a whole series of reasons I can't accept Diaghilev's (Paris) proposal to direct his production'.9 Unwilling to take no for an answer, Diaghilev asked Iakulov to petition the director to change his mind. This proved futile, however, and Iakulov regretfully informed Diaghilev that 'it has become perfectly clear to me that Meyerhold isn't going to do the ballet … In private conversation with me, he said that these months he is busy with the cinema.'10 Meyerhold's inability, or reluctance, to stage the ballet must have been exasperating, especially since Le Pas d'Acier bears the infuence of cinematic montage and close-ups, and thus accords with Meyerhold's own theatrical experiments, which confate

disparate artistic media. His operatic collaborations with Prokofiev, for example, utilise both commedia dell'arte devices and mise-en-scènes. Though there is no concrete evidence to support the claim, Meyerhold's rejection of Le Pas d'Acier may have had a political dimension. Conscious of Diaghilev's penchant for controversy, and all too aware of the militant artistic climate in Russia, Meyerhold may have been unwilling to risk his reputation by producing a Western ballet about Soviet life. Perhaps heeding Meyerhold's advice, Iakulov wrote to Diaghilev about his 'imperative' personal need to 'develop the desired ideas for the ballet here in Russia'.11 Iakulov, however, was suffering financial hardship and hopeful of a major exhibition of his paintings in Paris. Unlike many Constructivists, he had never abandoned easel painting, and was well connected with the Parisian avant-garde. It is not difficult to appreciate the attraction of Diaghilev's offer, even in the face of difficulties over the appointment of a Soviet director. Yet although Iakulov feared the consequences of a production by Les Ballets Russes,12 it is clear that Diaghilev allowed both him and Prokofiev complete freedom in which to devise the original materials. In the absence of a director, Iakulov and Prokofiev completed the music, designs and scenario in close collaboration in Paris during 1925 before Iakulov's extended visa expired at the end of the year forcing his return to Russia. According to Prokofiev, it was to be a ballet of 'Construction',13 and he attributes its inspiration to Iakulov who was living and working within the real-life as well as artistic context of Soviet 'construction'. Born in Tiflis in 1884, Iakulov was of Armenian descent and actively involved in the reconstruction of Armenia in the mid-1920s by taking part in the jury for a competition to create a National Hall, and by designing the new State and Studio theatres in 1926. His work on Le Pas d'Acier needs to be appreciated not just in terms of theatrical constructivism in Moscow, but in the context of 'construction' within the whole Soviet enterprise. Paintings and posters celebrating muscular workers, spirited labour and bright new industry evince the enormity of the social imperatives facing the Soviet Union, the scale of the human investment in 'construction', and the ideals and hopes represented by industrialisation. The development of Le Pas d'Acier directly relates in both form and subject matter to this contemporary context. The music, the designs and the 1925 scenario all relate to the transformation of the Soviet Union into an industrialised nation and the attempt to create a new society. The dramatis personae of Act 1 comprise of stock revolutionary

characters, such as Commissars, a Worker Girl, an Orator, black marketeers, swindlers and hungry citizens.14 The hero is the Sailor that was typical of Russian revolutionary art and posters of the period, ranging from Vladimir Tatlin's Moryak. Avtoportret [The Sailor. A Self-Portrait] of 1912 to Eisenstein's Bronenosets Potemkin [Battleship Potemkin] of 1925. Costume designs for Iakulov's Sailor are asymmetrical with one leg in trousers and the other in a high boot to emphasise his transitional state, and there was to be a short scene in which he changes his clothes on stage into those of a worker. The setting, just sufficiently representational to suggest a railway station in Act 1, also embodies the theme of change/transformation. In Act 1 the set is dominated by the Arrival of the Train, a frequent image for progress and modernity in Soviet art and posters of the period. For example, the painting by Iurii Pimenov Za industrializatsiiu [For Industrialisation] of 1927 features a train at the heart of a factory setting, with workers in the foreground. Pimenov's poster of 1930 Achieving the 5 Year Plan in 4 Years also features a train charging through the old ways of life (drunkenness, licentiousness and religious devotion) that were represented by motley 'characters' lining the tracks. Similarly in Le Pas d'Acier, swindlers, speculators, and other representatives of self-interest and personal power occupy the frst part of the ballet with the presence of the train onstage signalling change and progress. Act 2 is set in a factory where the dramatis personae have become workers. The evidence suggests that Iakulov wanted a symbolic use of the stage space with the action on three levels.15 The types from the old society were to perform on the ground level with the workers of the factory elevated to a higher platform and the train and other symbols of industry appearing on the highest elevation. The action of Act 2 depicts the struggle of the hero and heroine (The Sailor and the Worker Girl) to reach each other, a personal plight that is at odds with the collective enterprise of the workers in the factory. The scenario describes the lovers as separated by light and gauze, within the spatial constructs of the design, as work builds up in the factory around them. The background scoring includes explicit references to the love theme from their Act 1 pas de deux, although they become increasingly 'mechanised' and 'metallicised' as events unfold. Their struggle is resolved at the start of the finale when they descend once more to the ground level to start the climactic scene by working on 'constructions', described as 'machine tools with pedals'.16 This was intended to set the factory into motion with a 'pyrotechnical' display of multi-coloured wheels spinning, coloured lights

fashing, and the music 'building up' to an 'ear-splitting', multi-sensory climax.17 The lovers have been reunited in work, and a celebration of their new identity as workers in harmony with the machine age is the implied intention of the designs and the 1925 scenario. Iakulov began his theatrical career with Tairov's Kamernii Theatre in 1918, a year after his three-dimensional designs for the Café Pittoresque in Moscow had instigated a new style of festive non-utilitarian constructions that were used to create a total environment.18 His works were extremely popular in the early 1920s, resulting in a frequent use of the term the 'Iakulovisation of the Theatres',19 and he was an active force in the transformation of Russian theatre after 1917. His aesthetic approach embraced the idea of theatre as a force for change and popular forms, such as music-hall and circus, in an attempt to forge a theatre for the masses rather than for an educated elite. In an article of 1921 Iakulov declared: Artists now want to assume responsibility for constructing the whole theatrical concept.… The artist is no longer prepared to be a mere illustrator of what is happening on the stage.… The artist, who has hitherto been used as a decorator, must become a creator in the modern theatre.20

In the early 1920s Meyerhold and Iakulov attempted several collaborations,21 suggesting a close relationship in terms of their ambitions for the new theatre. In Le Pas d'Acier we find an attempt to realise their shared ideals as well as defining the characteristics of Russian theatrical constructivism. The stage is stripped of all 'decorative' features, becoming a three-dimensional apparatus for performance, challenging the performer rather than providing a decorative background. It consists of large platforms, ladders, wheels and 'constructions' evoking industry and the machine age, yet the rope ladder and 'circus rings', the ladder in the shape of a giant chair, and the multi-opening doors of one of the large constructions also invite an association with circus and burlesque. Unlike many Constructivists designing for the stage in the 1920s, Iakulov was first and foremost a theatre designer. In Le Pas d'Acier, the designs insist on 'theatre' as well as 'factory'. His use of the platform and structure is somewhat simpler than many of the designs of the era, such as Alexandra Exter's conception for an unrealised work called Sataninskii balet [Satanic Ballet] in 1922 that features a massive, multi-levelled construction, Alexander Vesnin's design for a stage adaptation of G.K. Chesterton's novel The Man who was Thursday (1923) which consists of complex walkways and eleva- tions, or El Lissitzky's design for Sergei Tretiakov's Khochu rebenka [I Want a Child] (1928) in which the performance space is integrated with the

auditorium. In Le Pas d'Acier, Iakulov's depth effects arise not from architectural structure as such, but from the use of light and gauze, suggesting a greater infuence from cinematic mise-en-scène. The aesthetic appears stretched between early makeshift constructivism and dramatic realism, and between utilitarian ideals and overt, insistent theatricality. This creates a compelling tension where the theatrical elements balance, and informs the utilitarian principles of industrialisation and vice versa. Both aspects are profoundly thematic, and are interrelated within the set design. The central mass of the stage is linear and geometrical but is surrounded by circles of varying sizes and colour that create a sense of revolving mobility enlivening the set even when static. When moving some of these constructions merge towards transparency as the speed of rotation increases creating a halo-like effect resembling electric light.22 In terms of the design they are part of the theatrical, dynamic element, integrating the idea of dance into the set, and the set into the dance. On one of his early sketches, Iakulov wrote: The general principle of the construction of the set is a system of moving crankshafts. The movements of the dancers are accompanied by the movements of the parts of the set, to give an impression not of abstract ballet movements but of useful 'work'.23

As the dancers 'toil', the constructions 'dance' (one of them even displays an outstretched 'leg' and 'skirt'). The aim is more than one of interaction; the design aspires to a 'synthesis' between décor and dance and between dance and the 'machine'. In this respect the ballet can be related to the theories of American scientist and engineer Frederick W. Taylor and his time and motion studies in actual factories. Taylor's prescriptions for streamlining workforces through movement training became popular with policy makers in early postrevolutionary Russia, not least with Lenin himself.24 As industrialisation demanded a new style of worker who was disciplined, physically adroit, and created by 'scientifc' methods of training, Meyerhold sought a new kind of actor for a theatre adapted to urban industrial ideals. In 1922 he introduced his system of training called 'biomechanics' and compared it to Aleksei Gastev's experiments in training the labour force.25 Gastev, a Soviet engineer, was head of the Central Institute of Labour (TsIT) from 1920, where he promoted Taylor's ideas, and trained workers to model their practice on machines. Gastev's vision of a 'human robot' drew on the same social context as Meyerhold's search for a physical theatre, 26 but Meyerhold's

biomechanics was not an attempt to turn actors into automatons. Meyerhold's 'system' was primarily a radical alternative to Stanislavskii's acting methods with their emphasis on psychology and subjective experience. A preoccupation with the inner self was associated with discredited 'bourgeois' theatre, and Meyerhold's attention to training the actor's outer self, the physical body and movement, has to be understood in this mix of artistic and social contexts. In the new theatre expression was to come through rhythmic, muscular control and gestural patterning, with theatrical design providing an environment that would challenge and inspire the physicality and architecture of performance. Iakulov's set for Le Pas d'Acier is clearly in the biomechanical mould; it is a construction and an apparatus where the physical interaction of dancer and environment is central to the concept. However, the evidence suggests that in the 1927 production the emphasis shifted away from the physicality of the performer utilising the set, as in Iakulov's sketches, towards an imitation of the set. As noted below, the aesthetic appeared to have shifted towards a Westernised (i.e. Expressionist) interpretation, with the dancer-workers as disciplined robots in an oppressive factory setting. Certainly the celebration of the machine, so prevalent in Soviet arts and society during the 1920s, is central to Le Pas d'Acier and it continued the fascination with technology manifest in Futurist productions of the previous decade. The evolution of the ideal of the machine from Futurism to Constructivism is important not only to interpreting the ballet's source materials, but also to understanding how the 1927 production may have drawn on similar but signifcantly different aspects of this development in finding a choreographic approach. Joachim Noller suggests that one of El Lissitzky's images, a 1921 sketch of an electric mechanism for the Futurist opera Pobeda nad soltsem [Victory over the Sun], served as the aesthetic prototype for Le Pas d'Acier. The sketch anticipated the invention of 'a mechanical ballet', one that would supplant the singers of the 1913 opera with tin and wire robots, whose physical gestures would be powered by high- and low-voltage currents.27 More certain inspiration for Le Pas d'Acier came from the Muscovite choreographer Nikolai Foregger's Tanets mashin [Dance of the Machines] (1922), which instructed its performers 'to imitate the movements of a fywheel gyrating around an immovable axis'.28 Elizabeth Souritz observes that a subsequent variation called on dancers 'to imitate a train – by swaying, stamping their feet against the foor, and banging sheets of

metal together, even by swinging burning cigarettes in the air so that sparks few all over as if from a locomotive's smokestack'. Yet another called for imitation of the engaging of 'a transmission' and spinning of 'a conveyer belt'. The dancers similarly 'created an image of hammers of various sizes – the smallest, by using their fists, and the largest, by lifting and lowering a dancer held upside down'.29 Acoustically, the pleasures of proletarian construction found ear-splitting expression in Arsenii Avraamov's Simfonii gudkov [Symphonies of Sirens], which were performed using actual factory hardware 'in Nizhny-Novgorod, Baku and Moscow on the second, fifth and sixth anniversaries of the October Revolution respectively'.30 These happy noises, and Foregger's deckled metal sheets, also appeared in the young Muscovite composer Alexander Mosolov's 1926 ballet Stal' [Steel]. Though the manuscript disappeared in 1929, the year in which Mosolov – like Prokofiev – came under attack from Soviet cultural ideologues for excessive stylistic and syntactic experimentation, an orchestral version of the concluding episode survived and gained widespread international attention. Entitled Zavod [The Foundry], the episode comprises a riotous cascade of string and brass ostinato patterns, which are introduced one at a time, but eventually compete for attention in an ever-hastening, everclimaxing pile-up of sound. The last measure of The Foundry bears some resemblance to the last measure of Le Pas d'Acier (the former comprises a thirty-second note run to a unison C, the latter a sixteenth-note run to a unison A), but the preceding measures do not. Mosolov's factory breaks down, unable to meet its production quota despite repeated rhythmic retooling, and the fnal sforzando caps a meltdown of the orchestral metal works. Prokofiev's factory, in contrast, promises to operate forever, irrespective of human and material wear and tear or overtime costs. The unison A marks the descent of the theatre curtain, not the closure of the plant. The context and recognition of the symbolic importance of the machine in Soviet arts and society of the period is crucial to interpreting the materials for Le Pas d'Acier. It is also important in terms of understanding what happened to the work when Les Ballets Russes produced it in Paris and London in the absence of a Soviet director in 1927. The evidence suggests that Diaghilev, having failed to find the ideal creative team, had 'shelved' the ballet indefnitely. However, when Prokofiev was in Russia in early 1927, Diaghilev was informed of a plan to stage the work at the Mariinskii Theatre.31 This forced his hand and he acted swiftly, scheduling the work for immediate

production and appointing émigré Russian Leonid Massine as choreographer and director. The resulting production departed significantly from the original designs and scenario. Massine reinterpreted the music, devising a radically different scenario for Act 1. As a result, the intended interplay between sound, design and dance appears to have been unrealised. In Act 2, Massine stuck more closely to the original materials, but conceived the sound, design and dance interaction in a way that while choreographically successful, betrayed the ballet's original message and meaning. Massine appears to have modelled his approach more on Expressionist interpretations of the factory, comparable to images in Fritz Lang's 1926 film Metropolis. Iakulov's décor remained full of colour, light and kinetic celebration, but the choreography dehumanised the dancers by turning them into machine parts. On the surface this provided an apt and powerful 'synthesis' of the parts, but the mutability of the music in conjunction with a different visual emphasis led to an ambiguous socio-political message. The thematic stress in the 1925 designs and scenario is on transformation, in particular the transformational power of the machine. In terms of the set, this theme manifests itself most obviously in the nature of the construction in that the set does not radically change for Act 2; its basic formal elements are simply reconfigured. For example, the idea of the train that is crucial to the construction of Act 1 is the basis of the design for the factory setting. The platforms remain the same in both acts, and a large central overhead wheel with a wedge, evoking the industrial weighting of wheels on locomotives, descends over the action. The mechanism of Act 2 was described by critics as consisting of pistons, gears and levers,32 but if, as seems likely, the train was not present on stage for Act 1, the reformulation of its parts into the factory would have been less apparent. The 1927 production also abandoned two other scenes from the earlier materials that were key to an original theme: the Sailor's transformation into a worker, and the remarkable 'interval' scene in which the set was to be reconstructed into the factory in full view of the audience. The evidence suggests that the idea of empowerment through the transformational power of the machine was compromised in production, allowing the factory to be interpreted as a symbol of oppression. It is difficult to ascertain the degree to which Prokofiev and Iakulov were involved in these adaptations. Iakulov certainly missed the vast majority of the rehearsal period, joining the company in Paris approximately two weeks before opening night. It emerges from company accounts that the utilitarian

aesthetic and Soviet politics of the work were extremely unpopular with members of Les Ballets Russes. Active and close collaboration between Iakulov and Massine during the production thus seems highly unlikely. Massine barely mentions Iakulov in his autobiographical account of the ballet's development,33 but he claims to have worked closely with Prokofiev. Prokofiev, however, although present for the entire rehearsal period, declared that much of the production went against his wishes.34 There is little hard evidence on which to base a clear interpretation of events, but a short, rather portentous telegram sent from Prokofiev to Iakulov during rehearsals has survived in which Prokofiev pleads: 'come soon or it will be too late'.35 Letters from after the production reveal that Iakulov and Prokofiev were on good terms with each other, but in dispute with Massine.36 The disagreement is telling, for it concerns Massine's campaign for greater percentage rights to the ballet with a corresponding reduction in Iakulov's share. Massine prevailed in this issue, and became credited as co-author as well as choreographer. As noted, an assertive directorial presence of the type associated with Meyerhold's productions was deemed crucial to the ballet's realisation. A surviving letter from Iakulov to Prokofiev written during the creative process makes it clear how critical and full of potential dangers he felt the production process to be.37 This is understandable given that so much rested on the successful orchestration of the parts and on a sympathetic rendering of the ballet's subject matter. The ideal of 'construction' relates not only to the set, but also to the collaborative ideal and the 'smelting' together of the parts in theatrical production. Understanding this collaborative model is key to interpreting the ballet's intentions and innovation. The emerging ideas for the ballet and Iakulov's formal-analytic approach can be discerned from the surviving sketches, which evince a dual process of visual improvisation and technical problem-solving. It is likely that Iakulov was not simply creating a design in the early sketching process but imagining a true Constructivist synthesis of the arts, one in which design interacts with dance and audio-visual effects. A reading of the design materials is therefore more complex than if they were straightforward descriptors of the artist's intention for the fnished design. For example, in one of the drawings a dancer can be seen pushing a large wheel, but there is a slight suggestion of dancers inside the wheel, and the idea of dancers representing the wheel rather than interacting with an actual wheel may be embryonic in the drawing.

Describing a moment from the 1927 production one critic also wrote: in one of the first scenes of the second act … an amazing sortie: the dancers get together in pairs, each one grasping the feet of their partner in their hands, and, forming a living and fexible hoop, they roll off into the wings on their backs.38

It is probable that Iakulov sought an abstract depiction of industry and labour that would define the choreographic space. Yet in an important sense, the design is within the choreographic space, and interaction between object and movement is central to the approach and ideal. It is likely that Iakulov was concerned not only with designing the stage environment in terms of action/theme, but with the nature of the ballet's audio-visual interactivity. In one of the earliest sketches the train is shown being brought onto the stage from the right by dancers. In his later three-dimensional model, however, the train has been placed on the back of the highest platform behind theatrical gauze from where it was probably intended to emerge somewhat cinematically with smoke effects as Prokofiev's music evoked its breaking motion. In the 1927 production 'The Arrival of the Train' became a bartering scene, though descriptions suggest that elements of the original setting remained. Although the train itself was almost certainly absent, its motion remained in the ostinato patterns in the music, the station was still evoked by the bisected disks and signals of the set, and Iakulov's spatial organisation in which the choreography is forced down linear 'corridors' not unlike 'tracks' was also retained. What was undoubtedly lost, however, was the clarity of the original interaction of music and design. We do not know why the original scenario was abandoned in production, but when the emergence of the train is reconstructed along with the appropriate score passage, a dramatically powerful convergence of musical representation and visual image is clear. This suggests the infuence of film, something that is discernable in other aspects of the ballet. For example, Iakulov's use of lighting and gauze is adapted to the creation of spaces within spaces, scenes within scenes, replacing the traditional use of theatre spotlight with techniques that have more in common with montage and close-up. The use of a large screen dividing the stage between the platforms also enabled the emergence of tiers of workers in Act 2, something that was powerfully realised in Massine's production, and Iakulov in the original scenario envisaged projected advertisements fashing over the set during the finale. Further testament to the radicalism of the conception comes from a letter from Iakulov to Diaghilev dated August 1925. Midway through the letter, Iakulov provides the following description of the dance–music dialogue:

The old-fashioned conception of visual form, that is to say, the coordination of the music with balletic movement, has been reconceived. It now exhibits what I consider to be the unifying devices of new rather than classical ballet […] – namely a parallelism of musical and balletic ideas rather than their succession . I am referring to the avoidance of mono-temporality [odnovremennosti] in favor of unifed temporality [edinovremennosti] in the thematic structure, and the accompaniment of music for rhythm, and not just tempo. Such is the true nature of dance. With one and the same musical theme ( Along the Paved Street [Po ulitse mostovoy] or Dance of the Lezghin Woman [Lezghinka]) we perceive entirely different uses for dance and gesture. Though the music (like the décor) should immediately provide the theme in its entirety, the dance and various figures of motion should provide the development and variations. For the method of moving in accord with each measure of music characterizes Duncanism, which devoid of bare feet and dilettantism yields only old-fashioned classicism. I submit that this latter (Duncanist) form further presumes Scriabinism […]39

First and foremost, these remarks suggest that Prokofiev's score would serve as a template for choreographic improvisation. Though the characters would be assigned individual themes, these would not mutate and evolve in the manner of Wagnerian leitmotifs. The transformation process would instead occur in the choreography. Physical gestures would relate to melodic gestures like downbeats to upbeats, and visual lines of movement would relate to aural lines of movement like consequent phrases to antecedents. As with the monochrome greyness of the Act 1 décor, evolving attitudes and arabesques would relieve the melodic and harmonic sameness of the Act 1 music, and the climactic episode in the ballet – the metamorphosis of down-at-the-heels peasants into vibrant factory workers – would not be heralded by a metamorphosis of the melodic and harmonic syntax. In Iakulov's plan, the factory scenes would instead substitute 'mono-temporality' for 'unified temporality'. Like Diaghilev's most provocative ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps, the dance–music relationship in Le Pas d'Acier would also be contrapuntal with the metric discord resolving into concord on a hypermetric level. The somewhat cryptic references in the letter to 'Duncanism' and 'Scriabinism' seem intended to persuade Diaghilev that the communal apotheosis of Le Pas d'Acier – the acceleration of physical and musical motion as wheels begin to whirl and lights begin to fash – would bear no resemblance to the Hellenistic and Dionysian theatrical projects of findesiècle Russian artists. Smitten by 'mystic' Symbolism, Alexander Scriabin (1872–1915) attempted unsuccessfully to reconstitute the ancient era of sacred rituals, to create a multimedia spectacle that would facilitate spiritual bonding and (ideally) the dissolution of individual consciousness into a single, collective consciousness. His attempt to unleash the spiritual powers of music found a loose parallel in the choreography of Isadora Duncan

(1877–1927), whose 'self-taught and free-form' style – typified by asymmetrical foor patterns, bare feet, and loose-ftting costumes – served as 'a perfect dionysian antithesis to the rigors of the nineteenth-century ballet's apollonian danse d'école'.40 For although the Ballets Russes flirted with Scriabin's mysticism and Duncan's classicism (Le Sacre du Printemps bears traits of the former, Daphnis et Chloë the latter), Diaghilev soon denounced them as passé, out of step with the dance of chic. In accord with Soviet (Marxist-Leninist) dialectics, Iakulov envisioned a 'new metaphysics' that was 'bound to the physical world, to an inner structure [the factory] and its surrounding space [the railway station platform]'.41 His anti-Dionysian, antiSymbolist ballet would thus illustrate the 'mechanical-technical penetration of human life and the omnipresence of automata and machines',42 and the fnal scene of Le Pas d'Acier would enact the dissolution of human activity into industrial activity far removed from a Hellenistic round dance. Despite Iakulov's statement to the contrary, one element of 'Scriabinism' proved relevant to his ballet as it was envisioned in 1925 and performed in 1927. The element in question is synaesthesia: i.e. the stimulation of one sense (seeing) by means of another (hearing). In his 1910 composition Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Scriabin proposed to portray, if not to enact, this neurological phenomenon using a projector called 'the keyboard of light' (tastiera per luce), which splayed different coloured beams, each calibrated to a specifc pitch and specifc tonality. Iakulov's draft scenario and drawings for Le Pas d'Acier, with their allusions to exchanges of light, pitch, and gesture, imply a comparable preoccupation with synaesthesia, albeit one devoid of the trappings – and frankly unrealisable aims – of Scriabin's aesthetics. Prokofiev, for his part, seemingly intended his listeners to 'see' through their ears. While factory hammers only emit sound when they strike factory anvils, Stephen Press remarks that Prokofiev furnished both a melodic and rhythmic etching of the raising, lowering, and swishing of hammers through the air in the antepenultimate scene of his score.43 Reviews of the ballet disagree as to the number of hammers and the number of factory workers wielding them, so perhaps certain reviewers were more susceptible to aural-visual synaesthesia than others. In other scenes, the music summons images wholly beyond the visual frame of reference. For example, Scene 1, 'The Arrival of the Train', offers aural close-ups of steel wheels and pistons as the locomotive hurls itself through Russian forest and steppe. The hackneyed sameness of the repeated dactyls is

alleviated through intervallic variations: lower neighbour notes cede to passing semitones to upper neighbour notes. Prokofiev cross-cuts the triplemeter clatter of the locomotive with the duple-meter hubbub at the platform. Hearing the whistle, deprived villagers congregate to barter sweets, cigarettes, furniture and livestock. Emphasis soon shifts to individual figures, with twenty measures allotted respectively to the three Commissars and the Orator. The locomotive eventually appears ('from the right' of the stage in the 1925 scenario, but on a platform at the back of the stage in a 1925 model of the set), the braking motion denoted by a shift in tempo from andante energico to pesante and a reduction of the orchestral texture. Taking into account the highly representational content of this portion of the music, the structural repetition clearly calls for choreographic repetition. The aggressive physical careening of a locomotive could not be represented on the cramped stage, except perhaps as an apparition in the collective imagination of the gathered villagers. The composer (and designer) likely concluded that the locomotive should begin to come into hazy view behind the gauze at [30], and fully emerge from the gauze at the piston-driven cadence [39]. Eagerly anticipated, the locomotive would finally be incarnated, and chromaticism dissipates in the concluding measures of the scene much like smoke from a coal furnace smokestack.44 From Iakulov's letter and Prokofiev's score, it emerges that the melodic language of the ballet was intended less to narrate the stage action than to circumscribe a range of choreographic movement, a kinaesthetic disposition. Two pages of figural notation provide tantalising insight into the relationship between sound and sight in the Prologue (the 'March of the Silhouettes'). Near the top of the frst page, Iakulov drew seven drunken 'sailors', the middle three grouped in a position similar to that in an actual studio photograph from the ballet.45 Beneath this image, Iakulov redrew the sailors, this time showing three together on the left, one in the middle, and three together on the right. This second image sits atop a double humped line inscribed 'wave of a leap', and a segmented line inscribed

Plate 5.1 The motion of the train.

Plate 5.2 The appearance and station arrival of the train.

'sample range of motion'. There then follows pencil images of sweet vendors and cigarette servers rocking from side to side, the orator fam- boyantly waving his hands, damsels with excessive bodily curves, the three commissars strutting to and fro, sack bearers falling fat on their faces and backs under the weight of their goods, and bandits dashing around and leaping over obstacles.46 Slashes and squiggles denote disruptions and pauses in their routines. For Prokofiev, who closely collaborated with Iakulov on the scenario, these shapes provided inspiration for melodies, harmonies, and

(especially) rhythms. Insofar as visual gestures can be translated into musical ones, the contours and dynamics of the drawings find analogies in the score. Parades of repeated quarter notes herald the grand arrival of the three Commissars in Scene 3, for example, while 'ragtime'47 gestures punctuate the suave (mimed) speech of the Orator in Scene 5. It stands to reason that the musical and choreographic language of the ballet would show an evolution from classical routines to modernist ones, just like the dramatis personae evolve from landholders and peasants to foremen and ironworkers. Musically, however, only the music associated with the hero and heroine (a Sailor and a Worker Girl), undergoes stylistic change, most of which is confined to Act 2. In Act 1, their music is locked into repeating eight-measure phrases. Stasis is the condition of the moribund prerevolutionary world, as opposed to the innovative post-revolutionary one. In Act 2, which ostensibly represents the post-revolutionary world, the music becomes elastic, even organic. Repetition does occur, but it resides in the rhythm rather than the melody and harmony. It denotes not the humdrum lives of people, but the humdrum lives of machines. The Sailor and Worker Girl first appear in Scene 6 where they dance a brief pas de deux with an obbligato bassoon accompanying the danseur, and a solo clarinet and violin accompanying the ballerina. Prokofiev formatted the routine along the lines of the pas de deux for Blackamoor and Columbine in Stravinskii's Petrushka in a faintly comic allusion to an earlier Ballets Russes production. The fnal measures, comprising an imitative exchange between the upper strings and lower woodwinds, leave sufficient room for an entrechat, while a symmetrical C major melody outlines an adagio. This love theme recurs in increasingly estranged guises in the three factory scenes. Initially harmonised by ascending major and minor triads in frst inversion, it recurs in rhythmic augmentation and diminution in Scene 9 ('The Factory') against a coarsely dissonant backdrop of running sixteenths. Here, for the first time in the ballet, the music collapses into standard form: a seven-phase rondo, the most rigid, 'mechanical' form in Prokofiev's arsenal. The love theme signals both the hero's joyful recognition of the heroine on a silhouetted platform in the factory and his despondency at failing to reach her. In contrast, the framing, 'anem pathetic' ostinati imply that their love for one another is clichéd and the product, perhaps, of a defunct period in human evolution.48 Support for this supposition comes from the transition between Scene 11

('Hammers') and the 'Finale' when the theme, signalling the reunion of the hero and heroine, undergoes a process of industrialisation. Beginning at [152], its accompanying line metamorphoses into the arpeggiated motif representing the swishing hammers, while a second onomatopoeic motif presses down from above, fattening the theme like ore through iron works. At [156], a metallic version of the theme appears in the upper brass, its contours excised of rhythmic impurities and enriched with chromatic alloys. The accompanying line jaggedly ascends from the tonic pitch A for two octaves, preparing for a robust cadential passage in which the tonic chord smelts together with the supertonic and Neapolitan.49 The sound is discordant, but at this point in the score the discords – admittedly mild for this period in music history – have lost their ability to rankle. Having established themselves through sheer insistence, some of them even sound like concords. It is as though we are hearing the whole-tonal and semi-tonal clinking and clanging through the factory's rather than the worker's ears. The climatic cadence marks the reunion between the hero and heroine on centre stage. There follows an industrial bacchanalia, which reprocesses music from the ballet's Prologue, the aforementioned 'March of the Silhouettes'. Here, evidently, Iakulov's décor and Massine's choreography were intended to complement or perhaps even to complete Prokofiev's score. Much as the tonal, 'white key' love theme would fade to chromatic black in the ostinato-driven din, the outline of the toiling corps de ballet

Plate 5.3 The love theme.

Plate 5.4 The transformation of the love theme.

would blend into the outlines of pulleys, wheels and pedal apparatus in an eruption of light, sound and gesture. In this brave new ballet, communal bliss would become individual bliss, and the former Sailor and Worker Girl would experience industrial rather than Dionysian ecstasy. To invert a Soviet slogan, the factory rather than the artist, would become an 'engineer of human souls'. Le Pas d'Acier relates therefore not only to the utopian ideal of the machine, but to the desire to conceptualise and realise on stage a perfect interaction of the arts, and to create a new order out of different media working together not for individual ends but for the synthetic whole. Although the differences between Wagner's mythic, quasi-religious, pretechnological aims and Meyerhold's 'industrialised' theatre of the left are signifcant, the search for a 'total' theatre orchestrated by the supreme figure of the director derives from Wagner's innovations, and appears in the ideas of avant-garde theatre artists at both ends of the political spectrum in the 1920s. Iakulov's letters support the conclusion that relationship of the parts was all-important to the conception, albeit within an analytical framework. Indeed it could be argued that the set both visualises the conceptual approach to the work and provides a thematically descriptive environment for the action. Could it be that the three vertical levels of the set, the three interconnecting overhead wheels, and the three horizontal channels for entry and exit, that structure the production, visually refer to the three way collaborative process itself? If so, then a model of space–time interaction between designer, composer and choreographer may actually be part of the structure. That such a work should falter largely

because of problems with the collaborative process is perhaps the greatest of this ballet's many ironies. Iakulov's concern over the director, the mutability of the material, and the fragile nature of the conception in production were well founded. In a Western context, the machine easily became a symbol of oppression, and the ballet's climactic fusion emblematised Western fears of the loss of individuality in relation to both mechanisation and Bolshevism. Humphrey Carter was one of very few Western critics at the time to understand and articulate the Soviet idea of construction and the machine to a Western readership. He writes: building – utility – the Machine – the new conception of the Machine – as a moral and constructive factor – the worker as a master of the machine, reproducing its sounds and movements which to him are a second nature – There is another side to the Machine. It is a moral side, by which the Machine, if properly understood, transfers its power and qualities to those that use it, even magnifes their importance and exalts them.50

Iakulov's factory directly relates to this conception of the machine. His materials and approach differ significantly from the menacing automatons of earlier Futurist productions, and his factory is not the oppressive, dehumanised environment of German expressionism. The huge central wheel which hangs down over the action, measuring out time and giving off light, is not a symbol of capitalist or socialist oppression of the workers (as it so easily became in a Western viewing context), but of a new sun and the transformation and rebirth of humanity through collective enterprise. Giant hammers forge the new age of steel as well as New Soviet Man. Massine's realisation of the fnale however, with forty-fve dancers on stage imitating machine parts, appearing to become the 'machine' itself, was highly effective but it delivered a signifcantly different message. With Massine's realisation, the musical evocation of the factory could be interpreted as anti-capitalist, but the possibility of suggesting the Soviet ideal of an empowered willing workforce was lost. Although we cannot judge this by looking at the choreography itself, as no record of it is known to have survived, it must be emphasised that contemporary critics often within the same review read the ballet as both 'Bolshevik' and 'anti-Bolshevik'. A typical example of this occurs in London's Daily News with a review entitled 'A Bolshevik Ballet', which concludes with the suggestion that it was a tractate against Bolshevism.51 What is very clear from the reviews is that critics found the ballet incomprehensible, drab, utilitarian and ugly in Act 1, and visually thrilling but ambiguous in Act 2. Without a visual record of the performance,

it is diffcult to judge just how much of this was due to Massine's reinterpretation of the materials, and how much due to the mindsets of critics for whom the Soviet approach was both unfamiliar and deeply problematic in socio-political terms. It is reasonable to conclude that Massine's interpretation and manipulation of the source materials lost much of the ballet's initial, radical content. Yet there is also a sense in which that fnal dissolution and loss of humanity at the end of Le Pas d'Acier comprised a perfect choreographic interpretation of the conceptual approach established by Iakulov in the earlier materials. The fnale was perceived by one of the few specialist dance critics of the period, C.W. Beaumont, as a unique fusion of set and action and of dance and machine.52 It approached, in short, the old Gesamtkunstwerk ideal with acoustic and physical gesture exchanging spatial properties. Massine, however, turned the dancers into puppets of the new machine age, which betrayed the original conception. Although on the surface it might appear to relate to Meyerhold's interest in marionettes as inspiration for biomechanics, Meyerhold's aim was the liberation of the actor, and he saw the machine as a method of empowerment. In moving away from the set as apparatus, towards the set as inspiration, in order to find a choreographic solution, Massine appears to have succeeded only in replacing the tyrannical master of the puppet Petrushka with a new, but equally ominous, driving force.53 The ballet was therefore intended to be pro-industry and thus pro-Soviet. For a Ukrainian-born composer considering a permanent move to Soviet Russia and an Armenian artist who had participated in the design competition for the Lenin Mausoleum, political caprice was beyond contemplation. As Elizabeth Souritz has pointed out, far from representing the 'dismantling' and 'deformation' of the old tsarist world and the 'enthusiasm of revolutionaries' for the creation of a new one (to quote Iakulov54), Act 1 essentially became a parade of figures from Russian folklore faintly reminiscent in costuming and performance to secondary characters from Zhar-ptitsa [The Firebird], Petrushka, and other early Ballets Russes productions. The new sequence of episodes – Bataille de Baba-Yaga avec le Crocodile [Baba Iaga and Crocodile], Le Camelot et les Comtesses [Street Bazaar and Countesses], Le Matelot et les trois Diables [Sailor and Three Devils], Le Chat, la Chatte et les Souris [Tomcat and Feline , La Légende des Buveurs [Legend of a Drunkard], and L'Ouvrière et le Matelot [Sailor and Worker Girl] – completely baffled reviewers.55 Although the choreography of Act 1 included

pantomime, French and English audiences failed to grasp its gestural points of reference. Instead of alluding to Stravinsky as Prokofiev and Iakulov had done in the original scenario for Ursignol, Massine alluded to Stravinsky's choreographic collaborator Michel Fokine. The choreography for Act 2 fared much better with the public, but here too Diaghilev and Massine departed from Prokofiev and Iakulov's 1925 plan. The dancers interacted with the set in loose accord with the original scenario, but the overall effect was less one of organic, utopian labour than of the subordination and even enslavement of man to machine. In the words of one reviewer: Men and women in all stages of hurry and perturbation toiled and moiled, shifted heavy weights about, rained steam-hammer blows on huge bars of imaginary steel, tried to look like pistons, connecting rods, cams and differentials, grew hot, and never, never smiled. It was all done in a way that only the mind of a Massine could imagine; and it came off hugely, grimly.56

Le Pas d'Acier thus became a caricature of the very things it was supposed to venerate: collective artistic creation, and collective factory labour.57 Massine's choreography depicted the Soviet workplace as a labour camp and Soviet utopianism as fraudulent. Such at least was the perception among Communist aesthetes, who taking note of the Russian émigré press criticised the work for musical as well as political infelicities. Following a Moscow concert of six scenes from the ballet in May 1928, Prokofiev was chastised for lack of imagination and self-repetition. He was told that there was 'nothing new' in the score, that 'it had all been done before', that it was 'too noisy', that it contained 'too much of the "white keys" [C major]', and that it was altogether 'too contrived'.58 There then followed a harangue from the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM), the group that prior to it being disbanded in 1932 endeavoured to be the Soviet government's 'mouthpiece for musical policy', yet also endeavoured 'to define that policy'.59 In an article in Proletarskii muzykant [Proletarian Musician], the Association's journal, the musicologist Iury Keldysh contested the 'decadent' modernism of the ballet's music.60 Keldysh alleged that even without the choreography, the score imposed bourgeois thought onto proletarian subject matter. Prokofiev did, however, have supporters in Moscow, such as Meyerhold and Boris Guzman, who both advocated staging Le Pas d'Acier with a different cast and choreography at the Bolshoi theatre. Guzman, the assistant director of the Theatre, proposed enlivening the scene at the bazaar with 'giddily, enthusiastically rushing "red sleighs" ', replacing the three 'commissars' with 'bandits'– although he was cautioned that this change would contradict the

music – and include 'cadres of Five Year Plan workers' in the factory scenes.61 Greatly desiring the Moscow staging, Prokofiev engaged in repartee with his detractors. For example, in reply to the question 'Why is the entire last part of the ballet shot through with machine-like, mechanical rhythms?', he dryly answered: 'Because a machine is more beautiful than a man.' When asked whether he believed that the factory scenes depict 'a capitalist factory, where the worker is slave, or a Soviet factory, where the worker is master', he quipped: 'This [question] concerns politics, not music, and so I won't respond.'62 His defence of the ballet (and even Diaghilev and Massine's alterations) fell largely on deaf ears, though. The political die had been cast and plans for a Sovietised production of Le Pas d'Acier consequently fell through. The conception of Ursignol and the materials that belong to the initial conception of the ballet belong very much to the period of revolutionary romanticism that motivated Construction and Constructivism. The ballet embodies in microcosm the entire enterprise of redefning and reconstructing art, the artist, and the theatre in accord with Soviet aspirations. Yet, in a sense, the ballet's utopian conception and its dystopian realisation merge to form another, even more politically poignant entity. The 1927 production's betrayal of the ballet's 1925 aims, the resulting ideological ambiguities, the disputes between the three creators, the questions posed to Prokofiev by his Soviet adversaries, and the indignant answers he provided foreshadow the fate of the Soviet avant-garde itself. As such, Le Pas d'Acier forms a fascinating 'prism' of the contemporary political context and the sociocultural interactions of the time.

Notes Lesley-Anne Sayers gratefully acknowledges funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Board for this research. The Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB) funds postgraduate and advanced research within the UK's higher education institutions. All AHRB awards are made on the basis of academic excellence. The AHRB is not responsible for the views or research outcomes expressed by its award holders. 1 A. Lunacharskii, 'Politika i publika', in Krasnaia panorama, 12 August 1928, no. 33, pp. 9–10. 2 This interpretation is provided by Russian dance historian Elizabeth Souritz, in an unpublished document sent to Lesley-Anne Sayers in 1996. 3 S. Prokofiev, Autobiography, Articles, Reminiscences (Moscow, 1962), pp. 65–66. 4 I. Ehrenburg, Men, Years, Life: First Years of Revolution, 1918–21, trans. Anna Bostock (London: MacGibborn & Kee, 1962), pp. 91–95. 5 C. Lodder, 'A Constructivist Pas de Deux: Naum Gabo and Sergei Diaghilev', Experiment: A Journal of Russian Culture, 2, 1996, p. 31. 6 L. Garafola, Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 30. 7 I. Ehrenburg, p. 91. 8 Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin was shown in Paris in 1925, and in the same year his first film, Strike, received a French cinema prize. 9 Unpublished handwritten letter in Russian dated 6 February 1926, Paris Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 60. Meyerhold mentored Prokofiev on three operas, The Gambler (1917; revised 1928), The Love for Three Oranges (1919), and Semyon Kotko (1939). 10 Unpublished handwritten letter in Russian dated February 1926, Paris, Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 42. 11 Ibid. 12 Unpublished handwritten letter in Russian from Iakulov to Prokofiev dated 12 October 1925. Prokofiev Archive, London. 13 S. Prokofiev, p. 65. 14 Meyerhold's D.E. (1924) an adaption of various propagandistic novels including Ilia Ehrenburg's The Trust D.E., featured similar stereotypes, including Sailors and Commissars. 15 Iakulov had made a similar use of the stage in his designs for Oedipus (1921) in which the protagonist first appears on the highest level of the set, and then descends, literally and figuratively, as the play unfolds. S. Aladzhalov, Georgii Iakulov (Yerevan, 1971), p. 77. 16 Described on an annotated drawing in Russian describing four parts of the set. Fonds Kochno, Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra de Paris. 17 The 1925 scenario establishes that the whole factory is set in motion for the fnale, and eyewitness descriptions support the interpretation of two of Iakulov's sketches as indicating spectacular and dynamic effects. For the eyewitness descriptions, see H.T. Parker, in The Boston Evening Standard, July 23 1927, and W. Propert, The Russian Ballet 1921–1929 (London: John Lane/The Bodley Head Ltd., 1931), pp. 56–59. The sketches are part of the Lobanov-Rostovskii Collection and reproduced in Russian Stage Design, Mississippi Museum of Art Exhibition Catalogue, 1982, p. 321. 18 C. Lodder, Russian Constructivism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 59. 19 S. Aladzhalov, chapter 3 'The Iakulovisation of the Theatres'. Aladzhalov cites his source for this term as an article in Zrelishche, 23, 1932, pp. 14–15. 20 G. Iakulov, 'The Role of the Artist in Contemporary Theatre', Vestnik Teatra, 80–81, 1921, p. 17. 21 Iakulov and Meyerhold collaborated on at least three productions: Hamlet (n.d), Misteriia Bouffe (1920), and Wagner's Rienzi (1920). On all three occasions, however, the productions were halted due to theatre closures and other problems. S. Aladzhalov, p. 68.

22 From the 1910s into the 1920s circular colour wheels of interacting circular and semi-circular forms were a common visual motif amongst the Parisian and Russian avant-garde. See, for example, Sonia Delaunay's painting Electric Prisms (1914) inspired by the colour and light effects of the new electric street lamps that were replacing gas lights in Paris at the time. These disks became a visual metaphor for modernity and appear in Fernand Leger's painting The City (1921). 23 Untitled and undated drawing in pencil showing dancers on various moving parts of the set. Fonds Kochno, Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra de Paris. Image 135. 24 See O. Figes, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (London: Allen Lane, 2002), p. 463. 25 Edward Braun draws attention to the disparity between Meyerhold's claims of kinship with Gastev and his actual creative practices. E. Braun, Meyerhold on Theatre (London: Eyre Methuen, 1978), p. 183. 26 See O. Figes, pp. 462–63. 27 J. Noller, 'Maschine und Metaphysik: Zur Symbolik der modernen Kunstfgur', in Tanzdrama magazin, 43, 4, 1998, p. 17. 28 N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford/Bern/New York, etc.: Peter Lang, 2000), p. 74. 29 All quotations from E. Souritz, 'Constructivism and Dance', in N. Van Norman Baer, Theatre in Revolution: Russian Avant-garde Stage Design 1913–1935 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991), p. 137. 30 N. Edmunds, p. 72. 31 S. Prokofiev, Soviet Diary 1927 and Other Writings, trans. and ed. Oleg Prokofiev (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), p. 92. 32 See, for example, R. Dezarnauz, 'La Musique', in La Liberté , 9 Juin 1927, and S. Grigoriev, The Diaghilev Ballet (London: Penguin, 1960), p. 240. 33 L. Massine, My Life in Ballet (London, Macmillan, 1968), pp. 171–72. 34 In an unpublished letter to Vladimir Derzhanovskii, 12 May 1928, Prokofiev writes: 'in Diaghilev's production there was a lot which did not comply with my wishes.' Prokofiev Archive, London. 35 Telegram dated 29 April 1927. Prokofiev Archive, London. The ballet had its Paris premiere on 7 June 1927. 36 Unpublished letters from Prokofiev to Massine dated 2 July 1927 and November 1 1927; Bulletin de Déclaration, 27 December 1927, Prokofiev Archive, London. 37 Unpublished handwritten letter in Russian from Iakulov to Prokofiev dated 12 October 1925. Prokofiev Archive, London. 38 Anon., 'Balet Diagileva', in Vozrozhdenie (Paris: June 10 1927), p. 274. 39 Unpublished handwritten letter in Russian. Paris, Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 42. 40 T. Scholl, From Petipa to Balanchine: Classical Revival and the Modernization of Ballet (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 52. 41 See J. Noller, p. 21. 42 Ibid. 43 S.D. Press, 'Prokofiev's Ballets for Diaghilev', unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1998, p. 274. 44 This interpretation has been reconstructed on an animated 3D model of the set design by LesleyAnne Sayers funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, UK, 2002. This model also explores the interaction of kinetic set parts and the music in the factory during the finale. 45 Paris, Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra, Fonds Kochno, Image 10. 46 Unpublished letter in Russian from Iakulov to Diaghilev dated 9 August 1925, pp. 4–5. Paris, Bibliothèque-Musée de l'Opéra, Fonds Kochno, Pièce 42. Pp. 1–3 include the scenario of the ballet. 47 S.D. Press, p. 257. See pp. 254–63 for a discussion of additional 'jazz–like' elements in the score. 48 This term 'anempathetic' comes from the cinema scholar Michael Chion, who coined it to describe

background music that expresses 'an ostensible indifference' to visual action 'by following its own dauntless and mechanical course'. Quotes from C. Gorbman, Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 159. 49 Though Prokofiev declared in his memoirs that Le Pas d'Acier marked a shift in his musical style towards increased diatonic lyricism, the score relies (albeit superfcially) on what Richard Bass calls 'chromatic displacement'. R. Bass, 'Prokofiev's Technique of Chromatic Displacement', in Music Analysis, 7, 2, 1988, pp. 197–214. In Scene 2, for example, bass lines rise and fall in parallel sevenths rather than octaves, imitation occurs at the tritone rather than the f fth, and ostensibly functional harmonies combine pitches from triads related by semitone. 50 H. Carter, The New Theatre and Cinema of Soviet Russia (London: Chapman & Dodd Ltd., 1924), p. 69. 51 The Daily News , 5 July 1927, p. 7. 52 C.W. Beaumont, The Diaghilev Ballet in London (London: Putnam, 1940), pp. 278–80. 53 The puppet-like movements observed in Le Pas d'Acier suggests a thematic link to Petrushka as well as to contemporary debate found in the writings of Edward Gordon Craig and Meyerhold, concerning the ideal of the marionette in performance technique. 54 G. Iakulov, ' "Stal' noi skok", Sergeia Prokof ' eva' in Rabis, 25, 19 June 1928, p. 5. 55 E. Surits [E. Souritz], ' "Stal' noi skok", 1927', in Sovetskii balet, 2, March–April 1983, p. 27. 56 W. M., 'Factory Life Ballet: Music and Machinery', in The Daily Mail, 6 July 1927, p. 9. 57 Jean Cocteau accused Massine of turning 'something as great as the Russian Revolution into a cotillion-like spectacle' and adds that he did not blame the composer or the designer. Letter to Boris Kochno, 7/8 June 1927, published in B. Kochno, Diaghilev and Les Ballets Russes (London: Allen Lane, 1971), p. 265. 58 Letter from Nikolay Miaskovskii to Prokofiev dated 30 May 1928, in D.B. Kabalevskii (ed.), S. S. Prokof ' ev i N. Ia. Miaskovskii: Perepiska (Moscow, 1977), pp. 279–80. 59 A. Nelson, 'The Struggle for Proletarian Music: RAPM and the Cultural Revolution', in Slavic Review, 59.1, Spring 2000, p. 129. 60 Iu. Keldysh, 'Balet "Stal'noi skok" i ego avtor –Prokof'ev', in Proletarskii muzykant, 6, 1929, pp. 12– 19. 61 D. Gachev, 'O "Stal 'nom skoke" i direktorskom naskoke', in M.E. Tarakanov (ed.), Sergey Prokof ' iev 1891–1953: Dnevnik pis ' ma, besedy, vospominaniia (Moscow, 1991), p. 200. These questions were posed to the composer by representatives of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians following a run-through of the ballet on 14 November 1929. 62 Ibid., p. 201.

6 'Lenin is always with us' Soviet musical propaganda and its composers during the 1920s Neil Edmunds Musical propaganda has a long and glorious – although some would say inglorious – history. It can at least be dated back in the Western musical tradition to the collection of twenty-five madrigals edited by Thomas Morley entitled The Triumphes of Oriana (1601) that glorified Elizabeth I and her reign, which itself was modelled on an Italian collection of madrigals published nine years earlier called Il trionfo di Dori. Musical propaganda was also of particular importance to the Bolsheviks in their quest to undertake a radical transformation of society after they came to power in October 1917. In order to achieve this radical transformation, they were required to educate a largely illiterate populace of over 140,000,000 about their ideas, and musical and visual propaganda proved particularly convenient vehicles for undertaking this task. This essay will provide an introduction to the various forms of Soviet musical propaganda composed during the 1920s, and suggest reasons why composers who specialised in the feld chose to do so. A review of the State Press's Music Sector in 1927 listed fifty-one composers who composed what was rather grandly described as 'agitational-educational literature'.1 They can be divided into two broad categories: those who specialised in the field of musical propaganda; and those who composed it on a part-time basis, but saw themselves mainly as composers of apolitical music. The composers who belonged to the first category approached their work with a missionary zeal fred by the utopian spirit of the times. They preferred to describe themselves as 'musical activists', rather than merely composers, and were members of one or more of the following organisations: the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM), the Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists (ORKiMD), and the Production Collective of Moscow Conservatory Students (Prokoll). Both RAPM and ORKiMD evolved from the Agitational Department of the State Press's Music Section (Agitotdel). Agitotdel was established by the

government in 1922 to co-ordinate the composition, publication and distribution of musical propaganda, and was headed by the composer Lev Shulgin (1890–1968). Although there had been several examples of proSoviet musical propaganda written before 1922,2 the creation of Agitotdel provided an impetus for its composition through ensuring payment and a guarantee of publication and distribution. The frst collection of music published by Agitotdel appeared in April 1923, and it soon acquired the description of 'agitmuzyka', an abbreviation of agitatsionnaia muzyka [agitational music]. It constituted 6.7 per cent of the total output of the State Press's Music Section in 1923; a figure that was to rise to by 15.5 per cent in 1924.3 In order to unify and co-ordinate more systematically what Shulgin described in the typical terminology of the day as 'musico-revolutionary forces', the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) was created in June 1923 by Shulgin with Aleksei Sergeev and David Chernomordikov (two employees of Agitotdel), and the composer Dmitrii Vasilev-Buglai (1888– 1956).4 RAPM united composers, performers, music teachers and instructors working in the amateur music field, and the majority of its members associated with trades' unions or the military, or were members of the Communist Party or Komsomol (the Communist Youth League). This process of unifcation resulted in an increased demand for agitmuzyka, and a broadening in the activities of Agitotdel. It began to publish methodological pamphlets as well as music to improve the political and musical knowledge of instructors working with amateur musicians, and a journal called Muzykal' naia nov' [Musical Virgin Soil] that became a mouthpiece for RAPM.5 RAPM encompassed such a broad church, however, that tensions caused by differences of opinion within the group soon appeared. These tensions came to a head in December 1924 when the musicologist Lev Lebedinskii, a member of RAPM and of the Moscow Conservatory's Komsomol cell, criticised Agitotdel for publishing music that was either too difficult (and thus inaccessible for proletarian audiences), or too simplistic and therefore insulting to the class that had theoretically inherited power.6 Lebedinskii also attacked Agitotdel's leadership for not encouraging collective composition or discussion of music before publication, not seeking to attract more composers from proletarian backgrounds, and ignoring the musical needs of the peasantry.7 Partly as a result of this criticism, Shulgin and Sergeev left RAPM at the end

of 1924 to form the Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists (ORKiMD). Virtually all the composers who worked for Agitotdel also joined ORKiMD, so it was no surprise when it was noted in 1928 that 'almost every … revolutionary musical composition on the market two to three years ago was written by members the Association of Revolutionary Composers'.8 In addition, ORKiMD acquired a mouthpiece in Muzyka i revoliutsiia [Music and Revolution], the journal of the State Press's Music Section. Muzyka i revoliutsiia was initially edited by Shulgin, and compared to Muzykal' naia nov' , it had a greater emphasis on providing practical guidance to those working in the amateur music feld, report ing amateur musical activities and reviewing the latest pieces of musical propaganda. The third main group to which specialist composers of musical propaganda belonged was the Production Collective of Moscow Conservatory Students (Prokoll). It was founded in January 1925 from entrants of a competition amongst students from the Moscow Conservatory to compose a work that would commemorate the first anniversary of Lenin's death. Prokoll initially sought to distance itself from both RAPM and ORKiMD. As the collective's nominal leader and the inspirational fgure behind much of its activities, Alexander Davidenko (1899–1934), explained: 'We do not intend deliberately to compose unsophisticated music, since this is [already] done by the Association of Proletarian Musicians and the Association of Revolutionary Composers'.9 The members of Prokoll were thus anxious that their music was not described as agitmuzyka, because of its associa- tion with RAPM and ORKiMD, and believed it important not to completely reject the traditions of the past in the composition of musical propaganda. Such a rejection was perceived as an insult and patronising to the music's proletarian performers and audience; the most heinous of musical crimes in what supposedly was a 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat'.10 Upon graduating in 1929, several of Prokoll's composers, including Davidenko, Boris Shekhter (1900–61), Viktor Belyi (1904–83), and Marian Koval (1907–71), joined RAPM. Dmitrii Vasilev-Buglai, arguably ORKiMD's leading composer, joined them later that year, and several of his colleagues soon followed. ORKiMD could not survive the losses, and Shulgin disbanded the group in October 1929. Muzyka i revoliutsiia also ceased publication in the autumn of 1929, and the following year saw the demise of Agitotdel when the State Press's Music Section was abolished and replaced by a new institution called the State Music Press. RAPM,

meanwhile, acquired a creative edge that resulted in it being best placed of all the country's musical groups to take advantage of the cultural ramifcations of the frst Five-Year Plan replacing the New Economic Policy. RAPM consequently exerted more influence than before from 1929, particularly in the conservatories and radio stations, before suffering the same fate as Prokoll and other artistic associations when it was abolished on 23 April 1932 by the Party decree 'On the Reconstruction of Literary and Artistic Organisations'.11 With regard to the music itself, most of it was composed on a small scale in terms of performing forces and length. It could then easily be performed in venues such as workers' clubs, village halls, schools, and army barracks, as well as retain the interest of an audience. Consequently, individual composers wrote a large number of compositions in a comparatively short space of time. For example, Mikhail Krasev (1898–1957), Vasilev-Buglai and Klimentii Korchmarev (1899–1958) published 160, 80 and 30 compositions respectively between 1923 and 1927, while Koval wrote 50 compositions between 1926 and 1929.12 Of these compositions, the vast majority were vocal, since a text that contained an appropriate message could best fulfil the basic aim of musical propaganda: to shape the thoughts and actions of audience and performers. Vocal music was also very accessible, since the performer need not have acquired the specialist skills of an instrumentalist. Moreover, by continually rehearsing and performing a piece of vocal music, the message contained in the text could be assimilated much quicker and more thoroughly than just by listening.13 The subject matter of the texts, which were often written in the instantly recognisable form of the two- or four-line rhyming ditty called the chastushka, was very varied. It initially was governed by replies to questionnaires that Shulgin sent to organisations involved in amateur music-making soon after the establishment of Agitotdel in order to seek out their needs. The themes then decided upon included the exploits of the Red Army during the Civil War and life at the front, the attraction of atheism, key moments from the life of Lenin, the activities of Komsomol, and satires of stereotypical counter-revolutionaries, such as priests and landowners.14 As the decade progressed, the subject matter of musical propaganda evolved to refect political developments. By 1930, the exploits of storm brigades and collective farm workers were celebrated, the defnition of 'enemies' of the proletariat had broadened to include representatives of foreign powers, kulaks and Trotskyites, and the theme of

socialist construction was particularly popular. Stalin himself, however, never became a subject of musical propaganda until the mid-1930s. The type of vocal music favoured by composers of musical propaganda was the choral variety. It was deemed particularly suitable for musical propaganda, because it was thought that Russians had a special affinity for the genre, and since the choir was in essence a collective, it was believed that the performance of choral music could instil a collective spirit in the performers.15 The emphasis on choral music was clearly illustrated by the output of Agitotdel during the early years of its existence. The first collection of musical propaganda published by Agitotdel in April 1923 consisted purely of short choral compositions by Shulgin, Vasilev-Buglai, and Aleksei Turenkov (1886–1958). This was followed by the publication of a further twelve collections of choral music – four specifically for children, two for the Red Army, four for workers' clubs, and two for general use – and 104 individual choral pieces.16 The suitability of choral music for the purposes of musical propaganda was thus beyond doubt, but musical propaganda was by no means restricted to choral music. Agitotdel also published by August 1924 twelve compositions for choir and soloists, thirty for voice and piano, three for solo piano, eleven for wind band, and fve declamations in addition to music for choir.17 The latter are of particular interest, because they became almost exclusively associated with musical propaganda. The appeal of declamation to composers of musical propaganda was obvious. It could clearly convey the political message of a text to an audience, and could be performed by a proletarian or peasant who had no musical skills. Declamations were composed for either choir or solo voice, but it was the former that proved most popular with more than seventy published in 1927 alone.18 These collective declamations, as they were called, were considered of such practical use that the Commissar for Culture and Education, Anatolii Lunacharskii, wanted to establish a special institute devoted to their study. They were considered not only as the ideal instruments of propaganda, but also as methods of instilling a collective spirit and sense of rhythm into proletarians that would in turn have a benefcial effect on the economy by raising production rates. There were two main types of declamations: those that attempted to imitate either vocally or by their instrumental accompaniments images portrayed in the texts, and those which completely forsook such sound effects so that the listener comprehended the propaganda message of the text without any

distraction. Examples of the former included Mikhail Lazarev's Bey molotom! [The Hammer Beat!] (1924) (Plate 6.1), in which accented piano chords imitated a beating hammer accompanied onomatopoeic shouts of 'bey!' and 'molotom!', and Sigizmund Kats's Gudki [The Factory Whistles] (1924) (Plate 6.2), in which the factory whistles were imitated by right-hand tremolos in the piano accompaniment. A typical example of the declamation that forsook sound effects, on the other hand, was Alexander Titov's 25-oe Oktiabria [25 October] (1924). A genre exclusively employed for the purposes of musical propaganda that partly evolved from the declamation was the vocal placard. The composer most associated with the vocal placard was Alexander Davidenko. His first placard was called Pro Lenina [About Lenin], and it won him the competition to compose a work about Lenin that resulted in the founding of Prokoll in 1925. The vocal placard can be best (if clumsily) described as a declamatory recitative for unaccompanied soloist. The text was not recited as in a declamation, but neither did it contain the lyrical quality that is associated with recitative. The nearest musical equivalent was the Sprechstimme employed by Schoenberg in works like Pierrot Lunaire (1912). The sole aim of the vocal placard was to convey a propaganda message in as clear and understandable a way as possible. Hence, there was no need for the distracting superfuous sounds of accompanying instruments, and Davidenko emphasised this by underlining the words 'bez soprovozdeniia' ['without accompaniment'] in the score of Pro Lenina. He also reiterated the need for communication between performer and listeners by instructing that 'the singer must walk around the edge [of the stage] as if talking to the audience'.19 Davidenko was also at the forefront of the development of the mass song; another genre exclusively employed for the purposes of musical propaganda, and which was to become an integral part of Soviet musical life. One writer has even gone as far as to argue that 'Davidenko began the quest for the … mass song, and was the creator of a new genre'.20

Plate 6.1 Bey molotom! [The Hammer Beat! ] by Mikhail Lazarev.

Plate 6.2 Gudki [The Factory Whistles] by Sigizmund Kats.

Actually, no one could claim to have invented the label 'mass song'. It frst appeared in journals in 1924 when certain old revolutionary songs (i.e. those composed before 1917), popular folk songs, and songs by composers working for Agitotdel were all described as 'mass'. Davidenko was the frst composer to describe one of his own compositions, Konnitsa Budennogo [Budenny's Cavalry] (1925), as a 'mass song' in the score, though. The twopart structure of Konnitsa Budennogo (Plate 6.3), with its introduction for soloists followed by a refrain where the whole choir performs in unison to create an impression of intensity, power and collec tive solidarity, also

became a model for future composers of the genre.21 It was the two-part structure of the mass song that differentiated the genre from older revolutionary songs, such as The Internationale, or Soviet compositions often mistakenly described as mass songs like Dmitrii Pokrass's Marsh Budennogo [Budenny's March] (1920), in which the choir performs in unison throughout. Not all early Soviet musical propaganda was small-scale or vocal, and Agitotdel published a small amount of instrumental music as the figures cited above illustrate. Shulgin actively encouraged the composition of instrumental musical propaganda,22 but to convey a political message in an art form as abstract as instrumental music was a difficult task. After much theorising about how to achieve this aim, composers usually employed two methods. The first and most common was a form of musical symbolism with melodies or motifs from revolutionary songs incorporated into original compositions. Korchmarev's solo piano piece Revoliutsionyi karnival [Revolutionary Carnival] (1924), for example, was a set of variations on the melody of the French revolutionary song La Carmagnole. This method of politicising instrumental music was also not confned to those who primarily composed musical propaganda. Reinhold Glière in his ballet Krasnyi mak [The Red Poppy] (1927), for instance, used motifs from The Internationale and Iablochko [Apple] (a song popular with Red Army soldiers during the Civil War) to represent Soviet sailors who were liberating oppressed Chinese proletarians. Nikolai Miaskovskii also 'politicised' his Sixth Symphony (1923) by incorporating motifs from La Carmagnole and Ça ira, another French revolutionary song, into its finale. The second way in which composers mobilised instrumental genres for propaganda purposes was to try and evoke concrete images by combining

Plate 6.3 Konnitsa Budennogo by Alexander Davidenko.

programmatic music with an elaborate system of explanatory titles and subtitles. Krasev's collections of piano duets for children Pionery v gorode [Pioneers in the Town] and Pionery v lagere [Pioneers in the Camp] (1926), for example, contained thirteen short movements that were divided into as many as six sections. Each of the movements and sections had a title that the performers were instructed to shout out. This commentary was then combined with music that evoked the appropriate mood of each section in order to teach the young audience about different aspects of life as a Red Pioneer.23 Krasev was also one of the few members of ORKiMD who attempted to compose musical propaganda on a larger scale. He specialised in musical dramatisations for both children and adults that could easily be staged in a school, factory, or workers' club with only few resources. Of these dramatisations, Petrushka (1925) was one of the most popular, and received some enthusiastic reviews.24 It also contained a number of features that were common to the genre. The plot – written by the composer and Iurii Ilin – contained stock characters typical of agitmuzyka texts (a priest, poor and rich peasants and a worker), and it told of how the poor peasant was exploited by the priest and rich peasant. Fortunately, just as the poor peasant was cursing his bad luck, a worker appeared with a tractor as a gift. The work ended with the peasant, the worker, the chorus and Petrushka, who had acted as a narrator and commented on the action throughout the work, celebrating Soviet power and the benefts of the smychka [alliance] between town and

country. Krasev was particularly concerned with imitating in his music to Petrushka the images that appeared in the text, such as a horse, tractor, and barrel organ (Plates 6.4–6.6 respectively) in order to reinforce the propaganda message. The music also contained what a contemporary reviewer claimed were 'very distinct and successful' leitmotifs that marked the appearance of each character.25 The leitmotifs were to help the audience identify the various characters, which was possibly a problem if there were a lack of costumes or one person played more than one character, and to retain the listeners' interest. Both these functions were vital if the work's propaganda message was to be fully appreciated and understood. In addition to Krasev, another composer who belonged to ORKiMD and composed works on a large scale during the 1920s was Klimentii Korchmarev. He composed the ballet Krepostnaia ballerina [The Serf Ballerina] in 1926 and the opera Ivan-soldat [Ivan the Soldier] the following year, but they were composed for professionals to perform despite their overt political subject matter. They therefore did not fulfil one of the functions of musical propaganda: to encourage a growth in the numbers of proletarian or peasant performers, because the majority of professional musicians were from the upper or middle classes. For a large-scale composition for proletarian performers, one must turn to Prokoll's Put' Oktiabria [The Path of October]. Put' Oktiabria was described by its

Plate 6.4 Music from Petrushka by Mikhail Krasev.

Plate 6.5 Music from Petrushka by Mikhail Krasev.

composers in the score as a 'Citizen's Oratorio', and composed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. It traced the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia from 1905 to 1927 in 32 episodes that consisted of songs, choruses and declamations. Put' Oktiabria was premiered in the Moscow Conservatory on 18 December 1927 by instrumentalists and choristers from clubs organised by the Leather Workers' and Textile Workers' Unions under the baton of Davidenko.26 Put' Oktiabria perfectly fulfilled Prokoll's aim of uniting past and present. The Collective's composers employed established compositional

Plate 6.6 Music from Petrushka by Mikhail Krasev.

techniques throughout the work, and the fnal episode (a monumental fugue composed in sonata form) was entitled Sonata-final [The Sonata Finale] to emphasise this. The charge of 'unsophisticated', as Davidenko had described some of ORKiMD's compositions (see above), could therefore not be levelled against Put' Oktiabria. However, Put' Oktiabria also included several contemporary features in order to refute the claim that it was merely a relic of the bourgeois past in all but subject matter. The most notable of these was the use of montage to carry the action instead of a logical narrative, and the inclusion of declamations – both solo and collective – complete with the verbal and musical sound effects that were popular at the time.27 The experimental nature of Put' Oktiabria led certain of Prokoll's contemporaries to argue that it would confuse rather than educate a proletarian audience, but more recent critics have been generally complimentary about the oratorio.28 Put' Oktiabria was not, however, amongst the earliest examples of Soviet musical propaganda composed on a large scale. That distinction went to works premiered two years earlier in 1925, such as Arsenii Gladkovskii and Evgenii Prussak's opera Za krasnyi Petrograd [For Red Petrograd], and Alexander Kastalskii's Derevenskaia simfoniia [A Rural Symphony] and cantata 1905 god [The Year 1905]. Of these compositions, the Derevenskaia simfoniia was particularly signifcant, since it could justifably claim to be the frst overtly propagandistic Soviet symphony, extolling as it did the virtues of socialist labour in the countryside. It was divided into four movements that represented various aspects of rural life under the new regime, and scored for a large symphony orchestra, a quartet of domra (stringed folk instruments), choir and two soloists. The latter played the parts of a young girl and old man and provided the symphony with a theatrical element by their dialogue in the second and fourth movements, and led one reviewer to describe the work as a mixture of symphony, cantata, and pantomime.29 The synthesis of music and theatre was an important educational aspect of the Derevenskaia simfoniia, for if members of the audience were captivated by an interesting visual spectacle, they would in theory be more receptive to the work's propaganda message. The Derevenskaia simfoniia also illustrated Kastalskii's fervently held belief that performers and audiences from the working classes would be particularly responsive to folk music.30 The orchestral parts of the score were based on Russian and Ukrainian folk songs and dances, and the folk melodies

were performed in their original versions by the quartet of domra and choir after each orchestral section to ensure that the audience and performers made the connection between the two.31 The emphasis that Kastalskii placed on the accessibility of his music was naturally very important, since there was little point in composing music with a political message that would not be appealing and never as a result be performed. This of course would completely defeat the object of the exercise. The subject of how to ensure the popularity of musical propaganda resulted in much tortuous theorising. The method favoured by Kastalskii of quoting folk melodies in an original composition had its supporters,32 but some of the younger members of RAPM found it politically unacceptable. Marian Koval, for example, claimed that it 'idealised the centrality of peasant culture…. something that Leninism has struggled against'.33 This belief resulted in a campaign led by RAPM against the public performance of folk music, and the mock trial on radio of the famed Piatnitskii Folk Ensemble.34 It was acceptable and very common, though, to compose a song that sounded 'folkish' in order to try and ensure popularity. Practical measures were also taken to try to ensure the suitability of musical propaganda for proletarian performers and audiences. As noted, Shulgin sent questionnaires to organisations involved in amateur music-making soon after the establishment of Agitotdel in order to seek out their needs. He also persuaded the Red Army's Propaganda section (PUR) to pass an order that made all divisions send the names of the songs they performed most frequently to Moscow. The material acquired as a result of this order was then used by Agitotdel's composers to help infuence their own music for a forthcoming collection called Pesni krasnoi armii fnd out what were the favourite songs of Young Communists, and with [Songs of the Red Army].35 Shulgin also struck a deal with Komsomol to the Society of Former Political Prisoners and Istpart to help decide which pre-Revolutionary songs should be taken into account when composing contemporary works.36 Moreover, composers of musical propaganda adapted their working practices to try and ensure the popularity of their work. Vasilev-Buglai, for example, asked members of the workers' choirs he directed to sing to him their favourite melodies. He then incorporated these melodies into several of his own compositions.37 Davidenko, on the other hand, believed that his music could only have popular appeal if he acquired inspiration by composing it amongst

his intended audience on trams, trains and buses, rather than in isolation in his study.38 Despite these efforts to make musical propaganda popular, both Soviet and Western commentators have noted that with a few exceptions true popularity (i.e. being well-liked) was not in practice achieved.39 To change a population's musical tastes in a comparatively short space of time was a diffcult if not impossible task. This was illustrated by a survey carried out by the State Music Press in 1930 into what demonstrators chose to sing during the celebrations of the October Revolution in Moscow. Sixty-three per cent of the songs performed were described as either meshchanskie [petitbourgeois] or pseudo-revolutionary (i.e. propaganda texts set to preRevolutionary melodies). Only 18 per cent were contemporary revolutionary songs composed by specialist composers of musical propaganda, while the other 19 per cent of songs performed fell into the category of old revolutionary songs.40 However, when a similar survey was carried out just two years later, the percentage of contemporary revolutionary songs had increased to 61, while only 36 per cent of the songs performed were described as meshchanskie or pseudo-revolutionary, and 3 per cent were old revolutionary songs.41 The crucial difference was that RAPM had been in a position to exert more infuence between 1930 and 1932 than it was in the period leading up to 1930. On the evidence of the reviews of musical activities in factories and workers' clubs that regularly appeared in numerous editions of the journals noted above, it would also be a mistake to dismiss Shulgin's remark made in 1925 that musical propaganda had 'modestly and imperceptibly . . . filtered its way through every pore of our society' as an overstatement.42 Such reviews illustrated that the musical propaganda by composers who belonged to ORKiMD and Prokoll was undoubtedly well known, and frequently performed by those for whom it was composed. This was particularly so in the main urban centres and surrounding districts, the areas upon which these reviews concentrated, but also to a lesser extent in some of the remoter regions of the country.43 Whether or not audiences from these regions would recognise that motifs from La Carmagnole and Ça ira had been quoted in pieces of instrumental musical propaganda is of course another matter. With regard to the specialist composers of musical propaganda, they came from diverse backgrounds and age groups. The oldest of the composers to whom reference has been made was Alexander Kastalskii (1856–1926),

whilst the youngest was Marian Koval. Both Kastalskii and Koval came from middle-class backgrounds; the former was the son of a protoierei [archpriest], the latter the son of a chorister in St Petersburg's famous Arkhangelskii Choir. There were, though, composers of musical propaganda from the lower classes, most notably Dmitrii Vasilev-Buglai and Alexander Davidenko, and this afforded them a particularly high status amongst their peers.44 As to the reason why a composer specialised in musical propaganda, it seems that it was purely a spontaneous decision on the part of the individual concerned, since the state did not put pressure on composers to do so. There were in fact many composers who did not work in the feld at all during the 1920s, and suffered no adverse treatment from the authorities as a result. It could be argued that the primary reason for composing musical propaganda was financial in light of the appalling economic situation and that composers were paid a fat rate calculated on the amount of music published, rather than a royalty that depended on how often a particular work was performed. However, one of Lebedinskii's criticisms of the State Press's Music Section was that Agitotdel's composers were paid less for their musical propaganda than composers of other genres.45 If financial considerations were of paramount importance to an individual, it would thus pay to avoid composing musical propaganda. It would also have been more lucrative to compose large-scale works instead of musical propaganda that with the few exceptions discussed above was usually composed on a small scale out of necessity. It was therefore very likely that the composers who composed musical propaganda on a full-time basis did so because they were genuinely sympathetic to the regime, happy to help it, and glad to share their enthusiasm for Bolshevik rule with the masses through their music. Why they should be sympathetic to the regime differed from composer to composer. Marian Koval's political beliefs could be attributed to his parents. His father joined the Communist Party in 1920, while his mother – a member of the Polish intelligentsia – owned a number of political pamphlets and books (including a copy of Das Kapital) with which the young Koval became acquainted.46 Viktor Belyi's elder brother Boris had joined both the Communist Party and the Red Army immediately after the October Revolution, and passed on his political beliefs to his younger brother. In the case of Alexander Davidenko and Boris Shekhter, local Bolsheviks from their hometown of Odessa helped instil their political beliefs.47 With regard to the older composers of musical propaganda, it was no

coincidence that they worked with members of the lower classes before the October Revolution. Alexander Kastalskii developed an interest in supervising amateur choirs and orchestras, and moved to Kozlov in 1881 where he directed and organised a choir and orchestra of railway workers. On his return to Moscow he continued to work amongst the poor at the Synodal Music School, where he trained boys from underprivileged backgrounds to sing in church choirs, and was one of the founder members of the People's Conservatory in 1906.48 Mikhail Krasev, meanwhile, taught music to grape pickers in the Crimea, while Dmitrii Vasilev-Buglai directed several amateur choirs in the Tambov region of southern Russia and organised the musical activities of soldiers serving on the Georgian front during the First World War.49 Working with members of the lower classes had been on the periphery of musical life during the pre-Revolutionary period, but assumed great importance after the Bolsheviks came to power. Without the organisation of mass programmes of artistic education and the development of artistic (including musical) activities amongst workers and peasants, it was not possible to create the 'higher biological type' to which Trotskii desired, or fulfil Lenin's dictum that 'Art belongs to the people…. It must arouse and develop the artist in them'.50 It was only natural that those who had an interest in working with the underprivileged would support a government which encouraged and held this work in such high esteem. Having worked with and witnessed the plight of workers and peasants at frst hand, it would also not be too fanciful to suggest that these composers would feel sympathetic to a government which promised to improve the lot of the lower classes and shared the benevolence that prompted them to undertake such work in the frst place. Consequently, musical activists did more than merely compose musical propaganda. Many of them became high-profle public figures, and they took full advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by the new regime by carrying out what was described as 'mass musical work' (i.e. working amongst the lower classes). Kastalskii, for example, devised the curricula and taught at the music studios of Moscow Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural Organisations), continued to teach at the Synodal Music School (which had been renamed the People's Choral Academy), and organised concerts and gave lectures at the Red Army's clubs in Moscow and workers' clubs in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.51 Vasilev-Buglai joined the Music Department of

Tambov Proletkult in 1918, and organised Agitotdel's own workers' choir, as well as the choirs of the Hammer and Sickle Works in Moscow and the Railway Carriage Repair Factory in Mytishchi.52 Krasev supervised all the choral circles organised by the Moscow branch of the Medical and Sanitary Workers' Union ( Medsantrud), and was music director of the MoscowKazan Railway Workers' Club.53 Of Prokoll's composers, Belyi became director of music at the Central Army Club in Kharkov when only seventeen, while Koval organised the musical activities of trainee soldiers in military schools for holiday celebrations in Petrograd at the same age.54 Both also undertook mass musical work with other members of RAPM at Koktebel in the Crimea in 1931.55 Davidenko taught music in an orphanage in Moscow called the Young Commune and in the Moscow Conservatory's Rabfak [Workers' Faculty], and organised musical activities at clubs organised by the Union of Textile Workers and Shoemakers' Union and at the Elektrozavod and Kauchuk [Rubber] factories.56 In addition to his mass musical work in Moscow, he also supervised the musical activities of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol from August 1932, and the musical activities of collective farms in Grivetsvo, Ivanovo, Tutaev and Medvedka.57 It could in fact be argued that the enthusiasm with which Davidenko carried out mass musical work contributed to his early death, because he never recovered from the heat-stroke he suffered while supervising musical activities at the Maiden's Field in Moscow on May Day 1934.58 A poignant if fitting end to one of the leading composers of musical propaganda of his day, and an end that illustrated the idealism and sheer enthusiasm instilled by Bolshevism in specialist composers of musical propaganda; an idealism that today can easily be forgotten and overlooked.

Notes 1 A. Iurovskii, 'Deiatel' nost' muzykal' nogo sektora gosizdat', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 11, 1927, p. 32. 2 Such as Nikolai Kochetov's Gimn-marsh 1-oe maia [A May Day Anthem March] (1919) and Dmitrii Pokrass's Marsh Budennogo [Budenny's March] (1920). 3 L. Shulgin, 'Dostizheniia revoliutsionnoi muzyki', in Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1, 1925, p. 90. 4 N. Edmunds, 'Music and Politics: The Case of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians', in Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 78, no. 1, January 2000, p. 67; and A. Nelson, 'The Struggle for Proletarian Music. RAPM and the Cultural Revolution', in Slavic Review, vol. 59, no. 1, Spring 2000, p. 105. 5 Muzykal'naia nov' largely dealt with ideological and theoretical questions, such as what music was most suitable for proletarian audiences and performers, or in what style musical propaganda should be composed. 6 L. Lebedinskii, 'Reorganizatsiia Muzsektora Giz'a', in Muzykal'naia nov', 12, 1924, pp. 3–4. 7 Ibid. 8 S.I. Korev, 'Serdi muzykal'no-obshchestvennikh ob'edinenii', in Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 6, 1928, p. 40. When Korev writes of a 'revolutionary musical composition', he is referring to its subject matter rather than its musical idiom. 9 Quoted in L.V. Danilevich, Kniga o sovetskoi muzyke (Moscow, 1962), p. 21. 10 For the aims of Prokoll, see N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000), p. 211; and A. Nelson, p. 107. 11 For a translation of this decree, see B. Taylor, Art and Literature under the Bolsheviks, vol. 2 (London: Pluto Press, 1992), pp. 181–182. 12 Figures from E.M. [Shulgina], 'Ob'edinenie revoliutsionnykh kompozitorov', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 5–6, 1927, p. 21; and M. Koval, 'O sebe i svoei muzyke', in Sovremennaia muzyka, 32, 1929, p. 12. 13 N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement, p. 33. 14 L. Shul'gin, 'Agitotdel Muzsektora Giz'a', in Muzykal'naia nov', 10, 1924, p. 6. 15 D.S. Vasilev-Buglai, 'Khorovaia rabota v massakh', in Muzykal'naia nov', 10, 1924, p. 30; and N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement, p. 33. 16 N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement; and A.L., 'Muzsektor Giz'a. Agitationnoprosvetitel'nyi otdel', in Muzykal' naia nov', 1, 1923, p. 35. 17 L. Shul'gin, 'Agitotdel Muzsektora Giz'a', p. 6. 18 V.M. Lenzon, Muzyka sovetskikh massovykh revoliutsionnykh prazdnikov (Moscow, 1987), p. 36. Note that a declamation was considered an art form in its own right, rather than a performance method. 19 See the illustration of the score of Pro Lenina in L. Lebedinskii, 'Kompozitor mass', in Muzykal'naia samodeiatel'nost', 7, 1934, p. 2. 20 L. Sokolenko, 'Davidenko – kompozitor proletarskoi revoliutsii', in P.N. Berberov (ed.), Trudy Gosudarstvennogo-muzykal' no Pedagogicheskogo Instituta imeni Gnesinikh, vol. 10 (Moscow, 1971), p. 80. 21 See for further details, N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement, pp. 233–37; and A. Nelson, pp. 125–26. 22 L.Shul'gin, 'Agitotdel Muzsektora Giz' a', pp. 7–8. 23 Ts.S. Ratskaia, Mikhail Krasev (Moscow, 1957), pp. 27–29. 24 See, for example, A., 'Notigrafia i bibliografia', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 6, 1926, p. 38. 25 Ibid. 26 For further information about Put' Oktiabria , see Anon., 'Put' Oktiabria', in G.A. Pribegina (ed.), Sovetskoi rodine posviashchaetsia (Moscow, 1985), pp. 40–43; G. Soboleva, 'Oratoriia Put' Oktyabria',

in Vecherniaia Moskva , no. 248, 25 October 1984, p. 3; and A.M. Veprik, 'Put' Oktiabria', in Muzykal'noe obrazovanie, 1, 1929, pp. 35–37. 27 There was a link therefore between Prokoll and Sergei Eisenstein who employed the technique of montage in his early films. Several writers also commented on the cinematographic nature of Put' Oktiabria , and Davidenko was a fervent admirer of Eisenstein's work. I.Ia. Ispolnev, 'Zhizn' – tvorchestvo', in N.A. Martynov (ed.), Aleksandr Davidenko. Stat'i. Vospominaniia. Materialy (Leningrad, 1968), p. 112; and Iu. Keldysh, 'Put' Oktiabria', in Proletarskii muzykant, 1, 1929, p. 41. Davidenko and Boris Shekhter, a fellow Prokoll member, continued to experiment with montage and sound effects in their opera 1905 god [The Year 1905] (1934–35). N. Edmunds, 'A Soviet Proletarian Opera. The Year 1905 by Aleksandr Davidenko and Boris Shekhter', in Muziek en Wetenschap, vol. IV, no. 4, 1994, pp. 192 and 195–200. 28 Iu. Keldysh, p. 41 (for mild criticism); T. Sergeeva, 'Slushat' muzyku revoliutsii', in Moskovskaia Pravda , no. 278, 6 December 1983, p. 3; and I. Zemtsovskii, 'Pretecha opery novogo tipa', in Sovetskaia muzyka , 5, 1984, pp. 27–28 (for praise). 29 A. Preobrazhenskii, 'A.D. Kastal'skii (materialy k biografi)', in D.V. Zhitomirskii, (ed.), A.D. Kastal'skii. Stat ' i. Vospominaniia. Materialy (Moscow, 1960), pp. 45–46. The Derevenskaia simfoniia is described as the Sel' skokhoziaistvennaia simfoniia [An Agricultural Symphony ] by some writers, although Derevenskaia simfoniia was used at its premiere. A. Drozdov, 'Simfonicheskii kontsert v teatre Revoliutsii 13 Dekabria', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 1, 1926, p. 45. 30 Hence, the composer's comment that 'in the name of the democratisation of art, we must frstly turn to folk music'. A.D. Kastalskii, 'Prostoe iskusstvo i ego neprostiia zadachi', in Melos', 2, 1917, p. 125. 31 The orchestral sections of the Derevenskaia simfoniia were claimed to be composed in a similar style to the music of the Mighty Handful. S. Bugoslavskii, 'A.D. Kastalskii', in Muzyka i oktiabr' , 3, 1926, p. 6. 32 Such as Vasilev-Buglai, who considered that it was 'essential for every composer of mass songs to diligently study folk song'. D.S. Vasilev-Buglai, 'Kak ia pishu massovuiu pesniu', in Za proletarskuiu muzyku , 12, 1931, p. 9. 33 M. Koval, 'Lenin v muzyke', in Proletarskii muzykant, 1, 1930, p. 11. 34 R. Stites, Russian Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 73. Ironically, Koval became director of the Piatnitskii Folk Ensemble in the early 1960s. 35 L. Shulgin, 'Agitotdel Muzsektora Giz'a', p. 7. 36 Ibid. Istpart was the acronym of the Commission for the Collection and Study of Materials on the History of the October Revolution and Communist Party. 37 D.L. Lokshin, D.S. Vasil'ev-Buglai (Moscow, 1958), p. 15. 38 I. Ispolnev, p. 111. 39 See, for example, R.A. Rothstein, 'Popular Song in the NEP Era', in S. Fitzpatrick, A. Rabinowitch, and R. Stites (eds), Russia in the Era of NEP (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 269; A.N. Sokhor, Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia (Leningrad, 1959), pp. 110–111; and S.F. Starr, Red and Hot. The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union 1917–1980 (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 49. 40 R.A. Rothstein, 'The Quiet Rehabilitation of the Brick Factory: Early Soviet Popular Music and its Critics', in Slavic Review, vol. 39, no. 3, 1980, p. 374. 41 N. Edmunds, 'Music and Politics: The Case of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians', p. 87. 42 L. Shulgin, 'Dostizheniia revoliutsionnoi muzyki', p. 90. For three of many examples of these reviews, see Anon., 'Praktika muzykal' noi raboty', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 1, 1926, pp. 35–39; Anon., 'Praktika muzykal ' noi raboty', in ibid., 9, 1926, pp. 30–32; and Anon., 'Praktika muzykal ' noi raboty', in ibid., 2, 1927, pp. 26–28. 43 Hence, Shulgin's remark in October 1924 that 'agitational music has began to penetrate … almost all the territory of the USSR'. L. Shulgin, 'Agitotdel Muzsektora Giz' a', p. 7. This claim can be

substantiated by the numerous reports of musical activities from the provinces published in contemporary journals. See, for instance, the reports from Tambov and Kostroma in G. Pozdniakov, 'Provintsiia', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 12, 1926, p. 48. 44 Note the comments, for example, in N. Chemberdzhi, 'Entuziast massovikh zhanrov', in N.A. Martynov (ed.), Aleksandr Davidenko. Stat' i. Vospominaniia. Materialy, p. 92; and V. Fere, 'Chudesnyi tovarishsch i drug', in ibid., p. 52. 45 L. Lebedinskii, 'Reorganizatsiia Muzsektora Giz'a', pp. 3–4. 46 M. Bruk, Marian Koval (Leningrad/Moscow, 1959), p. 5. 47 K. Belaia, 'O sem' e i detskikh godakh brata', in L.N. Lebedinskii (ed.), V.A. Belyi. Ocherki zhizni i tvorchestva. Stat' i. Vospominaniia. Materialy (Moscow, 1987), p. 107; and B. Shekhter, 'Iz vospominanii ob A. Davidenko', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 6, 1959, p. 52. 48 A.D. Kastalskii, 'My Musical Career and my Thoughts on Church Music', in The Musical Quarterly, 11, April 1925, p. 233; and E. Leonov, 'Predislovie', in A.D. Kastal' skii, Izbrannye khory (Moscow, 1981), p. 2. 49 N.Ia. Briusova, 'D.S. Vasilev-Buglai', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 2, 1948, p. 98; and E.M. [Shulgina], 'Mikhail Krasev', in Muzyka i revoliutsiia, 1, 1928, p. 15. 50 Trotskii wanted to 'create a higher biological type' who would 'rise to the heights of an Aristotle, Goethe, or a Marx'. L. Trotsky, Literature and Revolution (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964), pp. 255–256. Lenin as recalled by Klara Zetkin. K. Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin (London: Modern Books, 1929), p. 14. 51 A. Preobrazhenskii, pp. 42–43; and I. Smyslov, 'V rabochem klube', in D.V. Zhitomirskii (ed.), pp. 122–123. 52 N.Ia. Briusova, p. 98; and E.M. [Shulgina], p. 15. 53 E.M. [Shulgina], p. 16; and D.L. Lokshin, pp. 7–8. 54 M. Bruk, pp. 9–10; and I. Mamchur, 'V. Belyi', in L.N. Lebedinskii (ed.), V.A. Belyi. Ocherki zhizni i tvorchestva. Stat'i. Vospominaniia. Materialy, p. 20. 55 L.N. Lebedinskii, 'A. Davidenko. Materialy dlia tvorcheskoi biografi', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 4, 1935, pp. 32–33. 56 Ibid. 57 A. Davidenko, 'Za oboronnuiu krasnofotskuiu pesniu', in N.A. Martynov (ed.), pp. 135–136; A.A. Lebedev, 'Pismo medvedskogo khorkruzhka', in Muzykal'naia samodeiatel'nost', 7, 1934, p. 28; L.N. Lebedinskii, 'A. Davidenko. Materialy dlia tvorcheskoy biografi', pp. 35–36; and Al. Surkov, 'Pamiati soratnika', in N.A. Martynov (ed.), pp. 109–110. 58 Virtually an hour-by-hour account of Davidenko's last day is given in L. Lebedinskii, 'A. Davidenko. Materialy dlia tvorcheskoy biografi', pp. 36–37.

7 Amateurs and enthusiasts Folk music and the Soviet state on stage in the 1930s Robin LaPasha 'I am 49' claimed a collective farmer called Natalia Petrova from the Sinoborevo village soviet in the Sudogda district, and have experienced both grief and need. Only in the Collective Farm have I stopped feeling old. I grew even younger after the Olympiad where each showed his wits and ability to perform. When has it happened that someone has brought out the talents of us village women and helped to develop these talents?1

What was the activity that magically renewed the youthfulness of these Collective Farm performers? Amateur musicians and groups in Russia in the 1930s frequently performed in competitions for prizes called Olympiads. These Olympiads took place within a larger context of amateur activity (samodeiatel'nost'), which included general amateur evenings at the local theatres, holiday appearances in public parks, and performances by amateur performers in factory and village clubs. The Olympiad format was essentially a presentation of a variety show which provided a combination of song, music, dance, and other forms in different genres. From the point of view of the authorities, the Olympiads were more than entertainment. They also served to meet the 'cultural' needs of the population, but proved neither predictable nor controllable, because the participants were amateurs.2 The Olympiad phenomenon was national, but its features are easier to see at the local level in provinces like Ivanovo. Ivanovo (Fig. 7.1) is approximately 280 kilometres east-north-east of Moscow; its capital also being called Ivanovo. Between 1930 and 1936, the province of Ivanovo (sometimes called the Ivanovo Industrial Province) also included what is today Iaroslavl, Vladimir, and parts of Kostroma provinces. Soviet journals which specifcally covered amateur activity, such as Klub [Club], Kolkhoznyi teatr [Collective Farm Theatre], Muzykal'naia samodeiatel'nost' [Musical Amateur Activity], and Narodnoe tvorchestvo [Folk Culture],3 usually emphasised only its positive aspects and described amateur activity in general, historical terms.

They also tended to ignore provinces like Ivanovo. Hence, the importance of the provincial sources that this essay largely draws from. Local newspapers such as the Rabochii krai [Worker's Region] provide a unique view of everyday life and almost-everyday Olympiads. They contain reviews, letters, interviews, complaints, and the announcements of event schedules documenting the sheer volume of activity in the province. Between the local reviews and the complaints, there are also indications of the participants and of the authorities' expectations of the Olympiads. Moreover, the local coverage provides evidence of the decline of the Olympiads and their gradual replacement by other forms of amateur entertainment, and suggests that the assumptions of the uniform control of Soviet cultural activities during the 1930s should be challenged. Until the late 1930s, many performances of folk music in Moscow, whether in the concert hall or on the radio, were given by performers from the provinces, and questions arise on a provincial level that are also rele

Figure 7.1 Ivanovo Province in the 1930s.

vant in the national context. For example, why did performers enter the Olympiads, if they were not a required to do so? Why did they volunteer for what Sheila Fitzpatrick described as 'the Potemkin village' of Soviet cultural activities, and why did folk music performers in particular participate in the Olympiads only after 1933?4 The answers to these questions have to do with both the national political evaluation of folk music, and the specifc dynamics of Olympiad performance. There is a fundamental human need to perform and be appreciated by others, and the Olympiads provided willing audiences. Olympiads satisfed the needs for folk music performers who wished to remain amateurs, as well as for those who wished to advance their social and/or professional status. The fact that the Olympiads provided the opportunity at large venues also encouraged folk music performers to take part in them. The provincial newspapers ignored several Olympiads in Ivanovo province at the start of the 1930s, including Iaroslavl's musical Olympiad of summer 1930 and the Ivanovo Provincial Olympiad of 1932. There were probably at least two reasons for this. First, the general difficulty of the times and the pressure of the collectivisation campaign gave the peasants (or authorities) little chance to think about entertainment. Moreover, the textile mills were centres of strikes in the 1928–32 period, and a violent two-week strike took place in the city of Vichuga in April 1932.5 A second reason for the low profile of the events was the infuence of the Ivanovo branch of RAPM (Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians). Local amateurs were discouraged by articles exhorting the Ivanovo branch of RAPM to 'make every orchestra, choral and stage collective a real weapon of the battle for the industrial finance plan and self-fnancing', and for the Ivanovo writers' organisation (IVAPP) to 'secure the latest ideologically consistent dramatisations and songs' for the city's stage and choral groups.6 Unfortunately, the seven groups participating in the amateur review of 1931 disappointed the critics, who complained that the Collective Farm group played a waltz, one group of Komsomol singers set their slogans to the melody of a funeral march, and another group played a foxtrot.7 Moreover, new, rural, and informal groups usually did not enter public competitions in Ivanovo at the beginning of the 1930s. But the situation was slowly changing,

and Ivanovo's clubs registered 81 orchestras, 24 choirs, and 97 drama circles in June 1933.8 Local newspaper coverage and an obvious widening of interest and activity in these events also increased in late 1933, and a series of children's Olympiads were added to the province's cultural calendar from November 1933 to January 1934.9 Throughout 1934 and 1935, Olympiads and the coverage of them increased at an astounding rate. After a provincial Olympiad was announced, a preparatory period followed during which amateur groups were encouraged to rehearse and present their proposed programme at local clubs. New groups were also welcomed, and the Ivanovo provincial House of Folk Culture proudly announced that '89 [new] dramatic, choral, and musical collectives' had been organised during the preparation for district Olympiads in 1938.10 The initial announcement of an Olympiad also included a proposed schedule for all local-level competitions preceding the provincial finals. For example, the first announcements of the Ivanovo provincial workers' Olympiad (spring 1934) were in late January. They noted that: The provincial trade soviet has decided to conduct the second provincial Olympiad of worker artistic amateur activity in February and March. Not only theatrical shows and musical-choral groups should be take part, but also literary and graphic-arts groups. Before the provincial Olympiad, district reviews of workers' amateur creative work will be held.11

However, the date for completion of each level was very rarely adhered to. The collective farms, factories, and districts sometimes either did not schedule Olympiads at all, or they were so poorly organised and publicised that the potential participants and audiences either did not appear or were left to their own devices. A participant in the Olympiad held in Teikovo in 1934, for instance, complained that because of the factory directors' inattention, twelve performers had only heard of the Olympiad from a poster the day before.12 Because each successive level of Olympiads was built on the advancement of winners of earlier competitions, the delays became endemic. The aforementioned Ivanovo Provincial Olympiad had a typical delay range. Its fnals had originally been scheduled for April 1, but then delayed until April 16, 17, and 18.13 Articles in the newspaper Rabochii krai then described the city-level Olympiad as 'less inspiring than could be expected, and less organised than could be demanded'.14 This suggested that the provincial competition was running well behind time, if not quite completely derailed. In fact, the Second Provincial Olympiad of Amateur Art eventually occurred

on May 5 and 6, 1934, and the five-week delay resulted in the length of the Olympiad being extended by over 50 per cent. In addition to coverage of the Olympiads in Ivanovo themselves, the reports also included previews of future events and began to interview winners of local Olympiads who had been selected to continue to the next competitive level. By personalising the performers who would soon be appearing at the provincial fnals, the reports created publicity for the upcoming Olympiad, and support for particular performers. Although not always specifed in local press coverage, there was also another set of attractions consistently drawing audiences to the Ivanovo provincial Olympiads of 1934 and 1935. Ivanovo province had two major folk instrument orchestras and two large (and popular) choirs who regularly competed against each other in Olympiads, winning public and state support in the process. Russian folk instrument ensembles were primarily made up of balalaikas and domras (fretted instruments with three or four strings). These folk instruments had become standardised before the October Revolution, and factories or collective farms sponsored their own amateur folk orchestras during the Soviet period. Nationally and locally, the profle and reputations of the folk instrument orchestras preceded those of choirs. Some critics, for example, considered that 'by 1927–28 the string orchestras of Moscow had already achieved great successes', but that the development of amateur choirs throughout rural Russia had been stunted until 1934.15 The orchestras of Ivanovo province were also perceived as organisations comparable to the capital's amateur groups, especially Evgenii Stompelev's orchestra in Iaroslavl, and the Rybinsk Motor Factory orchestra led by Alexander Dorozhkin. These local orchestras demonstrated an urban competition and a generational divide in amateur musical activity. The ambitions and opportunities for the province's orchestra directors and members also appeared to exemplify the Soviet emphasis on education and the advancement of the younger generation. Evgenii Stompelev founded his folk instrument orchestra in Vologda in 1917. It was touring in Iaroslavl by 1921, and a small group of musicians there persuaded Stompelev to come and lead their orchestra in the autumn of 1923. Within two years, the orchestra's repertoire had developed from 'two or three simple waltzes of Andreev and a few folk songs' to a substantial collection of classical pieces.16 Soon the orchestra managed to support itself by playing concerts at the local theatre and delighted audiences by performing the

occasional surprise work, such as an arrangement of an Offenbach operetta.17 Stompelev's orchestra then performed in Iaroslavl's first all-city musical Olympiad in 1930, and was sent on tour by Narkompros and the All-Union Radio Committee in 1931.18 The height of the orchestra's national success came the following year, after winning the first Ivanovo provincial amateur Olympiad, when it was placed second in its category at the All-Union Olympiad of Artistic Amateur Activity in 1932. Consequently, the orchestra was awarded the Red Banner of Labour 'for its services on the cultural front of labouring Iaroslavl'.19 The collective again won at the provincial Olympiad in May 1934; Stompelev received the honour of being deemed a provincial instructor.20 In October 1934, however, the orchestra lost their practice space in the basement room of the Engineering and Technical Workers' Club (Plate 7.1), and Stompelev complained that 'praise does not get you much, there is no help. They only remember the orchestra on celebration days and holidays.'21 There was also a problem with Stompelev himself. He was 48 by 1935, and had been active in musical circles for thirty-three years. As an older man with a pre-Revolutionary education, his was not the image the local authorities wished to promote, despite the fact that his orchestra was the best in the Ivanovo province and at least second best in the country as a whole. Alexander Vasilevich Dorozhkin, on the other hand, was born only in 1908, and led a folk instrument orchestra organised in 1930 under the auspices of the Rybinsk provincial (okruzhnyi) trade union soviet by his

Plate 7.1 Contemporary caricature of the situation in clubs in Iaroslav.

(Stompelev is visible conducting from within the balalaika soundhole). (Source: Leninets, 14 October 1934, p. 2.)

early twenties.22 The orchestra made its first appearance on Moscow Radio in the summer of 1932, and acquired accommodation and financial support from the Rybinsk Pavlov Motor Factory Club. It had thirty-two members by 1933, when it reportedly performed 'revolutionary songs, songs of the peoples of the USSR, and works from the classical literature'.23 Its members reportedly put enormous energy into their musical education, and learned to play musical instruments and read musical notation.24 At an Olympiad where these two orchestras competed, the public would hear repertoire, such as Beethoven's Overture to Egmont , music from Borodin's Kniaz' Igor' [Prince Igor] and Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail [The Abduction from the Harem], and symphonies by Schubert. The Stompelev orchestra's performances of cello pieces by Gluck and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto also impressed local reviewers, and Pravda's editorial staff were interested enough in the ensemble to send Georgii Polianovskii, an instructor in the Moscow Conservatory, to investigate when 'the rumour reached Moscow that the Rybinsk folk instrument orchestra was playing Beethoven's Fifth Symphony'.25 To consolidate their success, however, the Rybinsk orchestra needed to win the Ivanovo provincial Olympiad. The problem was, though, that they could never defeat Stompelev's Iaroslavl orchestra in open competition, despite the Rybinsk orchestra having all the advantages. By the orchestra's ffth anniversary in spring 1935, it had secured a permanent home, while the Iaroslavl orchestra received only sporadic and grudging support from city authorities despite its fourteen years of hard work. The Rybinsk orchestra's director was also youthful and local (he was born in Rybinsk), while Stompelev was from St Petersburg. The contrast of directors represented a classic struggle: Dorozhkin was the new Soviet man, while Stompelev was the pre-Revolutionary intellectual. Consequently, the provincial trade union soviet made the decision to advance the interests of the Rybinsk orchestra over those of the Iaroslavl orchestra. Stompelev's orchestra won the Iaroslavl Olympiad in 1935 easily, and Dorozhkin's orchestra won in Rybinsk.26 Normally, the winners would be sent on to the provincial Olympiad in Ivanovo in October, but the Iaroslavl orchestra was disqualifed from entering

on the grounds that Stompelev's stipend from the provincial trade union soviet had reclassifed the group as a professional orchestra. In its absence, the Rybinsk orchestra fnally won the Ivanovo provincial Olympiad.27 Between the city and provincial Olympiads in 1935, Dorozhkin and his Rybinsk orchestra caught the eye of offcials in Moscow, and performed there at a concert in the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS) Theatre in October 1935.28 The Rybinsk orchestra's members were thus primed for musical and personal success, despite the obvious rigging of the group's Olympiad win. Consequently, the orchestra's young concertmaster, Zhenia Volkova, was promoted to her factory's inspection section in a matter of months, while milling machine operator and fellow concertmaster B.A. Bolshakov was allowed to enrol in the province's aviation institute.29 While these orchestras were developing, choirs were also springing up in textile factories during the 1920s. In 1922, for example, a young choral director called Ivan Smyslov went to the city of Vichuga and was soon leading a choir at the Nogin textile factory complex (Plate 7.2). To ensure the support of the authorities and be allowed to practice in the Nogin factory's club, Smyslov and the Vichuga choir were constantly required to perform at meetings and conferences. The Vichuga choir added Soviet revolutionary songs and classical pieces to its original folk song repertoire, and began to organise regular music classes. Choirs such as the Nogin factory's group, which performed modern Soviet songs, were encouraged during the period when RAPM was at its most influential, but other local amateur singing groups intentionally kept a low profle. Accusations made by the authorities in Moscow that females were orientated towards a backwards (i.e. rural) way of life was not applied to choirs with female members like the Vichuga ensemble in an industrial area with a large female workforce such as Ivanovo. It came as no surprise therefore that the Vichuga ensemble was declared Ivanovo's top choir in 1931.30 Two choral collectives from the Krasnyi Perekop complex of factories also united to form a folk choir after they were inspired by a visit of the Piatnitskii Choir to Iaroslavl in spring 1934.31 One of the founding collectives had already achieved success in the most recent Ivanovo provincial Olympiad. According to V. Gotovkin:

Plate 7.2 Vichuga's Nogin factory choir. (Source: G. Polianovskii, 'Khor vichuzhskikh tkachei', in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 2, 1938, p. 35.) The most remarkable and valuable triumph for amateur art was heard yesterday with the performance by the peasant ethnographic choir of the workers of the Krasnyi Perekop – residents of the tenth dormitory building. All of the singers are shock workers of Perekop. Amongst them 72-year-old Nadezhda Svistunova … and 64-year-old Mariia Danilovna Kuzminina. The choir sang the song Zhizn' – radost' moia [Life is my Joy ]. The soloist files high, and the choir smoothly and powerfully sings of the joys of life. They know not only how to sing, they put a lot of play and powerful, simple conviction into their words. Each thing sung by the Perekop workers evokes a storm of raptures from the whole auditorium.32

Within a year, the Krasnyi Perekop's choir had grown from fifteen to sixty members, and performed on radio as well as at Olympiads, in factory clubs, and in more traditional concert venues.33 The choir mixed 'nineteen-year-old Komsomol members and seventy-year-old women',34 and by autumn 1935 they were competing directly with the Nogin factory choir for the top provincial honours. Like Smyslov's Nogin factory choir in Vichuga, the Krasnyi Perekop choir was based in an urban textile factory, and the majority of its members were a mix of working women of various ages. Its repertoire was based primarily on folk song, it gave 326 concerts in three years (!), and mastered a repertoire of around 100 songs. One of its members, Elena Marasanova, was also chosen as a soloist in the frst All-Union radio festival.35 In terms of the friendly competition between the Krasnyi Perekop and Nogin factory choirs however, the latter had the advantage. This was largely down to two sisters, Mariia and Evdokiia Vinogradova, who had set Stakhanovite records in the supervision of 100 automatic weaving machines in late 1935. Evdokiia Vinogradova was also a member of the Supreme Soviet, and the sisters' advocacy was

instrumental in gaining the choir a national reputation.36 The head-to-head competitions of these large instrumental and vocal amateur groups demonstrated a number of factors concerning the perceptions and realities of the Olympiads during the 1930s. First, apart from their success at Olympiads, these groups needed to maintain stable day-to-day relations with the local authorities and cultivate connections with individuals who could protect a group's access to facilities or funds. Second, their repertoire illustrated that the audience in Ivanovo enjoyed a variety of music, ranging from the Soviet and classical works performed by the Nogin factory's choir to the traditional folk songs performed by the Krasnyi Perekop's choir. Finally, success at Olympiads raised a group's profle and provided future opportunities for the groups and their members. The provincial Olympiads held in Ivanovo were usually multi-day events often with very long concerts. The Olympiad fnals in spring 1934, for example, took place in six different clubs with the second night's fnal concert, which was held in the State Circus before an audience of 8,000, lasting six hours.37 The most impressive displays of successful provincial organisation, though, were the Olympiads organised in October 1935. In the space of four days, two large but completely separate provincial Olympiads were held: the Cotton Workers' Olympiad and the Trade Union (profsoiuz) Olympiad. The former was held October 21–22, while the larger Trade Union Olympiad began on October 22 and concluded on October 24. Both held their concluding evenings in the Ivanovo State Circus only two days apart, and many of the same performers appeared in the two Olympiads.38 However, there were differences between the two events. The Cotton Workers' Olympiad had 800 participants from 39 factories, but most of the entries were vocal groups and individual singers. The performance of instrumental music was confned to the button accordionist Klavdiia Nemtsova and her interpretations of music by Beethoven and Schubert, and a so-called 'novelty' orchestra performing its repertoire of twelve tunes.39 The Trade Union Olympiad two days later, on the other hand, had 1,200 performers and a more impressive programme.40 Stompelev, in the absence of his own orchestra, conducted an amalgamation of other orchestras from the province in a performance of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, while the folk instrument orchestra from Rybinsk played Grieg. Orchestras from Iaroslavl and Kostroma also performed at the Trade Union provincial Olympiad, as did a jazz band, a rozhok (wooden-horn) choir, an ensemble of Hawaiian guitarists,

and a balalaika duet. Even in a large provincial centre like Ivanovo, Olympiads usually overwhelmed the city's authorities. There were, for example, two days of constant performances spread between six venues for the Olympiad in May 1934, while 2,000 performers participated in the Olympiads in October 1935. There were problems in housing so many performers, setting aside the performance venues, and simply organising the events (Plate 7.3). Not surprisingly, after the experiences of 1934 and 1935, Ivanovo decided to hold no more back-to-back provincial Olympiads for the rest of the decade. to book the venues at which the Olympiads were held. Local government This decision was taken by local government officials, whose job it was officials also either judged or selected the judges of the competitions themselves, allowed or disallowed the entry of participants, and arranged for the prizes to be awarded. Newspapers naturally controlled the reporting of Olympiads, and there were certainly attempts to make the events carefully regulated rituals 'choreographed in a way that is designed to prevent surprises'.41 Yet invariably there were delays, absent or capricious judges, lack of housing for the participants, and the repertoire was not thoroughly vetted as the 'choreography' collapsed from the top.

Plate 7.3 Contemporary caricature about the organisational difficulties in Olympiads (a Danilov district kolkhoz orchestra is depicted without housing). (Source: Kolkhoznaia tribuna, 12 April 1935, p. 3.)

There is also evidence that what happened at an Olympiad was less controlled than the authorities would have liked thanks to an audience that often contained less than impartial families, friends, and co-workers of the performers. Consequently, the performance of certain groups was extended by audience demand, and the audience often requested particular repertoire – usually traditional folk songs – rather than the songs about Stalin that the authorities favoured. It was reported, for example, that the rozhok choir from Podolets played 'by request of the viewers several more songs' after their two scheduled tunes, while the Larin choir of Rodniki sang the folk songs Ei, dubinushka and Vniz' po matushke po Volge, and then performed an encore.42 The dancer Shiriaev also performed iablochko as planned, but 'unceasing applause made [him] dance another waltz and a tsyganochka', while the Krasnoe Galanino Collective Farm choir sang four folk songs, where they also were probably only scheduled for two.43 There was also evidence that the BIM (Bolshaia ivanovskaia manufaktura) Theatre's audience did not react passively to performances during the Olympiad in the spring of 1934. A Ukrainian dance group had just fnished dancing a hopak, when supposedly 'An argument begins. The viewers step up and criticise the music. All of them are demanding of amateur art, and they discuss everything … No one is too shy, [and] no one blushes.'44 The recommended repertoire, judging, and critical review of the provincial Olympiads were weighted towards the potential abilities of the performers and the regions sending them. The age of the performers was also an important consideration, and it was expected that the level of performance in Olympiads should improve with each year. This created some problems, since the rivalry between the Stompelev and Dorozhkin orchestras resulted in such impressive standards that expectations of the province's instrumental ensembles became unreasonably high. During the Olympiads of October 1935, the contestants were critically delineated by their performances of classical music, popular songs, folk songs, and chastushki (popular ditties), and groups from the large urban industrial centres were expected to present symphonies and operas.45 On the other hand, a collective farm or small village could without complaint send a group of herdsmen or elderly women to an Olympiad to play their horns or perform folk songs respectively.

By January 1936, Ivanovo province possessed 350 orchestras and 400 choirs, but most of the amateur orchestras performing the classical and symphonic works at the Olympiads were folk instrument orchestras, a fact ignored by the press.46 The provincial reviewers no doubt considered that the instruments did not really matter if the repertoire was appropriately highbrow. However, this was not an attitude that was always shared in Moscow. It was also assumed in the local press that the locals were already familiar with the area's regular orchestras and knew the ensembles' makeup from direct experience, since most of the population had already attended an Olympiad or another event where the orchestras were featured. But although the choirs were well known and loved by the local audience, their makeup and repertoire were on occasions more ambiguous. The Krasnyi Perekop's choir, for example, stated they were purely a folk choir, while the Nogin's choir performed a mix of classical, contemporary Soviet, and folk songs, but were considered specialists in the classical repertoire. From the point of view of the authorities, the Olympiads were intended to raise the province's cultural levels. This goal could be interpreted as anything from providing a positive cultural experience for the audience to improving educational opportunities for the participants. For the latter, the authorities recommended the performance of classical and/or contemporary Soviet repertoire, and the provision of score-reading classes for workers below the age of forty. Family ensembles with young children would also be invited to learn elementary Soviet songs for performance in the Olympiads, but this offer would not be extended to the middle-aged or elderly participants who were most likely to perform a repertoire of purely folk song, music, or dance. There seems to have been two reasons for this: frst, the participation of elderly participants allowed the authorities to claim the expansion of culture to a population not served by (or seen in) such venues before; second, elderly participants provided extremely attractive entertainment for the audience and enhanced the success of the cultural event. The sight of white-haired old men and plump grandmothers (Plate 7.4) dancing and singing what in their day would have been teenage courtship music forms appealed to viewers of all ages, and the authorities did not want to discourage their participation by making them learn new songs. They also offered a nostalgic representation of the province's rural heritage and values that the authorities were anxious to promote. The Collective Farm Olympiad continued to be a stage upon which amateur

choirs performed throughout the rest of the decade. Only two choirs participated in the Ivanovo provincial Collective Farm Olympiad in 1935, although this had increased to fourteen by the Olympiad in 1938. The district competitions in 1938 also included 9,000 participants, 500 of whom were sent to the fnals in Ivanovo. A contemporary reviewer noted that: middle-aged Collective Farm women and men take the lead in the majority of choirs. They generally perform old folk songs, dances, demonstrating the exceptional richness of folk culture … In the choral collectives, about 300 people participate, among whom 90 are older than 45. There are participants who are 70 to 80 years old. All, even the oldest participants of the Olympiad, are leaders, [and] the best producers in their collective farms. For example, a member of the Krasnoe Galanino Collective Farm choir of the Sudogda district, 77-year-old Danil Antonovich Razumov, is a quality-control inspector [who] in 1937 worked 450 days …47

Plate 7.4 Choirs of senior citizens at Olympiads. (Source: S.D., 'Starye I molodye', in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 4, 1937, p. 56.)

The fact that choirs had expanded their participation in the Olympiads (and were so popular) was interpreted by the local authorities as a widening of opportunities, if not a full-scale rising of the cultural level of the masses. The perception of a growth of any kind of musical activity, be it choral or instrumental, was also an important part of the justifcation for each Olympiad

especially after the administrative reorganisation of Ivanovo province in 1936.48 Contemporary reviewers emphasised that each Olympiad performance should be judged fairly. Dmitrii Mozzhukhin, for example, described the judging of an Olympiad in Viazniki in 1935 as unacceptably bureaucratic and ignoring the artistic merits of the performers. This was illustrated by two reading circles being awarded prizes on the basis of their good preparation for the spring planting rather than attaining a high level of literary knowledge. The best dancer also did not win the prize, because her lesser competitor had 'worked longer in a collective farm', and a group from a soviet which never appeared at the Olympiad (but was politically acceptable) was chosen to represent the district at the provincial-level Olympiad.49 The judging was therefore as varied in quality as the performances often were in local Olympiads. At the conclusion of an Olympiad, prizes were routinely awarded to successful performers. Throughout the period 1934–39, the presentation of Olympiad prizes evolved largely on the experience of past scandalous administrative faux pas. Prizes were at frst simply announced at the Olympiad and then in the press reports of that Olympiad. When the system worked well, a prize was awarded, and the story of its recipient would be featured in print. For example, Sima Danilychev, a six-year-old accordionist and son of the Demian Bednyi collective farm's chairman, had already received some press coverage for his self-taught accordion playing at the Petrovskii district Olympiad. He was then pictured with his 250-rouble prize at the Ivanovo province collective farm Olympiad in 1935 accompanied by an announcement of his invitation to the local music school (muztekhnikum) (Plate 7.5). The implication was of course that the education as well as the finances of this talented young boy would be enhanced through him being victorious at the Olympiad.50 However, many winners discovered that the announcement of prizes at an Olympiad did not always correspond to the prize being awarded because of budgetary constraints. Occasionally, a newspaper would then take up the case of children, farmers, or workers attempting to extract their prizes from local authorities, either intervening directly with higher authorities, or by simply printing complaints such as: In September [1935] in the central zone of the Varegovo Peat Enterprise (Bol' shoe Selo district), an evening of amateur activity was organised. For my playing on the button accordion, I, a ten-year-old Pioneer, was awarded a prize – [either] 300 rubles … or a [new] button accordion. I asked [them] to

buy an accordion for me. Three months have passed – and I've received neither the accordion nor the money. Almost every day I go down to ask about it at the Peat Committee [Offce]. There they answer: We'll give it out tomorrow. Will this 'tomorrow' ever come?51

When winners were not awarded their prizes, the press often chastised the local authorities, and later articles made a particular point of noting when the prizes were distributed immediately and winners were photographed holding their prizes.52 Common reactions to a successful Olympiad experience included participants inspired to master their newly acquired instruments, attempt more complex repertoire, and increase their performance schedules. The problem with inspiration and enthusiasm, though, was the official indifference with which it was usually met. Once the Olympiad was finally concluded, the authorities typically ignored the amateur groups until they were needed for the next scheduled entertainment, usually during an election campaign or

Plate 7.5 Six-year-old Serafim 'Sima' Danilychev. (Source: Ivanovskii kolkhoznik, 26 September 1935, p. 2.)

October Revolution celebration. This indifference often extended to a lack of access to practice space, and the end of a particular Olympiad cycle usually

led to a falling-off of interest by both participating groups and their sponsors. Reading huts were locked up, and choir membership and practice schedules dropped. This was despite admonitions that 'the work, begun at the time of preparation for the Olympiad, should be continuous and not be done in spurts (kampaneiskoi)'.53 Olympiads were thus usually portrayed in the press as a growth of culture, whether it was the folk culture of the collective farmers performing in the Collective Farm Olympiads, the Soviet culture performed at the junior Olympiads, or amateur music-making opportunities of the Red Army. The celebration, review, and analysis of the Olympiad in the press coverage particularly emphasised the contrast between the pre- and post-Revolutionary situation, and the increased opportunities that came with Soviet rule. Even the 'sad' pre-Revolutionary song repertoire could be discussed in articles, though, as long as it was carefully wrapped within the context of the 'happy' Soviet utopia. However, problems were encountered in the pursuit of raising the cultural level of the urban centres of the Ivanovo province when the best orchestras were transferred to the Iaroslavl province (which included Rybinsk) when the latter was re-created in March 1936.54 The provincial editorials could still praise Vichuga's Nogin factory choir for its 'highbrow' Olympiad repertoire, but more often than not complained that 'choral collectives [now] usually predominate at our Olympiads'.55 The fundamental problem for the Ivanovo province after 1936 was that of gendered industrial geography. Orchestras usually began in their sponsoring factories with male workers who normally joined the instrumental musical groups rather than choirs. But the heavy industry works, which had the best supply of funds and male workers, were in Iaroslavl and Rybinsk. The mill-towns, such as Vichuga, on the other hand, had a primarily female labour force of weavers and spinners who were more likely to form choirs. As a mill-town, the provincial capital, Ivanovo, was a choral centre and unable to muster an orchestra for much of the decade as a result. It even suffered an 'inglorious liquidation of the provincial symphony orchestra' in 1937.56 Thanks to the process of provincial redistricting, Ivanovo therefore simply did not possess orchestras that could compete with the quality and variety of instrumental music available in the more northerly cities. With regard to the ensembles that performed in Ivanovo's Olympiads after 1936, critics for the most part responded by muting their campaign for the

raising of cultural levels in terms of classical music. They celebrated instead less sophisticated groups, such as rozhok ensembles and collective-farm choirs. The provincial centre did not completely give up the battle for raising the cultural level of its populace, though, and there were periodic attempts to raise the educational level of members of ensembles and choirs. The Ivanovo House of Folk Culture was thus charged to 'organise the study of notation, the history of music' amongst the members of the Gavrilovo-Posad rozhok ensemble and collective farm choir. The hope also remained that whilst groups from collective farms would provide traditional performances of Russian folk songs, tunes and dances, workers' clubs could reinvigorate the province's classical music scene. This proved to be the case by 1939 when a wind orchestra in Kovrov performed more complex repertoire (i.e. Schubert's Unfinished Symphony) at the fourth provincial Olympiad in competition with orchestras from Vladimir, Bogoliubovo, and Vichuga.57 Olympiads were undoubtedly popular, but they also tended to be chaotic events. Consequently, the local authorities tried to stage them in a more controlled way after 1936. Different forms of performance were also introduced during the latter part of the decade, and some of the most popular groups became professional. Stompelev's orchestra, for example, was incorporated into the newly founded Iaroslavl (Philharmonic) State Folk Instrument Orchestra in June 1937, and its members were gradually replaced by professional musicians.58 The orchestra in Rybinsk did not suffer such a drastic fate. It continued to perform regularly thanks to the patronage of the Pavlov Motor Factory, although it lost Alexander Dorozhkin who took up a post in Moscow. Even after the Pavlov Motor Factory's wartime evacuation to Ufa, another orchestra was established there, and both cities celebrated the orchestra's forty-ffth anniversary with their original music director.59 The large factory choirs had also developed by the end of the decade to a point that numbers became unmanageable. The Nogin factory's choir had over 600 members at one point, and the Krasnyi Perekop's choir was reported to have eight subsidiary choirs with 1,200 members.60 After the provincial redistricting of March 1936, the Krasnyi Perekop choir could also no longer compete directly with the Nogin choir from Vichuga, and some of its younger members joined professional entertainment groups modelled on Alexander Alexanderov's Red Army Ensemble.61 For example, B.M. Naz'mov, director of the Krasnyi perekop choir, was invited by the Iaroslavl Philharmonic to form the Volga Song and Dance Ensemble (Plate 7.6).62 As choirmaster of a

new, professional organisation, Naz 'mov recruited the best singers in the Krasnyi Perekop's choir and other local amateur groups for the new ensemble.63 The singers and dancers then became a state (and statesupported) folk ensemble of the provincial philharmonic; the process was mirrored by other groups that were professionalised in the late 1930s, most notably the Piatnitskii Folk Choir and the Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir.

Plate 7.6 The Volga Song and Dance Ensemble (Source: I. Tiurin, 'Ansambl' volzhskoi pesni', in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 5, 1938, p. 47.)

However, Ivanovo's provincial authorities, as opposed to those in Iaroslavl, lagged behind when it came to the process of professionalisation. Hence, a letter published in Rabochii krai in March 1938 entitled 'The City of Ivanovo Needs a Folk Ensemble' demanded that: 'It is time to work on the organization in Ivanovo of a good ensemble of folk song and dance, which refects the characteristic particularities of our textile province.'64 As a result of such public pressure, a professional Railway Workers' Song and Dance Ensemble was formed in April 1938 that contained a 60-strong choir, a 20strong orchestra, and 13 dancers.65 In June 1939, the cotton workers' union also announced the formation of a 80-strong Textile Workers' Song and Dance Ensemble of performers who had 'all come from worker amateur artistic groups'.66 As soon as these professional ensembles were formed, they depended on local authorities for their upkeep, and often became status symbols as the local authorities used them to show their support for 'folk'

culture. Local authorities also aimed to provide cultural events, in one form or another, to the population of a particular province. The Olympiads during the 1930s served this aim with minimal demands for consistent administrative support and planning, but each particular Olympiad required concentrated outlays of time and resources. These aims, however, shifted by the end of the decade to include the education and cultural development of successful Olympiad performers, but this only affected in practice a small percentage of the participants. The Olympiads were also a risky proposition as far as the authorities were concerned, since it seemed as if some of them could spiral out of control, a fact eagerly seized upon by the local press. The provincial authorities therefore began to develop more controllable avenues for the celebration of folk culture, which eventually served to replace the large-scale Olympiads. This process included the construction of a special venue for performances called the House of Folk Culture (Dom narodnogo tvorchestva). The House of Folk Culture ensured events could be controlled under one roof, unlike the Olympiad in April 1935 that (as noted) was held in six venues across Ivanovo. Smaller Olympiads during the late 1930s began to be held in the Ivanovo House of Folk Culture, and the so-called Evenings of Folk Culture held there in 1937 and 1938 were more formal than the previous Evenings of Amateur Activity. They featured the groups that had won recent local and provincial Olympiad competitions, and were a showcase for Ivanovo's most successful competitors, if albeit a tame imitation of the original Olympiad format.67 However, despite the best-laid plans of the local authorities, there was often a dichotomy between theory and practice. A House of Folk Culture required salaried directors and administrative staff, and club workers and readingcircle supervisors frequently abandoned their work. There were also problems with the House of Folk Culture itself, since although the name suggests the idea of a large building, the Ivanovo House of Folk Culture was described as 'just a sign; the "House" itself is in a tight little room under the staircase next to the kitchen'.68 Nevertheless, the more structured events at the House of Folk Culture slowly began supplant the more chaotic Olympiads in the local calendar of cultural events. The transfer of talent from the amateur to professional ensembles diminished the quality of the amateur groups, and made local Olympiads of 1938–39 less diverse and entertaining. But both the ensembles and the Evenings of Folk

Culture remained dependent on the Olympiads for the development and discovery of new musical talent. The local authorities also still needed the groups who performed at Olympiads to perform at the Evenings of Folk Culture, and members of amateur groups to fll the ranks of the professional ensembles. As amateur groups were professionalised and performances formalised, though, the scheduling of Olympiads became less regular and narrower in scope, although they continued to be organised. There were, for instance, regular Industrial Cooperatives' (promkoop) Olympiads held throughout 1938, city-level children's Olympiads were held every winter, and the peat-workers' Olympiads in Markovo-Sbornoe were regular summer events. But there were only a few provincial Olympiads, and just one more collective-farm Olympiad (aside from the new Iaroslavl province's version of that event). The provincial Olympiads in 1936 were still usually held in preparation for a succeeding All-Union event. The Industrial Cooperatives' Olympiad in March 1936, for example, was held in advance of the first All-Union Industrial Cooperatives' Olympiad in May, while the frst provincial peat-workers' Olympiad in September preceded an All-Union Olympiad in Leningrad. This changed the following year, when only the autumn's provincial radio-festival was in preparation for an All-Union event. The only large events organised in 1937 were the second provincial Industrial Cooperatives' Olympiad, the frst provincial Olympiad for army conscripts, and an Olympiad for FZU-schools (i.e. schools for factory apprentices). With the exception of a long-postponed Collective Farm Olympiad in March 1938, and another Industrial Cooperatives' Olympiad in May, the Olympiads that year continued the trend of becoming more provincial with a narrower audience and performer base.69 In these later Olympiads, there was a limited return of the selection methods used before 1933 with groups nominated by the local authorities or directly chosen by representatives from Moscow instead of being victorious at a local or provincial level Olympiad. The Nogin choir, for example, was selected for the All-Union Choral Olympiad through a review conducted in June 1936 by specialists from the philharmonic and music institute.70 The same was true for the Ivanovo province's candidates to the 1939 Agricultural Exhibition.71 However, Olympiads did not lose their popularity amongst participants during the late thirties despite the changes. The general provincial Olympiad of March 1939 had 648 participants, including 29 choirs and 20 orchestras, while participation in the Industrial Cooperative's Olympiads had increased

from 165 participants in 1936 to 477 by 1938.72 But the Olympiad in the spring of 1939 was the last local event as there was a shift towards activities related to a possible war, such as shooting competitions, aviation displays, and gymnastics. Amateur musical activities of course continued, but the Olympiads for the time being were over. The explosion of folk culture and the popularity of amateur Olympiads in Soviet Russia during the 1930s occurred because of a historical conjuncture of opportunity and political acceptability. Before that time, there were no opportunities for local amateurs to perform folk music in large-scale venues. Performances of folk music were held in local clubs and factories, but those local amateur groups who gained access to larger venues had already adapted their repertoire. Amateur performers from tsarist times to 1928 may have been free to sing folk songs and play a balalaika or button accordion at home, but rarely in front of large audiences. However, a new and free opportunity for amateur performers arose at the end of 1933 when a series of Olympiads were organised at a time when the population, especially the rural population, had the time, energy, and inclination to participate in such events. RAPM was dissolved, collectivisation was declared complete, and labour unrest had eased. Much more satisfaction was also to be gained from performing at an Olympiad to large audiences from the entire province than performing for one's peers at home, in a club, on the collective farm, or in a worker's dormitory. Furthermore, with a little luck and badgering of the authorities, participants might even gain access to an education and consumer goods, and soon complained if their expectations were not met. The authorities in Ivanovo province extensively publicised the new Olympiads in the newspapers as public events, which encouraged independent amateur groups to present their performances. In the past, only groups already incorporated into the Soviet amateur system of music-making would have been aware of, and invited to, the competitions. By 1933, the Ivanovo provincial authorities felt sufficiently secure in their position to throw open the events to a wider public with the aim of raising the cultural level of the province, involve new segments of society in cultural activities, and publicly demonstrate the success of this expansion of culture. The Olympiads in 1934 and 1935 were therefore undoubtedly a success, but the arrival and participation of so many thousands of otherwise unknown residents from all over the province triggered a determination on the part of local authorities to avoid a repetition of the chaos that had ensued. The large

provincial Olympiads were events that were open to too many people for the Ivanovo authorities to handle as regularly as they did in 1934 and 1935. This factor, plus the lack of resources, the reorganisation of the provinces in 1936 and that year's poor harvest, the Great Terror, and fnally the distraction of preparation for war, led to the reduction in the numbers of the large provincial Olympiads in the latter part of the decade. However, one cannot deny that the Olympiads were a uniquely empowering ritual of assertion and affirmation for performers (especially peasants) who recently had been denied the legitimacy of their music and culture.

Notes 1 V. Kimov, 'Luchshii khor – khor starukh', in Kolkhoznaia tribuna, 4 April 1935, p. 4. 2 For a fuller discussion of amateur groups and the Olympiad phenomenon, see L. Robin C. LaPasha, From Chastushki to Tchaikovsky: Amateur Activity and the Production of Popular Culture in the Soviet 1930s , PhD dissertation, Duke University, 2001 (Ann Arbor: UMI, 2001). 3 A more clumsy, but literal, translation would be 'Folk Creation'. 4 S. Fitzpatrick, Stalin's Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 262–268. 5 J. Rossman, Worker Resistance under Stalin: Class and Gender in the Textile Mills of the Ivanovo Industrial Region, 1928–1932, Ph.D. Dissertation. University of California-Berkeley, 1997 (Ann Arbor: UMI, 1998), pp. 445–480, and 510–537. 6 A.M. Selivanov (ed.), Vgliadis' v minuvshee besstrastno …: Kul'turnaia zhizn' Iaroslavskogo kraia 20–30kh gg.: Dokumenty i materialy (Iaroslavl', 1995), p. 378, quoted from 'Iz afshi kontserta-lektsii, 16 fevralia 1929 g.' (Iaroslavl'), in IaIAMZ. OPI. IaMZ-42037/37. Podlinnik, 'Blizhe k tsekhu, obshchezhitiiu', in Rabochee Ivanovo, 26 September 1931, p. 3. 7 This was of course at the height of the RAPM's campaign against popular Western dances. Ratskaia, 'Ubozhestvo muzykal' noi samodeiatel'nosti,' Rabochee Ivanovo, 26 September 1931, p. 3. 8 Anon., 'Klub ili "Prosto pomeshchenie"?', in Rabochii krai, 29 June 1933, p. 4. 9 Rassadin, 'Smotr detskogo khudozhestvennogo tvorchestva', in Leninets, 22 November 1933, p. 4; 'Rastut mastera kul'tury', Leninets, 18 January 1934, p. 2. 10 V. Pil'shchikov, 'Khudozhestvennaia samodeiatel'nost' na sele: Organizovano 89 novykh kollektivov', in Rabochii krai, 12 February 1938, p. 3. 11 Anon., 'Smotr rabochei khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti: S 1 fevralia – vtoraia oblastnaia olimpiada', in Rabochii krai, 29 January 1934, p. 4. 12 N. Konev ('Uchastnik olimpiady'), 'Vel'mozhi sorvali olimpiadu', in Leninets, 5 April 1934, p. 2. 13 (Semagin) 'O provedenii oblastnoi olimpiady rabochei khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti: Postanovlenie oblprofsoveta', in Rabochii krai, 3 February 1934, p. 4; 'Khudozhestvennaia olimpiada – 16 Apr.', in Rabochii krai, 16 March 1934, p. 4. 14 Val'singam, 'Razvoroshennaia tselina', in Rabochii krai, 8 April 1934, p. 4. 15 A. Zhivtsov, 'Muzykal'naia samodeiatel'nost' k 20-letiiu oktiabria', in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 9–10, 1937, pp. 50–56. Note also A. Tesh, 'Orkestry narodnykh instrumentov na Moskovskom smotre', in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 6, 1938, pp. 33–34. 16 N. Khabarov, 'Udarniki kul'turnogo fronta,' in Klub, 1, 1933, p. 44; Severnyi rabochii, 6 April 1925, as cited in 'No. 44; Iz listovki "K predstoiashchim khudozhestvenno-pokazatel'nym kontsertam Velikorusskogo orkestra pod upravleniem E. M. Stompeleva"', in A.M. Selivanov (ed.), p. 376. 17 A.M. Selivanov (ed.), pp. 344–345, cited in Teatral'naia biulleten', 4, 1928, pp. 15–16. 18 Ibid.; N. Khabarov, pp. 44–45; and B. Piskarev, 'Krasnoznamennyi orkestr', in Klub, 4, 1936, pp. 50–51. 19 B. Piskarev, pp. 50–51. 20 A. Shub, 'Bodrost', vesel'e, otdykh', in Rabochii krai, 8 May 1934, p. 4; and in Rabochii krai, 6 July 1934, p. 4. 21 Anon., 'Stompelevskii orkestr bez krova', in Leninets , 14 October 1934, p. 2. 22 A. Peresada, Orkestry russkikh narodnykh instrumentov: spravochnik (Moscow, 1985), pp. 78–79; 'A.D. [Dorozhkin]', 'Itogi trekhletnei raboty', in Muzykal'naia samodeiatel'nost', 8–9, 1933, p. 39. 23 Dorozhkin, 'Itogi trekhletnei raboty', p. 39. 24 A typical member of the orchestra was Zhenia Volkova, a turner by trade. She was 21 in 1933, and gained a musical education by working her way up through the orchestra to become a second

concertmaster. 'Komsomoltsy v muzykal' noi samodeiatel'nosti', in Muzykal'naia samodeiate'nost', 10, 1933, 21; L. [sic.] Dorozhkin, 'Entuziasty', in Klub, 20, 1936, p. 54. 25 V.Z., 'Smotr iunykh talantov', in Rabochii krai, 12 January 1935, p. 4; M. Dudin, 'Kvartet', in Leninets, 14 April 1935, p. 2; A. Nikolaev, 'Na uroven' professional'nogo iskusstva', in Rabochii krai , 22 October 1935, p. 4; G. Polianovskii, 70 let v mire muzyki, 2nd edn (Moscow, 1981), p. 252. 26 A. Sonin, 'Ariiu kniazia Igoria ispolnial stroitel' Volgostroia Zolotkov'; [nash korr.], 'V Rybinske zakonchilas' gorodskaia olimpiada …', both in Rabochii krai, 12 October 1935, p. 4. 27 An. Iakobson, 'Vecher tvorcheskikh itogov (Pervenstvo – za Iaroslavlem, Rybinskom, i Vichugoi)', in Rabochii krai, 26 October 1935, p. 4. 28 A. Vintilov, 'Orkestr razuchivaet "Ital'ianskuiu simfoniiu" Vasilenko', in Rabochii krai 15 December 1935, p. 4. 29 'Komsomoltsy', p. 21; and Dorozhkin, 'Entuziasty', p. 54. 30 I. Smyslov, 'Samodeiatel'nost' v klube rodiny Vinogradovykh', in Klub, 4, 1936, rabochego kluba', in Muzykal'naia samodeiatel'nost' , 8–9, 1933, pp. 34–36. pp. 47–48; I. Smyslov, '10 let raboty strunnokhorovogo kruzhka Noginskogo 31 A.M. Selivanov (ed.), p. 380. Quoted from 'Iz programmy kontserta Tsentral'nogo khora russkoi narodnoi pesni kombinata "Krasnyi Perekop" ', 26 February 1938. 32 V. Gotovkin, 'S povyshennym kachestvom', in Rabochii krai, 6 May 1934, p. 4. 33 Anon., 'Khor 60 rabotnits "Krasnogo Perekopa", in Rabochii krai, 11 March 1935, p. 4. 34 Leninets, 26 October 1935, p. 4 [photograph caption]. 35 'Iz programmy kontserta … "Krasnyi Perekop" ', 26 February 1938; A.M. Selivanov (ed.), p. 380. 36 L. Siegelbaum, Stakhanovism and the Politics of Productivity in the USSR, 1935–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 76; E. Vinogradova, 'Chego trebuiut ot kluba vinogradovtsy', in Klub 4, 1936, pp. 6–8; E. Vinogradova, 'Pis'mo iz Vichugi', in Rabochii krai, 4 August 1937, p. 3; 'Pis'mo ot Vinogradovy', in Klub, 20, 1937, pp. 23–24. 37 The six venues in question were the Bolshaia Dmitrovskaia factory club, the Sewing Workers' club, the House of Science and Technology, the Provincial Trade Union Soviet theatre, and the Molotov industrial-complex club. V. Gotovkin, p. 4; and A. Shub, p. 4. 38 The dance and choral groups from the Krasnyi Perekop textile factory in Iaroslavl, for example, performed at both events, as did the choir and string ensemble from the Nogin textile factory in Vichuga. 39 A. Nikolaev, 'Na uroven' professional'nogo iskusstva', in Rabochii krai, 22 October 1935, p. 4; S. Tret'iakov, 'Pervye premii – 'Krasnomu Perekopu' i Noginskoi', in Rabochii krai, 23 October 1935, p. 4; photo (by Zubarev), in Rabochii krai, 24 October 1935, p. 4. 40 Anon., '18 tysiach pevtsov, tantsorov, muzykantov (Cherez chetyre dnia – itogovyi smotr oblastnoi olimpiady)', in Rabochii krai, 17 October 1935, p. 4. There were 18,000 participants including all local predecessors to the provincial finals. 41 J. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 47. 42 Anon., 'Zakliuchitel'nyi vecher', in Kolkhoznaia tribuna, 12 April 1935, p. 3. A report of the same Olympiad in Rabochii krai claimed that the audience 'made the [Larin] choir perform a second time'. Al. Khrenov, 'Rodniki narodnogo tvorchestva', in Rabochii krai, 9 April 1935, 3. Italics mine. Most descriptions of Olympiads, as opposed to the detailed reviews of concerts, did not so specifiically describe the nature and effects of audience approval. It is therefore particularly signifcant that two newspapers independently report the same type of audience response on this occasion. 43 Anon., 'Zakliuchitel'nyi vecher', in Kolkhoznaia tribuna, 12 April 1935, p. 3. Italics mine. 44 V. Gotovkin, p. 4. The audiences at the Olympiads were therefore reasonably discerning, but it was odd that on this occasion they were criticising the music during a performance of dance! 45 An. Iakobson, p. 4. See also N. Smirnov, 'Neskol'ko vyvodov i pozhelanii', in Rabochii krai, 24 October 1935, p. 4.

46 S. Bliumental' , 'Za kul'turu kolkhoznogo sela', in Rabochii krai, 4 January 1936, p. 2. 47 Quite an achievement in a 365-day year. M. Markov, 'Narodnye talanty', in Rabochii krai, 18 March 1938, p. 4. 48 The 'growth' is difficult to calculate between the Olympiads of 1935 and 1938. According to statistics in 1935, the frst Collective Farm Olympiad included a province-wide total of 35,000 participants. Even if that number were split in half (as the province was in 1936) to 17,000 participants, it is still almost twice the 9,000 mentioned in the second Olympiad of 1938. Given the size of the 1935 autumn provincial Olympiad (18,000 participants), the first Collective Farm Olympiad total may have been an error. 49 Dm. Mozzhukhin, 'Karrikatura na kolkhoznuiu olimpiadu', in Rabochii krai, 22 March 1935, p. 3. 50 Ikhmen, 'Prazdnik kolkhoznogo iskusstva', in Rabochii krai, 1 March 1935, p. 4; Al. Khrenov, p. 3; 'Kto premirovan' and 'Zakliuchitel'nyi vecher', in Kolkhoznaia tribuna, 12 April 1935, p. 3; photos by V. Volkov, in Leninets, 14 April 1935, p. 2; and (with 'Honoured Artist of the Republic Comrade Kurskii'), in Kolkhoznaia tribuna, 22 April 1935, p. 3. 51 A. Markov quoted in 'Iz redaktsionnoi pochti', in Rabochii krai, 6 January 1936, p. 3. 52 O. Kim, 'I poetomu nikakikh premii', in Kolkhoznaia tribuna, no. 98, 14 June 1935, p. 4. 53 A. Grozin, 'Rodniki talantov', in Rabochii krai, 12 March 1936, p. 4. 54 V. Smolin, 'Pered mikrofonom: 7 tysiach pevtsov i muzykantov (Oblastnaia olimpiada perenesena na ianvar')', in Rabochii krai, 28 December 1936, p. 4. 55 'Oblastnaia olimpiada doprizyvnikov', in Rabochii krai, 15 July 1937, p. 4. To make matters worse, the Nogin factory choir's main competitor, the Krasnyi Perekop choir, had also left the province as a result of the March 1936 administrative reorganisation. 56 Val'singam, 'Ne ta muzyka: O muzykal'noi zhizni v gor. Ivanove', in Rabochii krai, 24 June 1937, p. 4. 57 V. Shabalin, 'Smotr narodnykh talantov (k itogam IV oblastnoi olimpiada khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti)', in Rabochii krai, 27 March 1939, p. 4. 58 B. Piskarev, p. 51; G. Polianovskii, 'Iaroslavskie muzykal'nye kollektivy', in Muzyka, 16 December 1937, p. 7. Stompelev himself died in Iaroslavl on January 15, 1939. 59 G. Polianovskii, 70 let v mire muzyki, p. 251. 60 Pav. Ivanov, 'V fabrichnom khore 613 chelovek', in Leninets, 28 November 1937, p. 4; and A. Berlin, 'Korennye nedostatki rukovodstva khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti', in Klub, 12, 1937, pp. 22–28. 61 The Red Army Ensemble toured Ivanovo to rave reviews in 1937. Its diverse format combining songs, folk tunes, and dances was comparable to the programme presented at the Olympiads. Gruppa rabochikh i sluzhashchikh Novo-Ivanovskoi manufaktury im. Bubnova, 'Goriachee rabochee spasibo!'; A. Vinogradova bankabroshnitsa, 'Krasnoi Talki', 'Iz teatra ne khotelos' ukhodit''; A. Pliaskin, and I. Kharkevich, 'Vpechatleniia slushatelei promakademii'; B.A. Solodnikov, rukovoditel' khora metallistov, 'Velichestvennaia prostota'; and N.A. Kiselev, 'Zakhvataiushchii kontsert', all in Rabochii krai, 18 May 1937, p. 4. 62 G. Polianovskii, 'Iaroslavskie gosudarstvennye muzykal'nye kollektivy', p. 7. 63 A.M. Selivanov (ed.), p. 382; and I. Tiurin, 'Ansambl' volzhskoi pesni', in Narodnoe tvorchestvo, 6, 1938, p. 47. 64 E. Molev, 'Gor. Ivanovu nuzhen ansambl' narodnogo tvorchestva', in Rabochii krai, 21 March 1938, p. 3. 65 'Ansambl' pesni i pliaski' (IvTASS), in Rabochii krai, 20 April 1938, p. 4. Karen Petrone explains why the frst ensembles in the province were those of (and for) railway workers: 'railroad workers were singled out as a privileged group in Stalinist society', and 'railroad clubs and palaces of culture, like the clubs of other key industries, tended to be better funded and staffed than other clubs'. K. Petrone, Life has become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 104–105.

66 'Ansambl' pesni i pliaski tekstil' shchikov', in Rabochii krai, 17 June 1939, p. 4. 67 The Vichuga choir, for example, was featured at the third province-wide 'Evening', the year after the group's success at the Moscow All-Union Choral Olympiad in 1936. 'Tretii vecher narodnogo tvorchestva', in Rabochii krai, 29 May 1937, p. 4. 68 V. Poltoratskii, 'O dome narodnogo tvorchestva', in Rabochii krai, 8 September 1938, p. 4. 69 There were, though, quite a few of these smaller, provincial events in 1938. Olympiads were held for woodworkers, bakers, forest and alloy workers, and peat workers. The only major Olympiad, however, was the fourth provincial Olympiad of March 1939. Rabochii krai, 16 November 1938, p. 4; and Rabochii krai, 27 March 1939, p. 4. 70 'Smotr khorovykh kollektivov trekh gorodov', in Rabochii krai, 26 May 1936, p. 4. 71 'Khor doiarki Fadeevoi', in Rabochii krai, 21 May 1939, p. 4. 72 V. Shabalin, 'Smotr narodnykh talantov (k itogam IV oblastnoi olimpiady khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti)', in Rabochii krai, 27 March 1939, p. 4; A. Grozin, 'Rodniki talantov', in Rabochii krai , 12 March 1936, p. 4; 'Olimpiada khudozhestvennoi samodeiatel'nosti promkooperatsii (IvTASS),' in Rabochii krai, 28 May 1938, p. 4.

8 National identity, cultural policy and the Soviet Folk Ensemble in Armenia

Andy Nercessian It is particularly clear to non-orthodox musicologists that much of the literature on Soviet music is focused on classical music. If asked why, most ethnomusicologists with some basic knowledge of the music scene in the former Soviet Union would answer that it is because the majority of musicologists are concerned with classical music. Pop music was until the last few decades of Soviet rule not regarded as worthy of any 'scientifc' study, both within and outside the Soviet Union; and, though folk music was accorded an important place and much effort was expounded in attempting to raise its stature to that of classical music in most parts of the Soviet Union, few people within the Soviet Union took it as seriously as classical music. Few people outside the Soviet Union, on the other hand, were free enough of restrictions to make the vast land something more than a terra incognita. Nevertheless, folk music, sheathed by its unique capacity to represent the lesser-known cultures, and by extension, nations of the Soviet empire, received its share of attention. Despite Western arguments that the Soviet Union was governed by Russian chauvinists concerned essentially with Russifying the entire country,1 the Soviet authorities encouraged what they considered harmless forms of national assertion, and music was as harmless a medium for such assertions as the Soviet authorities could hope for.2 If the importance of folk music (and consequently its study) derives much of its force from the value assigned it by society to represent national culture, it should come as no great surprise that it is worth more to cultures that are striving to be heard, and which feel they need to use any means at their disposal at least to declare their seemingly voiceless existence, than to cultures that are frmly established in the eyes of their others. Of course, caution is necessary to ensure that such generalisations are not construed too rigidly, and to clarify that there are many exceptions to such a rule (if it can

in fact deserve such a title). But it seems that in the Soviet Union at least, one can apply this framework fairly usefully. It does not say that in Russia, folk music did not occupy a prominent place, but since Russian hegemony was not questionable, the position of folk music in Russian musical life cannot be compared with the position of folk music in the musical life of Armenia or Georgia. In the latter, folk music's permeability within other forms of music seems overpowering. It is, for example, regarded by leading composers of classical music as the single most important source of base material for their endeavours, even when these are as far removed from folk music as twelvetone technique.3 However, folk music's position in the Soviet Union did not depend solely on this relationship between hegemonic cultures and their others, but also on the impositions and penetration of Soviet cultural policy. Indeed, the latter played an important role in encouraging the use of music to fulfil the demands of national self-assertion, and went as far as institutionalising this process. Its own motivation for doing this is complex and impelled by a strange concatenation of ideological interests, the need to uphold ideological interests before the world, and the practical considerations involved in running an empire composed of over a hundred nationalities all with some desire towards autonomy. There were also a number of deep as well as accidental factors shaping the exact nature of policy at a given time. Despite the complexity of its motives, however, there are certain broad lines that may be said to constitute Soviet cultural policy during the entire seven decades of Soviet rule in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and these will be considered in greater depth in what follows. It is necessary, though, first to take a look at the position of music in Armenian society before the onset of Soviet rule, so that a picture of the signifcance of Soviet cultural policy and its effect on shaping music's vehement mediation of nationalist feeling can come into view. I will begin therefore by sketching the relationship between music and the main social current flowing through Armenian attitudes towards culture (and much else) in the decades before the Soviets drew the harrow of cultural policy over Armenia.

Nationalism and music before the Soviet Union Hovannisian points to two major factors that played an important role in the formation of nationalist attitudes among Armenians in the nineteenth century. First, the general plight of Armenians who, at that time, were composed largely of peasants living in the Ottoman Empire seemed subject to increasing exacerbation on account of unsuccessful social and economic reforms and their consequences. Second, the increasing contact between the Armenian elite and Western Europe, from where a multitude of ideas connected with romanticism and nationalism were being imported.4 Together, these factors contributed to the ever-growing presence of national selfawareness and nationalist attitudes amongst the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire. It was not long, however, before a third factor joined these two: growing nationalism amongst Turks who wanted to establish pan-Turkic rule. The nationalism of this period had strong repercussions in the attitude towards music in terms both of its study and of its composition. There was, first, the rise of a distinctively Armenian school of composition whose members consciously ensured the Armenianness of their style. In 1868, Arshak II (by Tigran Chukhadzhian), supposedly the first Armenian opera, appeared.5 This began a trend in the writing of opera that climaxed with Armen Tigranian's Anush in 1908, which was based virtually in its entirety on Armenian folk tunes. Second, the intensive transcription of folk songs was begun in the 1880s by a number of figures who went into little-developed villages which they believed harboured the 'true' or 'ancient' traditions of the Armenian people. The systematic nature of these collections seem only to have improved in the last few years of the 1800s with the highly passionate work of Komitas, one of the earliest figures in musicology who perhaps rightly deserves the title of ethnomusicologist. However, the production of musical publications titled with phrases such as 'the music of the province of …' gained ground before Komitas. Many of these transcriptions were carried out by musicians who received their training in Russia and whose musical backgrounds were therefore clearly in the Western European art music tradition. Unsurprisingly, virtually all publications based on transcriptions of folk tunes were in Western notation. More often than not, they demonstrated the very European

techniques of harmonisation in which its authors were versed. These transcriptions were unambiguously regarded as collections of folk music, and not compositions, despite the degree of transformation necessary for the purposes of harmonising Armenian folk music.6 The harmonisation of folk collections was, and to many still is, quite necessary if the collection is to be presentable and publishable. According to Tsitsilia Brutian, a former music professor from Yerevan, it is 'similar to what a publisher has to do in order to make a book of the writings of an author; similar, that is, to a cover design'.7 Third, music periodicals, such as the Haikakan Knar (The Armenian Lyre), appeared and societies dedicated to the promotion of Armenian music were established. Concerts were organised, ensembles performing Armenian classical music established, and music schools opened. The central focal point of such societies and writings was the promulgation of the idea of a distinctively Armenian school of music. The world had to see that there was such a thing as Armenian music, and that it was distinctive enough and suffciently different from Turkish, Arabic, or Persian music to justify the belief in its independence, originality, and ancientness. That these qualities had to be secured is also related in part to the need to justify the legitimacy of the Armenian nation through proofs of its uniqueness and ancientness. Fourth, there appeared what we would now subsume under the phrase 'an ethnomusicological school' concerned with all aspects of the preservation of Armenian folk musical culture. This was essentially the doing of Komitas, whose activities have been consecrated and studied in minute detail by subsequent musicologists of all persuasions in Armenia. Komitas (1869– 1935) began collecting folk songs from the Ararat plain in Armenia in the late 1880s before leaving for Berlin where he studied composition between 1896 and 1899. Upon his return, he set out on a number of expeditions in which he collected a huge number of folk songs (estimates vary from 4,000 to 8,000) and subsequently published them. He also published a large number of articles on Armenian music including a short response to the absence of an entry on Armenian music in a French music encyclopaedia, entitled 'Armenians have their distinct music'.8 Komitas's importance to Armenian musicology was also enhanced by the fact that his extensive collections were left in a state of disarray and many of his writings lost when he was arrested by the Turks and taken away with other Armenian intellectuals immediately prior to the genocide of 1915, and that this loss of his life's work led to his insanity.9 However, there can be no doubt that the sheer and unrivalled size

of his writings and collections played the crucial role in establishing him as something like the founder of Armenian music and musicology. Komitas's remarkable popularity among Armenian musicians and musicologists from the days of his activities to the present is therefore evidence of the inclination to assess and perceive musical activity within a national framework. It important to emphasise that this inclination arose in the second half of the nineteenth century, well before the onset of Soviet rule, because it is only in this context that the actual effects of Soviet cultural policy can be completely understood.

Soviet cultural policy The phrase 'Soviet cultural policy' has been used in musicological or music historical writings almost interchangeably with Soviet arts or music policy, and refers to those aspects of the Soviet official attitude towards music (or the arts in general) that are treated as having been roughly uniform both temporally and geographically during Soviet rule.10 However, although the existence of the phrase testifies to there being some uniformity in policies, we should not be led to believe that everything subsumed under the phrase was applied in the same way to different republics at different times. Indeed, though the Soviet Union was a highly centralised state in which policies were heavily dependent on the Kremlin, it was also a state that was devoted to ideology only insofar as this ideological devotion did not interfere with its more practical interests. Music policy towards the satellite nations was either related to nationhood in some way or was not. Though this division may be challenged, it is sufficiently serviceable for our present purposes to disregard the arguments of its detractors. At any rate, it is not meant as an ontological divide, but simply as a theoretical guide that can help conceptualise the various sorts of ideological impositions that affected musical life in Armenia. Nationalities policy occupies a curious position in the Soviet government. This was mainly due to the incongruence between the image of dedication to Marxism that the government wanted to uphold, and the necessity of taking into consideration (and catering for) nationalism, national assertion and the problems of nationhood which came with the establishment of the Soviet Union. In Marx's writing, the major divisions of society are horizontal, not vertical. They are class divisions, not national divisions. Marx considered people from different nations to have more in common if they were of the same class, than people of different classes, regardless of whether they were from the same nation or not. He did not, therefore, think that nationhood and national ideology were to be taken seriously, and thought that they would eventually die away. Lenin, on the other hand, was born into a different socio-political climate, and was well aware of the potency of nations. He believed that Marx was basically right, but thought that some active measures had to be taken until such time as national differences withered away. Lenin was also aware of the impossibility of holding together such a vast variety of cultures and peoples without making some concessions. One of these

concessions had to be the allowance of nations' right to secede, and to defend and preserve their cultures and traditions as they saw fit. This attitude was to change in the late 1930s under the leadership of Stalin, but its consequences left a mark whose effacement we have yet to witness. The basic institutions set up were not discarded. In the folk music world, everything remained that had arisen as a result of Lenin's attitude. Most importantly, the idea that each nation had its own music that would be systematically collected, studied and used as a basis for composition, not only found a secure dwelling place in the views of ideologues, but was developed considerably throughout Soviet rule. Furthermore, the idea of sitional styles and techniques, became the norm. All these 'nationals' were national music, national ensembles, national schools, and national compoto one another would eventually result in one single Soviet musical instiof course claimed to be merely the framework for the advancement of socialist interests, and sufficient exposure of the different national musics tution. It was believed that music was more likely to help this come about than language, which was more recalcitrant to the process of merging. The central current within nationalities policy in terms of music was thus the use of a national framework for all aspects of musical life. This framework would allow both a harmless form of national assertion by supplying the necessary concession that had to be made to nations, and the vehicle for the implementation of a cultural policy not directly related to nationhood. The most important idea in terms of the latter with regard to musical policy towards satellite nations was the need for advancement. This ftted in well with the socialist ideology of equality among nations, and the advancement of the culture of the people so that they were as sophisticated as the bourgeoisie. But it was probably as much part of the attempt to prove the superiority of communism over capitalism to the outside world, and was thus useful at all levels whatever the cost. The 'backward' culture of the people (i.e. folk music) had therefore to be advanced to such an extent that it would not be regarded as backward or crude by the standards of bourgeois culture. The beauty in folk music had to be brought out so that it could be perceived to be as wonderful and sophisticated as classical music. In this way, class differences would be bridged, and the music of the bourgeoisie would not be victorious. Some argued that what the Soviets actually achieved was nothing other than the classicisation, and thus the 'bourgeoisisation' of folk music, destroying its

essence and originality in the process. But for the most part, Soviet musicologists believed that the advancement of folk music only employed classical models in order to progress, and not in order to become classical itself. If sometimes these models were in fact too closely copied, and if in certain cases the music lost some of its originality and distinctness, this was not a fault of the process of advancement, but of the particular ways in which it was done. A bad case of advancement should not be allowed to give the entire process of advancement a bad name. Even today, a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, advancement in the musical context is universally regarded in Armenia as a positive step, even if certain of its implementers are criticised for their corrupting ways. Therefore, the two major trends that dominated Soviet cultural policy were the providing of national frameworks for music in the sense of 'nationalising' music, and the 'advancing' of music, to which the national framework contributed considerably. How then did these two trends change the face of music before and after the onset of Soviet rule?

The institutionalisation of folk music As noted, Soviet cultural policy had a greater effect on folk than classical or any other genre of music. Although I have no intention of repudiating the oftstated fact that classical music institutions received greater encouragement and funding than before the October Revolution, it should be clarifed that they were not fundamentally altered. Rather, the level of education was improved, orchestras were established and financially supported, and the arrangement of concerts flourished. However, the effect of Soviet cultural policy on folk music led to a dramatic transformation of not only the music, but of virtually everything to do with this music, from the folk musician's education and the transmission of songs to the context of performance and the way folk musicians were regarded. This is not the place to refer to every sphere of folk musical activity that institutionalisation affected or transformed, so reference will be made only to those areas which best illustrate the force of institutionalisation. It is no accident that these areas are primarily concerned with the folk ensemble or orchestra. The ensemble was not only regarded as the most obvious path to professionalisation, it also offered a medium for modelling folk music on the clearly more advanced exemplar of classical music. It is diffcult to say what exact goals Soviet ideologues had in mind when setting up the folk ensemble, but there is no uncertainty about its role in the provision of the kind of advancement of the art of the people noted above. Furthermore, the adoption of the aforementioned 'national frame-work' was probably down to the expedience it provided for the attainment of such an end. This needs to be kept in mind to enable a clearer understanding of the main points that will be made below with regard to institutionalisation and standardisation. The first folk orchestra was set up in Armenia in 1926 in Yerevan and called the Aram Merangulian Ensemble. According to oral accounts, the creation of the orchestra was no smooth process. It involved choosing the fnest players of the most well-known folk instruments, and bringing them together under one roof. Quite apart from the difficulties of choosing the fnest players and the most well-known Armenian folk instruments, there was also the curious question of knowing what the players ought to do once they were placed in an ensemble. The players themselves did not know how to go about playing in such orchestras since none of the players had ever before played with such

a combination of other folk instruments, and the experiences Armenian folk musicians had of ensembles had been on a far smaller scale. The largest ensembles known in folk music before the 1920s were three, four, or at most, fve instruments playing together. Now, suddenly, there was a rather conspicuous problem of co-ordination. The solution was not difficult to fnd, given that the implementers of such policies were not from a folk music background, but the products of classical music education. For them, the model was obviously to be sought in classical music, and not in folk music. As in every classical orchestra, there was the need for a conductor without whom the orchestra could not function. A conductor was therefore placed at the head of folk instrument orchestras, but this conductor had considerably more to think about than his classical music counterpart. First, he had to compensate for the inadequacy of the folk musicians (compared to classical musicians) that made up the orchestra. Furthermore, he was expected to arrange the music in such a way that would allow the instruments to play together in a coherent manner and produce something which could be compared to the 'folk music of Armenia' (however that was defned under such circumstances). As if all this was not enough, the conductor was then faced with the rather weighty obstacle of the players not being able to read any sort of notation. Although writing for a folk ensemble was not the most challenging task with which a conductor was faced, his greatest difficulty would have been one of novelty. Folk music orchestras had existed in Russia since the 1880s, but in Armenia they had not. This meant that conductors had no clear idea of the sounds made by certain combinations of folk instruments. A classical composer would know when a certain combination was appropriate and when it was not through hearing experiments made by his predecessors. Conductors of folk music ensembles, however, did not have this luxury, but certain folk instruments bore certain similarities to their classical counterparts in way of compensation. The shvi was a kind of fute, and employed a similar register to the classical fute, the duduk was a kind of oboe, the kemantcha was similar to a cello, and the daf was similar to the timpani. Moreover, folk music conductors were hardly expected to produce great masterpieces comparable to classical composers. Although this was the declared fnal aim, it was hardly a realistic expectation. The conductor's main task was to bring about the improvement and 'professionalisation' of folk music. If players could therefore be taught notation, and sooner or later they would

have to if this whole endeavour was to succeed, the conductor would eventually learn what worked and what did not and compose the right sort of music in the right sort of way. However, there was yet another obstacle to be faced. The classical orchestra had evolved over a long enough period for instruments to learn to work together in an established way. Moreover, the large-scale manufacture of all classical-orchestra instruments had meant the standardisation of those instruments in terms of size, register, and technique. Similar claims could hardly be made about folk musical instruments. A conductor would have trouble trying to get two duduks to play in unison, so different were the instruments that each individual player held, let alone trying to match different instruments that had never played together nor were constructed with the intention of performance together. As a result, instruments had to be reconstructed using Western models of instrument construction. This ensured that they would be compatible with one another, more sophisticated, and enable conductors to write for them easily and effectively. If sufficient work was done on these instruments, conductors could perhaps even encourage players to play in the spirit of an orchestra, and ensembles in the course of time compete with their classical counterparts and the gap between the bourgeoisie and the folk would be bridged to a certain degree. For the concept of the folk orchestra to succeed, players would thus have to learn notation, instruments would have to be reconstructed following Western construction models, and a conductor would have to learn how to select and arrange suitable pieces. However, the frst generation of orchestral players were not, on the whole, successfully trained to read notation. This was unsurprising, given that these players were considered among the best on their respective instruments, and were therefore well-established and usually mature musicians. But by the time these players were replaced by the generation that followed, the foundations of the educational system that incorporated the teaching of notation to musicians of all aspirations had been firmly in place. By the 1950s, all folk orchestra players could read notation competently enough to satisfy the needs of ensemble playing, although they could not and still cannot match their classical music counterparts. The reconstruction of instruments was completed by the 1930s. Innovations were focused on the goal of making the instruments as playable as possible, although issues such as the quality of sound were not omitted. Many instruments were produced in a number of variants, capable of covering all

the needs of conductors. For instance, there were three types of duduks, each with a different register, which allowed conductors to write for the instrument without feeling the restrictions of registral scope. The deepest sound was created by the Bunifon duduk, which gave the duduk the vibrancy and sophistication that it supposedly had previously lacked. Furthermore, instrument pitches were fxed to conform to Western pitches. Although there was often much space left to adjust pitches to make the performance of pieces that did not employ the Western scale possible, instruments were now designed in such a way as to encourage the use of Western scales and discourage in certain cases the use of non-Western tones. With regard to the conductors themselves, most are wholly classically trained even today. Consequently, they tend to employ classical composing techniques in writing for the orchestra, rather than techniques which one would expect to have developed especially for the folk-instrument ensemble over the seven and a half decades since the first ensemble was established. However, a technique of folk orchestra music composition has developed, but there is still a strong inclination to look to Western classical orchestral models for compositions (or more correctly, arrangements). The genres of music for folk orchestra also seem to follow Western standards: for instance, three-movement concerti for most instruments and the remainder of the orchestra, and songs written in the form of 'theme and variations'. On the other hand, one sometimes sees features quite alien to classical music, such as singers using a microphone when performing with the orchestra.

Standardisation Institutionalisation was accompanied by and partly enabled a rough standardisation of Armenian music. For performers of folk music, certain norms came to dominate, and these norms were more or less constant throughout Armenia. A closer examination of the idea of standardisation reveals its complexity, but the basic idea is clear. An important change in attitudes towards music had taken place, which involved the majority of people – whether they were active or passive participants in the process of music-making – coming to share certain broadly accepted views about music. Standardisation of this sort depended on three major and closely related factors. First, a change in the nature of contact between the majority of people and folk music, instigated by major demographic and the resulting socio-economic/cultural changes. Second, a change in the performance contexts of these musics based on the demand arising from the aforementioned demographic and socio-economic/cultural changes and the possibilities offered by the improvements in the media of dissemination of music. Third, the rise of a composers' (or arrangers') culture as a result of the above factors, leading to a standardisation of folk music at a purely musical level. These points are complemented by many others, but are the most vital for an understanding of the main causes of standardisation, and therefore need to be examined in more detail. Demographic changes With regard to demographic changes, Armenia consisted of a largely rural population at the turn of the twentieth century, with a very small percentage of its total inhabitants living in towns. This small percentage was not insignifcant, however, since it comprised the elite and, in certain respects, the voice of Armenia. It also seems responsible for the misinformed Western image of the stereotypic Armenian as the shrewd merchant or banker, but Armenian society was, in reality, largely agrarian. With the onset of Soviet rule, the situation changed, and was then virtually reversed. The Soviet emphasis on industrialisation meant that a workforce was necessary in the towns, and whether by force or persuasion, most people moved. Urbanisation continued throughout the Soviet period, and over 67 per cent of the

population lived in towns by 1992. Urbanisation meant that the nature of people's exposure to music was altered. Most people increasingly depended on radio and television for the preservation of their contact with music, and when they heard music live, it was at well-organised concerts in specially designed concert halls, and performed by well-dressed and practised musicians. This was a far cry from the contexts of music in rural society, such as weddings, funerals, and feasts. However, the demand for music (and in particular folk music) did not drop, but music was required in a new way and folk music had to change to accommodate these changes. For one thing, the type of music would have to cater for the tastes of a large number of people, and therefore be highly accessible. In addition, it was now necessary to ensure the high quality of the music, since it was to be heard by a far larger number of people than in the days of a rural society. This resulted in less emphasis on spontaneity, and an increase in the number of (and care taken in) rehearsals. New performance contexts These changes left little doubt that the folk ensemble was the most appropriate institution to cater for the needs arising from social change in the sphere of folk music. Consequently, ensembles flourished in urban areas, as it was not possible to organise folk ensembles within the framework of a rural lifestyle. The changes also resulted in a change in the performance contexts of folk music from weddings, funerals, and feasts, to the recording studio and concert halls. Moreover, the conditions of folk music production had to conform to the conditions of life in the city. Folk musicians were now caught up in a world familiar to the Western orchestral player with a stressful and hectic schedule of concert tours, recording sessions, and rehearsals. This was not easy to deal with, and required an entirely new approach to learning music. Arrangers come into rehearsal rooms with photocopies of the often hastily written new arrangements of a folk song, or in certain cases, a newly written 'folk' song. Players are then taken through the piece, and have two or three rehearsals to come to terms with it. Perhaps the greatest surprise is that despite such demands, players are even today not always fully profcient in reading music. This impels the employment of acoustic techniques, such as playing pieces numerous times on a modern Western piano, or singing them until the music settles in the minds of musicians.

Contemporary attitudes towards this hectic schedule vary. One player claimed that: Sometimes it gets very tiresome, all this rehearsing and playing, but then I think that whatever job you are in these days, you have to run around. Not a single one of my friends has a peaceful job, and if you want to be good at what you are doing, you have to do these things and not complain. Besides it has always been like this. At least in Soviet times, we didn't have to worry about money. Everything was taken care of. Today we are not even sure whether we will have enough to live through the month.11

While another player stressed the importance of a hectic schedule: This is what music is all about. If you don't learn and play new pieces and songs every day, then you cannot grow as a musician. You will end up doing the same thing over and over again and you will no longer be an artist. So, I'm glad my folk ensemble is so active.12

Few players deny, however, that the folk ensemble approach to music has deprived some of the most seminal elements in folk music performance of their vitality, especially improvisation. When one player is given the opportunity to demonstrate his technique at certain points in the piece, improvisation is still occasionally allowed in folk ensemble performances. It can be compared to a cadenza in a Western concerto in the days when it was a show of bravura, and the written note was not taken quite as seriously as it is today. But this is relatively rare, and improvisation is virtually unheard of in the recording studio, since it is somewhat risky, and there is not enough time or resources to allow players to take chances. The freedom to improvise, as well as the freedom to relax the quality and perfection demanded of players in certain contexts, of course varies with the type of recording or concert in question. The Aram Merangulian Ensemble was engaged in a variety of recording genres, whether in the studio for the record, radio, and television markets respectively, or in live performances for the same media. Needless to say, television was the most demanding of these, but as one of its conductors claimed: television is the most important medium for us, because when people see you it means so much more than when they just hear you. And more people can see you on television than anywhere else. It is our way of keeping the Armenian tradition alive. If it were not for our affliation with the television channel, we could not keep our national music being heard throughout Armenia, not to mention abroad.13

A conductors'/arrangers' culture The absence of freedom to improvise, the rigidity of the recording studio or the concert hall in which music must be played 'properly', and the hectic schedules that do not allow much room for experiment and variety, contributed to the general standardisation of musical practices throughout

Soviet Armenia. These factors also eventually established a conductorarranger culture which ensures that regardless of which ensemble from which region is performing, the music has the characteristics of what can be described as an Armenian (rather than local) folk music style. In assuming that demographic, technological, and socio-economic factors are at the heart of creating a standard language of music to which conductorarrangers have become accustomed, we are of course claiming that the musical variegation of pre-Soviet Armenia was so pronounced that a single language would not have been discernible without these factors. Armenia is, after all, a very small country and the diversity of its musical dialects must have had some limits even prior to the days of institutionalisation and standardisation. One must therefore ask whether the use of the concept of standardisation is not the result of an exaggerated view of pre-Soviet musical diversity. There are at least two reasons not to take such objections too seriously. First, there is, as noted, the vast literature left behind by Komitas and his contemporaries.14 Although eager to paint a picture of a unifed Armenia, rather than distinct local regions, this literature referred to the extent of diversity visible to the ethnomusicologist travelling from district to district. Differences of mode, rhythm, form, variation-producing devices, and so forth are also observed throughout these writings and are supported by the suffciently numerous transcriptions of songs and dances left behind from the period. Second, and more importantly, conductors-arrangers are engaged in a conscious and intentional effort to eradicate local idiosyncrasies in the music. According to the conductor Garen Avedissian: Each region has its own music, and I respect that very much. There are many things to learn from the music of each region and the originality that is offered by it. It is hard, these days, to find originality in folk music, because we hear so much music from everywhere and there is little that is completely new. But I think that, to be perfectly honest, if we kept too much originality, the audience would neither follow us, nor enjoy the music too much. If you were to take the music of each village in its raw form and present it to a large public, you would not achieve very much. That is why we have to make changes that keep the original music intact, but which make the music palatable to people from all sorts of backgrounds. Conductors might not often talk to you in this way, because they don't want to give you an impression of spoiling years of tradition, but you can be sure that they think in this way. Personally, I think no harm is being done to tradition.15

On a more specifc level, the kinds of changes being made are usually related to harmonisation. Although changes in all aspects are common, the issue of harmonisation is most demanding of conductor-arrangers who are forced to give in to at least some of its requirements. The major problem in connection

with this is that Armenian music is essentially monodic and invites the listener to think in terms of mode rather than harmony in the Western sense. Adding harmonies often pollutes the bareness of the singular line that is best enriched by the use of a drone or frame-drum whose pitches are of no great significance to the musical line. However, the problem with the folk ensemble is that it requires greater sophistication and is inclined to Western techniques. The issues of what can be described as 'ensemblisation' have been discussed elsewhere, so I will not revisit this topic here.16 Suffice to say that whatever changes have been effected on local folk musics, they have tended to lead to ever-increasing standardisation, rather than the preservation of individual musical dialects. The existence of a conductor-arranger culture should therefore be regarded as a prime factor in the process of musical standardisation in Armenia.

Music and the nation The reader will not fail to observe the emphasis placed on the importance of institutionalisation and standardisation for the life of folk musicians and the shape of folk music. Institutionalisation and standardisation are also two of the factors most emphasised by theorists of nationalism in their attempts to explain the rise of nations and national attitudes. This would seem to suggest that the role of Soviet cultural policy, despite its ideological disavowal of nationalism and national attitudes, was crucial to the rise of national attitudes in terms of the sphere of music discussed so far. To anyone remotely familiar with the principal tenets of communism, this will, to say the least, seem strange. Armenian national identity is today a vital force in every sphere of music, from its composition to the choice of pieces performed, to the importance of folk music in the musical life of musicians working in all genres. National attitudes are clearly visible, and there can be no uncertainty concerning the matter of Soviet opposition to national attitudes. The key questions are therefore: Was it really Soviet cultural policy that brought about this state of affairs, and if so, was it the intention of the Soviet authorities to do so? Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut answer to either of these questions. Moreover, the second question is complicated by the fact that practicalities were always at least as important as ideology in Soviet policies. It is also difficult to speak of the Soviet authorities having a single goal, given the multiplicity of interests, geographical differences, and temporal contexts. The first question, on the other hand, can be answered by reference to nationalist attitudes before the onset of Soviet cultural policy. It is also difficult to deny the fact that nationalism lies outside the consequences of Soviet cultural policy, although the former was strengthened and reinforced by the latter. Perhaps in a few decades, we will have the luxury of distance from not only Soviet policies, but also nationalist sentiment, a distance which might allow a more objective and effective examination of Soviet cultural policy on national attitudes; a distance which might well abrade the present framework. Until then, however, the limitations of the theory sketched here must remain.

Notes 1 For counterarguments to this popular thesis, it is worth exploring the work of Richard Pipes. See, for example, R. Pipes, 'Nationalities', in M. Florinskii (ed.), McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), pp. 378–83. 2 Such statements may sound strange to the scholar of Soviet classical music. Indeed the degree of censorship and government involvement in the life of musicians is more than enough to question the view that the Soviet state regarded music as 'harmless'. Nevertheless, the view of musicologists concerned with Soviet classical music differs in some critical ways from the perspective employed here. First, it does not place music alongside other catalysts for provoking nationalist uprisings, because the relative lack of interest in folk music does not allow it to place the powerful relationship between folk music and nation in relief. Second, it does not compare music with art forms such as literature, in which messages that impede state intentions can very obviously be displayed. 3 See A. Nercessian, Duduk and National Identity in Armenia (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2001), p. 72, for an example of the context of interaction between folk music and twelve-tone compositional technique. 4 R. Hovannisian, Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), pp. 203–4. 5 Or at least Arshak II is probably the subject matter of the first opera composed by an Armenian composer and dedicated to a great Armenian figure. 6 One should note in this connection that contrary to the folk music of neighbouring Georgia, which is highly polyphonic, Armenian music is traditionally monodic. 7 In conversation with the author in May 2000. 8 V. Nersessian, 'Armenian Sacred and Folk Music: An Introduction', in Komitas, Armenian Sacred and Folk Music (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998), p. 20. 9 He consequently spent the remainder of his life in an asylum in Paris. 10 For an idea of the usage of these phrases see C. Brooke, 'The Development of Soviet Music Policy, 1932–1941', Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1998; A. Djumaev, 'Power Structures, Culture Policy and Traditional Music in Soviet Asia', in Yearbook for Traditional Music, 25, 1993, pp. 43–50; and T. Levin, 'Music in Modern Uzbekistan: The Convergence of Marxist Aesthetics and Central Asian Tradition', in Asian Music, 12, 1, 1980, 1, pp. 49–58; and T. Levin, 'The Reterritorialisation of Culture in the New Central Asian States: A Report from Uzbekistan', in Yearbook for Traditional Music, 25, 1993, pp. 51–59. 11 Arsen Grigorian in conversation with the author April 28, 2000 in Yerevan. 12 Pavlich in conversation with the author April 20, 2000 in Yerevan. 13 Rupen Sarkissian in conversation with the author April 28, 2000 in Yerevan. 14 See Komitas, Armenian Sacred and Folk Music, trans. E. Gulbenkian (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998) for an idea of the nature of this literature. 15 Garen Avedissian in conversation with the author May 5, 2000, in Yerevan. 16 See, for example, A. Nercessian, 'A Look at the Emergence of the Concept of National Culture in Armenia: The Former-Soviet Folk Ensemble', in International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 31.1, 2000, pp. 79–94; The Duduk and National Identity in Armenia; and 'National Identity, Marxism-Leninism, and the Perception of Armenian Music', Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 2001. See also Pekka Suutari's essay in this volume (editor's note).

9 Going beyond the border National cultural policy and the development of musical life in Soviet Karelia, 1920–1940 Pekka Suutari The years 1920–1940 constituted a radical shift in the history of Russian Karelia. After the First World War, Karelia was divided between Finland and Russia, and the old border was closed. However, it continued to hold a special place in the Finnish psyche, since it was from Karelia that the ancient Finnish oral poetry (The Kalevala) had been collected. In Karelia itself, there were three frontiers: the religious (Orthodox and Lutheran); the linguistic (Russian and Finnish); and the national. In 1920, Soviet Karelia (Fig. 9.1) had a population of 143,000, of whom 59.8 per cent were Karelians and Karelian-speaking, while only 38.3 per cent were Russians.1 Before the October Revolution, the Karelians in Russia were the object of powerful national desires on the part of both the Finns and the Russian as both tried to construct a sense of belonging amongst them, while nationalism also played a crucial role after the October Revolution. The modernisation of musical life is one of several interesting traits in the history of Soviet Karelia during the 1920s and 1930s. Technological, ideological and also aesthetic innovations spread into the once old-fashioned periphery, where the rate of illiteracy had been high amongst the Karelians. The new political system stimulated an enthusiasm and willingness amongst people to participate in amateur groups and education. The repertoire and performances of many groups was not strictly controlled in the 1920s and early 1930s, as they were to be later in the Soviet era, and the willingness to produce music was high (especially in the towns) despite the numerous difficulties and defciencies in everyday life. Unfortunately, little has been written about the social history of Karelian music. Karelian folk music itself was enthusiastically researched both in Finland and in Karelia before the October Revolution, and the Finnish

Literature Society in Helsinki and the Academy of Sciences in Petrozavodsk hold large collections of it. However, Finnish ethnomusicologists have paid little attention to the Soviet period and the infuence of Soviet policy on Karelian music, while literature from Karelia itself has concentrated on composers and the professional and officially approved makers of music. Consequently, there is only one large-scale study that provides an overview of the creation of Soviet Karelia's various musical

Figure 9.1 Map of Karelian ASSR.

institutions and composers,2 although there are several anthologies that have provided articles on specifc genres, such as symphonic music, choral music, piano music, and folk music.3 The existing picture of musical life in Karelia has therefore been rather narrow, and it is hoped that this essay will open new avenues in the study of the subject. Due to the lack of literature, much of the essay will be based on material acquired from interviews made in Petrozavodsk with Finns and Karelians who participated in Karelian musical life during the 1920s and 1930s.4

The historical context The Karelian Workers' Commune was formed in June 1920, one week before the peace negotiations between Finland and Russia were set in motion. The peace treaty and 'Karelianism' were important reasons for the establishment of the autonomous national republic, since Finland demanded civil rights for the Karelian people whose uprisings it had supported.5 The suggestion that the Karelian Workers' Commune should be established came from Edward Gylling – a Finnish economist and refugee in Stockholm since the failure of the Communist rebellion in Finland in 1918 – and it suited Lenin's idea of the relative autonomy for minority nationalities.6 Finnish communists were sent to Karelia to take up leading positions, partly because the Russian intellectuals would not commit themselves to Soviet rule and the development of the Karelian people.7 On the other hand, very few Karelians had sufficient education to be able to lead an autonomous Karelia.8 It was therefore the task of the Red Finns to build up the Republic on a 'national' basis, and to draw people of Finno-Ugrian stock (Finns, Karelians and Vepsians) into the revolutionary work. The international Communist movement (Komintern) also planned to spread the revolution from the area into the rest of Scandinavia, and Gylling and Lenin thought Karelia would serve as a model for the Finnish workers and peasants.9 Moreover, Karelia enjoyed considerable economic autonomy during the years of the NEP so that it could develop its forestry industry. Consequently, Karelia underwent an extraordinary development of its cultural and economic life in the 1920s, hindered only by a shortage of workers. After the loss of economic autonomy during the early 1930s, however, there was famine and a shortage of materials, because the production of food decreased at a time when the population was growing.10 The Karelian Workers' Commune was renamed the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR) in 1923. At the same time, large Russianspeaking areas around Lake Onega were incorporated into Karelia, and its population grew from 143,000 to 233,000. The Russians now became the majority, while the proportion of the indigenous population decreased. This was despite plans to promote the immigration to Karelia of Finnish and Karelian forestry workers from Ingria, the Tver region of Russia, and

America. By the end of the 1930s, the population of the KASSR numbered some 468,900 inhabitants, more than half of whom were immigrants from other parts of the Soviet Union, while the proportion represented by the Karelians, Finns and Vepsians had declined to only 27 per cent.11 More than 6,000 Finns who left the United States and Canada believing that they would have a bright future in the Soviet Union. This proved to be untrue, but the role played by the Finnish-Americans in the modernisation of the musical life of the republic was particularly important (see below). The national politics of Soviet Karelia, however, offered no solution to the problematic relations that existed between Finland and the Soviet Union. Nationalism was gaining strength in Finland, and distrust grew on both sides. The Finns in Karelia were a small minority within the 'national' minority, and their ability to represent the Karelians was limited, in spite of their strong efforts to construct a Finno-Karelian identity for the republic through the policy of korenizatsiia. Finnish became another official language that was used in schools, in the administration, and in the newspapers and other media, such as the national radio company, which was established in 1926.12 However, the Finnish language encountered strong opposition in southern Karelia, because the southern variants of Karelian were more distant from standard Finnish than the northern Karelian dialect. Consequently, the political agitation and educational work conducted in Finnish was more successful in the northern part of Karelia, especially in the district of Uhtua called Viena. But the rest of the Karelians declared on a number of occasions that they would rather use Russian than Finnish, which they could neither read nor understand. The Finnish leaders had to explain this away by claiming that the area had been so much assimilated during the tsarist era that the population had come to feel ashamed of their language and nationality. Demands for the creation of a literary language for Karelia were also rejected outright, since Finnish had been claimed to represent education and workers' culture at a higher level.13 The 'Red Finns', as the Karelian leadership was colloquially called, were therefore in a precarious position, but they represented the core of the Soviet Karelian elite in the 1920s and survived the widespread party purges of the early 1930s.14 Finno-Karelians even gained an absolute majority in the Council of People's Commissars and in the Executive Committee of Karelia, beating off the Russian and South Karelian opposition in 1930.15 The worst conflict was nevertheless to arise from the fact that the politics of

korenizatsiia were based on the Finnish culture and language. This was in sharp conflict with the supranational Soviet notion of state-building, which decreed that the development of the working class would lead to a fusion of the different nations and not a continuation of the process of separation. The starting-point for that process was going to be Russian culture.16 A fateful turn in events came in 1934, however, when the Finnish leaders of Karelia, Kustaa Rovio and Gylling, were obliged to respond to accusations of indulging in 'exaggerations of the national politics' – i.e. being anti-Soviet (Russian) nationalists. As a result, many of the leaders of the Karelian ASSR were executed, and thousands of Finnish workers and offcers were arrested as the Stalinist terror progressed. The Finnish language was also banned, and Karelian became the second official language of the Republic at the beginning of 1938. This banning of Finnish was accompanied by a poorly prepared proposal to create and use written Karelian. However, it was such a compromise – a combination of three distinct Karelian dialects – that few could understand.17 The newspapers, journals, theatre and radio used this 'Soviet Karelian' with its Cyrillic alphabet for two years, but it was quietly buried in April 1940 when Finnish once again became the second official language of the new Soviet Republic. In November 1939, the so-called 'Winter War' broke out between Finland and the Soviet Union and lasted until March 1940 when the Karelian-Finnish Soviet Republic was formed. This Republic was set up in order to facilitate the incorporation of Finland into the Soviet Union, but its leaders (led by Otto Wille Kuusinen) were no longer the same Finnish refugees as in 1920– 35.18 Throughout the 1930s, a combination of international political pressures and centralised power of Moscow had subjugated local nationalism and the Finno-Karelian spirit of kinship. Between the world wars, the Karelians were mere bystanders in the political manoeuvring in the triangular drama between Finland, the Red Finns (see above), and the Moscow patriots.19

Musical life in Petrozavodsk The capital of Soviet Karelia, Petrozavodsk, was founded in 1703, the same year as St Petersburg. Before the October Revolution, it was the provincial capital of the Olonets region, and had a population of approximately 17,000 people. Its public musical life was in the hands of a local choir and pianists who gave concerts, though it was supplemented by visiting musicians from the not too distant St Petersburg.20 However, noticeable changes occurred soon after the Revolution, when everything seemed to be possible, and high art was believed to be accessible to all. Consequently, a small but active symphonic orchestra of some twenty players, an orchestra of Russian folk instruments, a choir, a brass band and an amateur theatre group had been established by 1918.21 During the frst concert season forty orchestral concerts and twenty-nine musical-vocal evenings were arranged, usually the cinema Triumf. The programmes consisted of Russian and Western classical music, as well as revolutionary songs such as The Internationale.22 The Olonets branch of Proletkult also started up an aggressive but short-lived campaign against the classical (i.e. bourgeois) repertoire, which reportedly had 'no constructive impact'.23 A musical school opened in December 1918 with an ambitious curriculum, and a conservatory was planned. Its principal was Nestor Zagornyi, who had studied in St Petersburg, but the other teachers (like the players in the orchestra) were mainly local self-taught musicians.24 Most of the earliest post-Revolutionary musical activities, however, disappeared during the years 1920–22. The orchestra, which had originally consisted of a combination of a local string orchestra and the military band of the Lake Onega navy, disbanded as a result of fnancial problems, while the music school was also closed down.25 The orchestra of Russian folk instruments, on the other hand, existed for only three months, but was reformed in 1931.26 During the early post-Revolutionary period, music in Petrozavodsk was primarily used for educational and propaganda purposes, and musical life was supported by members of the local Russian and Jewish intelligentsia, as well as by military musicians. Musicians were asked to tour the villages and take on the role of political agitators. After the establishment of the Karelian Workers' Commune (and later KASSR), cultural policy was orientated

towards developing so-called 'national circles'27 and improving the level of literacy amongst the Karelian peasantry. The Commune was primarily established to unite the Karelians and encourage their support for the new regime. Consequently, its minimal resources were directed towards the creation of new schools and 'red corners' in order to educate the masses, rather than to foster the development of professional, classical music-making. Most of the music-making in Karelia during the 1920s was therefore carried out on an amateur basis, and there was a rapid turnover of concert troupes. Guest performers, including complete opera companies, visited Petrozavodsk, usually from Leningrad, and performances of operettas and other light entertainments took place despite condemnation from members of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM).28 A more permanent centre of musical life in Petrozavodsk, however, developed around the Finnish Pedagogical College (Pedteknikum), which had been founded in November 1920 to speed up the training of Finnish-speaking A more permanent centre of musical life in Petrozavodsk, however, developed around the Finnish Pedagogical College (Pedteknikum) that had been founded in November 1920 to speed up the training of Finnish-speaking teachers to work in Karelian schools.29 All of the teachers were Finns from either Finland itself, Ingria, or America, and its chief music instructor was Kalle Rautio (1889–1963). Rautio had come from California to Kantalahti in 1922, but soon moved to Petrozavodsk.30 He had been born in Finland, but had lived in the United States since 1903, where he studied composition privately and directed choirs in the American-Finnish Workers' Halls. At the Pedteknikum he conducted a choir and a small orchestra of up to twelve players, which performed regularly both in and outside the college.31 A type of concert that proved particularly successful were the so-called 'lecture-concerts', which started in 1923. They were usually performed by Rautio's ensemble, while the lecturer was Santeri Nuorteva, the leader of the Karelian Central Executive Committee and a Communist refugee from Finland. Nuorteva's lectures invariably dealt with the musical cultures of different nations, and how classical music could be interpreted in terms of Communist principles.32 In the 1920s and early 1930s most of the new music written in Karelia consisted of songs. The texts were usually written by local poets, such as Jalmari Virtanen, Lea Helo, Lauri Letonmäki and Ragnar Rusko, and refected the politics of the period with their heroic shock workers and collective-farm workers, lumberjacks and milkmaids. The songs of the 1920s also dealt with

the revolution and the 'red' fghters, and the defeat of the revolution in Finland.33 The music was usually tonal and constructed from simple melodic sequences and rhythmic techniques. However, in the songs written by Karelian composers, the use of the minor key was as common as the major, and folk songs had become an essential part of national music policy in the early 1930s. The aforementioned Kalle Rautio was also a particularly prolifc composer of both vocal and instrumental music. His best-known orchestral work, Karel'skaia svad'ba [The Karelian Wedding] (1926, revised 1938), provided a model for numerous symphonic works by Karelian composers.34 It is a simple but charming piece composed in a romantic, tonal idiom, and the first orchestral composition by a Karelian composer to use indigenous folk themes.35 Rautio's work as a composer, however, has been overshadowed by his activities as a teacher and organiser of choirs and orchestras, and it has been claimed that amateur choirs and music groups were established everywhere he went.36 As noted, he was the founder of orchestras for the Pedteknikum and the Radio Committee, established music groups and a choir in Uhtua and Olonets, and was for a while music director at the Finnish Theatre in Petrozavodsk. Of the groups that Rautio founded, the Symphony Orchestra of Karelian Radio was of particular importance. It was formed from members of the Pedteknikum orchestra in July 1932 (although its personnel changed when it began play professionally and on a full-time basis) and grew to a full-size orchestra by the end of the following year. Initially, at least twenty-one members of the orchestra were Finns who had come to Karelia from the United States or Canada, where they had studied and purchased their musical instruments.37 None were originally professional musicians, but after their arrival in Karelia, they were able to fnd work at the numerous institutions founded during the early 1930s.38 They were also part of the Finnish intelligentsia in Petrozavodsk that included the Karelian political elite from 1920 to 1935, and which contributed to the construction of a FinnishKarelian identity. Thanks partly to the establishment of new orchestras and music groups, Karelian composers were encouraged to increase their output of orchestral and instrumental music during the 1930s. A resolution of the Eleventh Karelian Party Conference, which was held in Petrozavodsk in January 1932, reiterated the official line that 'contents are the key to the problem of art', and

Karelian music had to be national in form and socialist in its content.39 Consequently, numerous suites and orchestral arrangements based on Karelian (i.e. Finnish and Vepsian) and Pomorrian (the Russian-speaking region on the coast of the White Sea in the north of Karelia) folk songs and themes were composed. They included Lauri Jousinen's Severnoe siianie [Northern Lustre] (1936), Leopold Teplitskii's Siuita na karelskie temy [Suite on Karelian Themes] (1939), Ruvim Pergament's Karelskaia siiuta [Karelian Suite] (1938), and Helmer Sinisalo's Flute Concerto (1940). The tendency towards writing music and orchestral arrangements on 'national' themes was continued after the Second World War by Karelian composers and those working in Karelia, such as Leopold Teplitskii, Ruvim Pergament, and Helmer Sinisalo.40 In addition to suites, rhapsodies, scherzos, and miniatures based on indigenous folk motifs, Karelian composers also wrote a number of largescale, orchestral works inspired by The Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. The earliest example of such a work was Ruvim Pergament's symphonic poem Aino (1936). Commissioned for the centennial celebrations of The Kalevala that were held in Petrozavodsk in 1935,41 Aino told the story of a girl (Aino) who would rather drown herself than marry the elderly hero and healer Väinämöinen. Its music was based on a number of folk melodies, with the Kalevalaic Eagle Song particularly prominent, and slow sections were interspersed with dance-like quicker moments. In common with the other orchestral compositions referred to above, Aino could be described as 'socialist realist'. Its folk-inspired, tonal music was joyous and accessible to audiences, and its explicit aim was to create a feeling of brotherhood amongst the peoples of Karelia.42 Towards the end of the 1930s, the Radio Committee's orchestra played a large number of works by the Karelian composers in addition to works by established composers, such as Beethoven and Sibelius. It performed in traditional venues, and like other orchestras in the Soviet Union at the time, in parks during the summer, and factories and workers' clubs during the winter. The orchestra also extensively toured the villages of Karelia, usually travelling on the back of a lorry.43 Nevertheless, the orchestra's main task was to perform in radio concerts, and it had to meet every night in the studio to play The Internationale in order to mark the end of the day's broadcasting. But the highlight of its activities was to perform to rave reviews during the ten-day festival (dekada) of Karelian arts in Leningrad in March 1937.44

However, the following year, the Communist Party of Karelia decided to invite several so-called 'qualifed' musicians from Leningrad to Petrozavodsk to help the orchestra develop 'more quickly',45 since it was in a state of crisis as a result of Stalin's terror. In the space of two years (1937 and 1938), fourteen of the orchestra's Finnish-American players were executed, while three others were sent to prison camps as part of the campaign to liquidate Finnish nationalism in Karelia.46 However, there were some lucky escapes. Väinö Rintala, for example, perhaps the orchestra's most celebrated player, only survived because he escaped to the Ukraine and became a jazz musician just before the severest period of persecution broke out. The role played by Finnish immigrants, whether they were Ingrians, 'red' refugees, or Finnish-Americans, was therefore central to the development of music and musical life in Petrozavodsk. This was because of their existing high level of music education, and their ability to fulfil the authorities' need to compose so-called 'national' music – of various genres and in a romantic, tonal and folkloric idiom – that in turn would help create a new FinnishKarelian identity. The same immigrants also organised institutions such as choirs, orchestras and music schools, and took advantage of the opportunities provided by the authorities at the start of the 1930s to work as professionals, rather than mere amateurs. The conditions under which these often very hungry musicians worked were often appalling, but they left a rich legacy in terms of the creation of musical practices and of music itself.

Amateur musical activities and folk culture Amateur music activities developed alongside professional musical making in Soviet Karelia. Choirs, social evenings and dances formed an important part of the social calendar, and music was a pastime that everyone took part in regardless of political or social standing. Moreover, as far as the authorities were concerned, music and dance were acceptable ways of spending one's free time, and no censorship was imposed on them as a result, despite the odd expression of moral outrage. Consequently, there was a rich and diverse amateur music scene in Karelia during the 1920s and early 1930s. For example, virtually every factory and numerous workers' clubs had their own brass bands. Their main functions were (like the choirs) to perform for the education and recreation of workers, play in processions, parades and at funerals, and introduce revolutionary songs and marches to a workers' audience. Officially, the musicians in the bands were not paid, but factories in certain cases especially recruited employees because of their musical abilities.47 Musicians were also given special 'treats' at events when they performed for factory managers and Party bosses. One such band, the Uritskii Club's so-called 'Kiddy band', since its members were all Finnish-American boys, even had the honour of performing for Stalin at the opening of the Belomor Canal.48 In addition to brass bands and choral singing, plays were also frequently performed at social evenings by amateur dramatic societies which belonged to workers' clubs in Uhtua, Petrozavodsk, and other urban centres. They were usually written by members of the club or local Party members, but on occasions, well-known Party leaders wrote such plays.49 The social evenings also contained speeches, choral singing, poetry, living newspapers, gymnastics, and so-called 'mass speeches and recitations'.50 The latter were perceived as particularly appropriate for proletarian performers and audiences, since they could instil a collective ethos, and were invariably performed with ideological enthusiasm. As Urho Ruhanen, a participant in numerous social evenings, pointed out: There were things like mass recitation … at the House of Enlightement [and] choral declamation! A poem would be recited, then another, and another, and sometimes all [the lines would be recited] together if it was a powerful part like a song, … a kind of choral speaking. And there was a period when there was usually no solo recitation; everything had to be mass speeches! Yes, everything! They were looking for something new. Nowadays, it obviously seems silly, but we were serious about it.51

After the excitement of the mass recitations, the evening's entertainment usually concluded with a performance of The Internationale, although eyewitnesses also emphasised the importance of dance. In fact, dancing proved the main attraction of the social evenings for many people, who were always aware of what was going on where, thanks to the listings published in the back page of the newspaper Punainen Karjala [Red Karelia]. In addition to being a form of entertainment, dance helped build bridges between different national groups. Russians and the Finns learned new dances from each other, thus helping to overcome language problems and suspicion caused by the fact that the immigrants could buy food from hard-currency shops or special insnab shops.52 During the 1920s, traditional formation dances (piirileikki) were the most popular forms of dance amongst the Finnish communities in Petrozavodsk. As Mildred Rossi commented: 'American and Finnish dances were mocked … and thought to be bourgeois. It was better to dance the formation dances or Russian dances'.53 This changed during the 1930s, though, after Finnish-American immigrants – or 'American comrades' as they were called in the press – introduced jazz and new dances, such as the one-step, two-step, tango and foxtrot, to Karelia. The jazz performed in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s at the so-called tea-jazz concerts in restaurants, as well as in parks during the summer,54 was often very different from that performed in the United States. Improvisation was rare, and accordions and fddles were added to the usual combo of saxophones, trumpet, trombone, drums, piano, and banjo or guitar. The musicians who had come from the United States, however, had at least some idea of how jazz was performed, and imitated such luminaries as Paul Whiteman and Guy Lombardo. Some of Soviet Karelia's most wellknown jazz musicians were also experienced performers. Väinö Rintala, for example, led his own jazz band already in Boston before emigrating to Karelia, while Laila Salmi, the jazz pianist at the Golikovka Canteen and National Theatre in Petrozavodsk, had lived in New York and trained at the Juilliard Music School. The most successful Karelian jazz musician, though, was undoubtedly the trombonist Toivo Kohonen, who played in Eddie Rosner's orchestra in Moscow after the war. The social evenings ceased after 1937 when people were no longer allowed to speak Finnish. Even before then, though, local Party officials checked the manuscripts of plays to ensure that nothing divergent from the prevailing literary policy was performed during the social evenings, although initially all

forms of music were allowed. By the mid-1930s the situation had changed, however, and in order to fool the censors, jazz was often described as another musical genre, American sheet music was hidden, and the titles of the jazz standards were changed.55

Viktor Gudkov and his Kantele Ensemble The most important musical institution in Soviet Karelia was the State Ensemble of Singing and Dancing Kantele founded by Viktor Gudkov (Plate 9.1). The kantele was a particularly potent symbol of cultural identity and consequently the possibility of it becoming a mass-produced, proletarian instrument had been a source of debate and discussion in the journal of the Petrozavodsk writers' association, Puna-Kantele [Red Kantele], since the 1920s.56 As for the Kantele Ensemble itself, it started as a youth ensemble founded in Petrozavodsk in the autumn of 1933 that was made up of pupils from the Finnish Pedagogical Institute, the majority of whom were children of Finnish immigrants from America. It performed at the local Communist Party's House of Enlightenment and worker's clubs, and for Red Army units and on the radio, but achieved particular popularity after appearing in concerts at the House of National Culture in Petrozavodsk on 28 February and 1 March 1935 that were part of the celebrations to mark the centenary of The Kalevala.57 At the end of the year, the students at the Pedagogical Institute graduated, and the ensemble broke up. It soon reformed, however, under the auspices of the Red Army, and a sextet from the ensemble took part to great acclaim in the All-Soviet Radio Festival in Moscow (23 March–6 April 1936).58 Two months later the Kantele Ensemble became a professional organisation and received the honour of performing for Stalin at the end of 1936. The founder and director of the Kantele Ensemble, Viktor Gudkov (1899– 1942), was born in the southern Russian town of Voronezh. He had moved with his family to Murmansk in 1917, and became the Party's supervisor for so-called 'collective cultural work' in the Karelian town of Kantalahti in 1928. Although enthusiastic about The Kalevala and Finnish folk music, Gudkov had never set eyes on a kantele before 1931, when he was introduced to the instrument by the labourer and performer Andrei

Plate 9.1 The Kantele Sextet with Viktor Gudhov (far right).

Hokkanen. It was then that he decided to form an ensemble, and began to study the different models of the instrument housed at the Petrozavodsk Museum of Local History and Culture. Gudkov also designed his own fourteen-string instruments that were based on the traditional hollowed kantele model, but could play the two octaves of the chromatic scale if the performer pressed the diatonically tuned strings closest to the bridge to raise the pitch by half-tones.59 He then studied harmony with the composer Ruvim Pergament in order to arrange music for his ensemble, trained the members of the ensemble to play on his instruments, and undertook feldwork in order to collect music to perform.60 Conveniently for the authorities (and for Gudkov himself) his research confrmed the ideological suitability of the kantele, and he noted that: Most of the kantele players we heard were either from the collective farms or they were poor or moderately well-off individual peasant farmers. This is understandable, because the kantele is a homemade instrument that does not require money for it to be constructed. Almost every old Karelian man can make one … Only extremely rarely, in fact in only three cases, did we encounter a kantele in the home of a kulak. In those places it was usually kept as a memento: an Estonian or Finnish kantele, the result of its owner's former 'trading' relations. … Teppo Tupitsin was the best of the musicians; he was talented and also an active kolkhoznik , the best worker in his brigade who had made for himself an unusual kantele.61

The kantele was therefore an authentic workers' instrument that Gudkov argued should be developed 'just like Andreev did for the … balalaika with his orchestra'.62 In the home of wealthy families, kanteles were hung on walls as mere decorations and would usually be constructed by non-Karelians. In

the villages, however, the kantele played an integral role in the construction of identity and social interaction, because villagers devoted much time and energy to debating who was the best kantele player in the region. Contrary to Gudkov's expectations, even 90 per cent of the music played on the kantele was 'very lively, joyful, and brisk' and thus a perfect musical evocation of Stalin's Soviet socialist realist utopia, while even Teppo Tupitsin's homemade (i.e. a truly proletarian) kantele was far superior to the traditional (i.e. 'bourgeois') Finnish kantele, because of its versatility.63 By the end of the 1930s, Gudkov's Kantele Ensemble had some thirty members, and employed two of the country's most famous choreographers: Helmi Malmi and Vasili Kononov. The members of the Kantele Ensemble played other folk instruments in addition to kanteles, and performed as dancers and singers as well as instrumentalists. Such was the Kantele Ensemble's fame that local children were inspired to learn to play the kantele in the hope that one day they would be allowed to join its ranks, and it was sent to Terijoki in November 1939 to play for the soldiers of the Red Army who were fighting in the Winter War.64 The Kantele Ensemble also survived the Great Terror of 1937–38 relatively unscathed, although its members were under threat of dismissal if they spoke Finnish, and illustrated one of the paradoxes of Stalinism: the national minorities were persecuted, yet professional folk music ensembles were established and allowed to fourish. During the Second World War, the Kantele Ensemble was evacuated from Petrozavodsk to Siberia where Gudkov died. Despite the death of its founder, however, the Ensemble diversifed its activities after the fghting ceased and incorporated a dance group, a choir, and a female vocal group called Aino. It trained its own members, with the exception of dancers, who were recruited from the ballet schools in Moscow or Leningrad, and it performed in all parts of the former Soviet Union as well at international folk music festivals throughout the world. The Kantele Ensemble also signifed how folk instruments were able to be refned to such an extent that they were capable of playing demanding concert pieces, and how folk music itself was raised to the status the great classical works.65 In fact, like so many of the folk music ensembles established during the Stalinist period, the Karelian Kantele Ensemble is still popular today, despite the demise of the ideology that facilitated its birth.

Conclusion In Lauri Letonmäki's Karjalan historia [History of Karelia], which was published in 1931, there was an attempt to emphasise how the achievements of socialism in Karelia had no connection whatsoever to 'any kind of cultural legacy from the era of tsarism'.66 The local Finnish cultural elite and 'red' refugees regarded themselves as superior to Karelia's original inhabitants, and there was a defnite clash between old and new. As Letonmäki had to admit: 'the old hinterland and the new socialist industrial nation … are presently to be seen side by side in many spheres of Karelian life'.67 For example, although he claimed 'the working youth [in Karelia] is already an enlightened, revolutionary Soviet youth' and there was an 'intellectual breaking of the ice' even amongst the middle-aged peasantry thanks to various government campaigns, he also admitted that the old superstitions remained in many places, such as 'young women giving their beloved ones "love potions" made in a disgusting way'.68 The clash between old and new that Letonmäki and subsequent generations of Soviet scholars tried to ignore characterised the history of Karelian music and musical life between 1920 and 1936. The region underwent a process of upheaval and modernisation that saw musical life change considerably. New musical institutions were founded, new music was composed, and revolutionary cultural work was undertaken by visiting Party activists and artists who introduced a new outlook on life that was eagerly adopted by young people. As the kantele player Maksim Gavrilov recalled: 'In those days, young people were more interested in going and signing up for choirs or music or dancing … it was a new age! … A new age was beginning and the younger generation, in particular, wanted to know more.'69 However, much of the new was based on the old. The new musical institutions followed nineteenth-century models in terms of structure and organisation, and the new music was composed in a nineteenth-century idiom. In many Karelian villages, the traditional rune singers were still active during the 1920s, but alongside traditional songs and dances, foreign dances like the Charleston began to permeate even the remotest of villages thanks to radios and, to a lesser extent, gramophones. The segregation politics practised in Karelia failed largely because of the authorities' insistence that Finnish rather than Karelian should be used in the Republic's cultural activities, and Karelian

national politics strongly resisted assimilation into the Russian mainstream. However, they succeeded in constructing a local identity in musical life during the 1930s thanks to the composition of music that drew on Karelian themes, the creation of a thriving amateur music scene, the development of the kantele, and the development of the Kantele Ensemble that promoted Soviet Karelian culture throughout the world.

Notes 1 I. Takala, 'Kansallisuuskysymys tilaston valossa', in Punalippu, 11, 1989, p. 132. At the same time, more than 400,000 people lived in Finnish Karelia, of whom almost 50,000 spoke Karelian as their mother tongue, while most of the others spoke Finnish with a Karelian accent. T. Hämynen, 'Mikä Karjala?', in T. Hämynen (ed.), Kahden Karjalan välillä, kahden riikin riitamaalla (Studia Carelica Humanistica 5, University of Joensuu, 1994), p. 26. 2 G.I. Lapchinskii, Muzyka sovetskoi Karelii (Petrozavodsk, 1970). 3 Such as R.F. Zelinskii (ed.), Muzykal'noe iskusstvo Karelii: Sbornik nauchnykh trudov (Leningrad, 1983), and Iu.G. Kon and N.Iu. Grodnitskaia (eds), Professional'nia muzyka Karelii: Ocherki (Petrozavodsk, 1995). 4 The discussion of music as a leisure-time activity is therefore restricted to Finnish clubs and communities, although the interviews certainly shed light on why the music itself was composed. I would like to acknowledge those whom I interviewed in Petrozavodsk from April to June 1993: Väinö Rintala, Impi Vauhkonen, Allan Sihvola, Heidi Sihvola, Elmer Nousiainen, Sanni Bocharnikova, Maksim Gavrilov, Eila Rautio, Ernst Haapaniemi, Ruth Niskanen, Aarne Rikka, Urho Ruhanen, Mildred Rossi, Pentti Rossi, Lillian Salo, and Liisa Sevander. All the interviewees were personally involved with the development of musical life in Karelia during the 1920s and 1930s. 5 For more details of international relations and the political history of Soviet Karelia during the 1920s, see M. Kangaspuro, Neuvosto-Karjalan taistelu itsehallinnosta: nationalismi ja suomalaiset punaiset Neuvostoliiton vallankäytössä 1920–1939 (Helsinki: SKS, 2000), pp. 75–83. 6 The unity of the working class would come later. Ibid., pp. 51–55. 7 A. Afanaseva, 'Neuvosto-Karjalan sivistyneistö 1920-luvulta 1930-luvun puoliväliin', in A. Laine (ed.), Karjala ja Komi nuoren Neuvostoliiton tasavaltoina 1920-ja 30-luvuilla (University of Joensuu: Karelian Institute. Working Papers no. 5, 1995), p. 22. 8 The rate of literacy in Karelia was 31.3 per cent in 1897, a little higher than the average for the Russian Empire as a whole. However, the amount of illiteracy was considerably higher amongst the Karelians, of whom only 10.4 per cent could read. Thanks to the Bolshevik campaigns for literacy, though, it reached 36.9 per cent in 1926 and 73.8 per cent in 1933 amongst Karelians, and 84.5 per cent for the republic as a whole. M. Kangaspuro, p. 161. In addition, 191 Finnish-speaking primary and secondary schools opened in Karelia by 1931. L. Letonmäki, Karjalan historia (Leningrad, 1931), p. 225. 9 M. Kangaspuro, p. 143. 10 When autonomy was rejected and Karelia became subject to Moscow's centralised planning, its primary task was to produce raw timber. The agricul ture of the area remained underdeveloped, however, while the population of Karelia had almost doubled by the start of the 1930s. This resulted in an acute shortage of foodstuffs, housing and clothing, especially between 1932 and 1934, but special insnab shops and hard-currency shops were opened for the exclusive use of immigrants to help them adjust. S. Autio, Suunnitelmatalous Neuvosto-Karjalassa 1928–1941: paikallistason rooli Neuvostoliiton teollistamisessa (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2002). 11 I. Takala (1989), p. 148. 12 K. Skön and S. Torkkola, "Täällä Petroskoi": Omakielisten radio-ja televisioohjelmien merkitys Venäjän Karjalan kansallisille vähemmistöille (University of Joensuu: Karelian Institute. Working papers no. 2, 1997), p. 32. 13 M. Kangaspuro, pp. 64–169. 14 M. Kangaspuro, '"Ison vihan" tausta Karjalassa: Vuoden 1933 puoluepuhdistus ei etene Karjalassa toivotulla tavalla', in A. Laine (ed.), pp. 136–138. 15 M. Kangaspuro (2000), p. 231.

16 Ibid., p. 147. 17 Especially when the speakers had to try and incorporate politically correct Soviet vocabulary into everyday speech. E. Anttikoski, ' "Uuven vuuven lahja": Karjalan kirjakieli 1937–40', in A. Laine (ed.), pp. 151–173. 18 O. Hyytiä, Karjalais-Suomalainen Neuvostotasavalta 1940–1956: Kansallinen tasavalta? (Helsinki: Suomen historiallinen seura, 1999), pp. 19–28. 19 A. Laine and M. Ylikangas (eds), Rise and Fall of Soviet Karelia: People and Power (Helsinki: Kikimora Publications, 2002), p. 11. 20 V. Portnoi, 'Karjalan musiikkielämä vuosisadan vaihteessa', in Punalippu, 3, 1986, p. 119. 21 G.I. Lapchinskii, pp. 11–17. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., pp. 17–18. For more information about the musical activities of Proletkult, see N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000), pp. 65–79. 24 V. Portnoi, p. 120. 25 L.M. Butir, 'Simfonicheskaia muzyka karelii', in Iu.G. Kon and N.Iu. Grodnitskaia, p. 9. 26 B.H. Tsykov, 'K istorii orkestra russkikh narodnykh instrumentov v Karelii', in Muzykal'naia kul'tura Karelii (Petrozavodsk, 1988), pp. 194–201. 27 That is 'national circles' of local minorities: Karelians, Finns, Ingrians, and Vepsians, etc., but not Russians. This was the starting point of the policy of korenizatsiia. See Michael Rouland's essay in this volume for further details of this policy in the Kazak context (Editor's note). 28 G.I. Lapchinskii, p. 29. For further details about RAPM, see N. Edmunds, 'Music and Politics: The Case of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians', in Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 78, no. 1, January 2000, pp. 66–89; and A. Nelson, 'The Struggle for Proletarian Music. RAPM and the Cultural Revolution', in Slavic Review, vol. 59, no. 1, Spring 2000, pp. 101–132. 29 V. Portnoi, 'Fortepianaia kultura Karelii', candidate dissertation. Leningrad Conservatory, 1985, pp. 58–61. 30 A typical member of the orchestra was Lauri Jousinen (1889–1948). He came from California as part of the same fishing cooperative as Rautio, and was a self-taught viola player and composer. 31 The orchestra gave concerts and performed in local dance halls. U. Ruhanen, Syytettynä suomalainen (Oulu: Pohjoinen, 1989), p. 51. 32 G.I. Lapchinskii, p. 22; and V. Portnoi (1985), p. 63. 33 B.D. Napreyev, … Ty, serpa i molota vol'naia otchizna (Petrozavodsk, 1982), p. 12. 34 L.M. Butir, p. 11. 35 Karel'skaya svad'ba was based on wedding melodies from the Uhtua district of Karelia collected by Rautio's student Risto Sirén. 36 Information acquired from numerous interviews, especially with Eila Rautio. See also A. Timonen and G. Lapchinskii, Kompozitor K. E. Rautio. Zhizn', tvorch-estvo, muzykal'no-obshchestvennaia deiatel'nost' (Petrozavodsk, 1964), pp. 21, 25–37, 33, and 40. 37 Interview with Väinö Rintala; and M. Sevander, Vaeltajat (Turku: Siirtolaisuusinstituutti, 2000), pp. 108–111. 38 As well as the Symphony Orchestra of the Karelian Radio Committee, such institutions included the State Finnish Drama Theatre, which was founded in 1932, a Kantele ensemble, and a music school that was established in 1935 and reorganised (and renamed) in 1938 as the Kalle Rautio Musical College. Immigrants who came to Karelia with a musical education and their own instruments could also ply their trade in the numerous cinemas and clubs that were established during this period. 39 G.I. Lapchinskii, pp. 33–34. 40 Both Ruvim Pergament (1906–65) and Helmer Sinisalo (1920–89) hailed from Petrozavodsk, and became chairmen of the Karelian composers' union. Leopold Teplitskii (1910–1965), on the other hand, studied at the Leningrad Conservatory and only arrived in Petrozavodsk in 1933 after his release from a prison camp. He was co-principal conductor of the Radio Committee's orchestra with Rautio, and a

pioneer of Russian jazz. In fact, Teplitskii was sent by Anatoly Lunacharskii, the Commissar of Enlightenment, to the USA in 1926 to study jazz in New York and collect the scores of 'modern' music for use in films. When he returned to Leningrad, he set up the frst 'symphonic jazz band' in the Soviet Union together with teachers at the Leningrad Conservatory. The band existed, however, for only a year, before Teplitskii was sent to a prison camp in Karelia in 1930. 41 Only the first part of Aino was ready in time for the celebrations, however, and it was premiered in a concert hall that was also only partially built! 42 G.I. Lapchinskii, pp. 52–54. 43 And, as Väinö Rintala recalled in an interview with the author, once getting soaked by rain as a result and being 'forced' to dry themselves by drinking vodka and dancing! 44 The Karelian Symphonic Orchestra played in Leningrad Pergament's Aino, Rautio's Karelian Wedding and Novaia Kareliia [New Karelia], and Jousinen's Kullervo. Folk singers, dancers, and choirs, as well as the Kantele Ensemble, also performed in dekadia of Karelian arts. G.I. Lapchinskii, p. 51. 45 Ibid, pp. 49–50. 46 The State Finnish Drama Theatre suffered even more than the orchestra, as most of its actors and writers were eliminated. J. Rugojev, 'Puna-Kantele, soi surut synkkähän korpeen … ', in Punalippu, 3, 1988, pp. 12–13. 47 Interview with Allan Sihvola. 48 According Lillian Salo, whose brother was a member of the band, they were asked to play on board a ship for Stalin and other Party leaders. However, because Stalin feared to such an extent about his safety, he insisted that only a band made up of children should be allowed to play to him. 49 Consequently, the manuscripts kept in the Communist Party archives in Petrozavodsk often read more like Party programmes than literary drama! See, for example, the Karelian State Archive of Modern History, f. 3, op. 1/54, d. 724, ll. 34–35. 50 'Living newspapers' were short tableaux-vivants, usually performed by amateurs. They were popular in the Soviet Union during the 1920s, since 'They aimed to portray contemporary socio-political events in ways that even the illiterate could understand.' N. Edmunds, p. 129. Performances by collectives were preferred to performances by soloists, which, on occasions, were even banned. R. Stites, Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society since 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 72. 51 Interview with Urho Ruhanen. I would like to thank Sebastian Stotesbury for translating the rest of this essay from Finnish. 52 Only citizens with a foreign passport could shop in insnab shops. An equally wide assortment of goods were to be found in hard-currency shops (torgsin). 53 The most popular place for the Finns seems to have been the Uritskii club, which was located close to the Finnish immigrants' accommodation, the so-called 'middle barracks'. 54 Besides Petrozavodsk, jazz was also frequently played in Kondopoga, where many FinnishAmericans had settled round the paper mill there. Interview with Allan Sihvola. See also V. Puhov, 'Karjalan jazzin alkusoittoja', in Carelia, 9, 2001, p. 106. 55 Interviews with Allan Sihvola and Elmer Nousiainen. 56 For details of this debate, see K. Viljanen, 'Miten alkukantaisesta kanteleesta syntyi orkesterisoitin', in Carelia, 2, 1991, pp. 82–83. 57 For details of the programmes of concerts, which included arrangements of Karelian and Finnish folk songs and dances, as well as works by Tchaikovsky, Serov, and Schubert, see ibid., p. 106. 58 Where it included a performance of Leopold Teplitskii's Karelian Prélude in its programme. 59 Gudkov invented a family of seven kanteles during the 1930s ranging in size from a large bass kantele and a small piccolo kantele made by carpenters who were especially trained for the task. K. Viljanen, 'Kantele-yhtyeen esihistoriaa', in Punalippu, 2, 1987, p. 102; and K. Dahlblom, 'Itäkarjalainen kantele'. Unpublished manuscript, Jyväskylä, 1998, pp. 5–6.

60 For further details of Gudkov's activities, see K. Dahlblom, pp. 9–10; and K. Viljanen (1991), pp. 83–84 61 Gudkov quoted in K. Dahlblom, p. 10. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid, p. 12. 64 Information from interview with Maksim Gavrilov. 65 The work of the Kantele Ensemble, and other groups like it that were founded during the 1930s throughout the Soviet Union, can also be frmly set in the Russian tradition of staged folklore. 66 L. Letonmäki, p. 224. 67 Ibid., p. 232. 68 Ibid., p. 235. 69 Interview with Maksim Gavrilov.

10 A nation on stage Music and the 1936 Festival of Kazak Arts Michael Rouland In 1936, Mukhtar Auezov wrote: Nothing is as profound and brilliant in the printed past of the Kazak people as the thoughtful and thrilling song. Even the rich epic and folklore – witnesses of the ancient spiritual culture of the Kazaks – yield to the song in its beautiful expression and depths of feeling.1

This essay explores the importance of Kazak song in order to understand the formation of Central Asian nations in the early years of Soviet rule, and how the Soviet state utilised a popular music policy as part of a modernisation campaign to promote nationalism in Kazakstan; the process through which Kazak music became part of a constructed national vision and a national state.2 I also intend to 'deconstruct' the cultural space of music in order to shed light on the way folk music was used by the state to create a Kazak nation in the Soviet mould through investigating the shift from traditional music to modern national music in the context of Kazak festivals of culture. This process parallels the transformation of Kazakstan from an autonomous republic within Russia in 1920 to a fully constituent union republic in 1936, and coincided with Moscow's plans to forge a national political system for the Kazak nation within the larger multinational state system. In his landmark study of non-European music, William Malm argues that Soviet cultural practices introduced a 'reconstruction' of folk art where the social and political conditions of the people were highlighted. Malm describes how music was collected as 'raw material for the use of Westernstyle composers who were to produce new "realistic" music based on national idioms'.3 The Soviets clearly recognised the social and educational signifcance of such a cultural construction. Following the abstruse syllogisms of Lenin's and Stalin's nationality policies, Soviet administrators transformed ancient urban and nomadic cultures into national myths with a Soviet Weltanschauung. As the creation of states coincided with this cultural production, we see nations constructed through a Soviet plan designed to fuse

them together. On a basic level, popular culture played an instrumental role in propagating Bolshevik ideas of nation-building.4 Just as industrial plans quickly swept peasants into factories, folk songs and literature were transformed into modern operas and literature supporting the ideals of workers and the national autonomy of all the peoples of the Soviet Union. To extend the Lenin adage on film: of all the arts, music is the most important in Kazakstan. The musical tradition in Kazakstan fnds itself at the very core of cultural identity. Lacking an established printing culture until the late nineteenth century, the entire Kazak literary tradition until then was based on music. And since all phases of Kazak life are celebrated by song – birth, marriage, exile, combat, and death – it is only natural that the Soviets would use music to articulate the modern nation in Kazakstan. As Boris Erzakovich, one of the most influential Kazak musicologists, noted in 1950: 'In the social and intellectual life of the Kazaks, songs occupied a key, perhaps even primary meaning.'5 In the nomadic culture of the Kazaks, music was thoroughly linked with language and was cultivated as a unique symbol of Kazak identity. Modern Soviet Kazak literature was even built upon the framework established by folk songs.6

Constructing socialist nations In order to establish guidelines for a discussion on nation-building, we must understand the concept of the nation as a constructed, but changing, phenomenon carried out by political actors in order to participate in the international sphere of politics.7 In search of an explanation for the breakup of the Soviet Union, recent scholarship underscores the national elements of cultural Sovietisation; these works focus on the role of the state in promoting particular national identities within a system designed to promote sociocultural and ideological homogeneity.8 While this scholarship certainly illuminates the challenge nationalities posed to the Soviet system at its collapse, it often overlooks the specifc mechanisms the state used to promote nations on linguistic, territorial, and cultural levels. These sweeping studies focus on the Soviet system as a whole rather than the infuence this process had on the Soviet nationalities as separate entities. Approaching a study of Kazak national consciousness from European-based theories of nationalism also generates confusion when confronting the unclear boundaries and cultures of the Central Asian steppe.9 Drawing from recently available sources from the region, a new generation of scholars has yielded increasingly important studies on Soviet nationality policies designed to understand and explore the diversity of the Soviet experience.10 These studies show that ethnically based nations were an integral part of the Soviet multinational landscape as both a tool of modernisation and an insidious reinterpretation of self-determination. Through industrialisation, urbanisation, and cultural modernisation, the Soviet state unwittingly nurtured and promoted native national consciousness while maintaining strict central state control.11 A tradition of thinking outside the mainstream (i.e. explicit directives from Moscow) already existed in the study of Central Asian history. Gregory Massell's The Surrogate Proletariat brought attention to alternative methods of instilling revolutionary ideas among Central Asian women.12 Additionally, studies of language politics have been instrumental in comprehending the development of national consciousness in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, where national languages were constructed to overcome local identities and create larger cultural and literary associations.13 While these approaches are

valuable in their own right, they cannot be expanded to include Kazakstan because a relatively uniform language already existed.14 The exploration of national identity in Kazakstan therefore requires a new approach. Stalin's Marxism and the National Question (1913) provided the basic template for nationality policy in the Soviet Union.15 Stalin argued that 'a nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture'.16 With the understanding that a 'legitimate' nation possessed all of these elements, early nationality policy focused on identifying national groups, developing their national languages, demarcating their territories, and then establishing the culture and cultural institutions that support these constructs. As Mark Saroyan argues: 'The federal system of national republics established not just the symbolic trappings of modern nation-states but also the institutional basis for the formation of indigenous ethnic leadership.'17 Although the native elite participated in and celebrated the emerging national culture, cultural institutions in Moscow suggested the path and terms of development in order to promote the idea of a multinational state based on the 'brotherly cooperation of peoples'.18

Why culture? Why music? If one accepts that the Soviet authorities were interested in creating nations as part of the socialist concept of internationalism, one still needs to ascertain how culture assumed such a central role. Lenin argued that a culture designed to educate the masses was an essential foundation of socialism.19 Culture was the preferred means to transmit a new revolutionary ideology, and cultural institutions designed to promote national state formation within the Soviet Union were established in each national territory. 'Cultural institutions in the national republics,' Mark Saroyan wrote, 'organized the creation, not simply of a national culture in general, but of one that would contribute to the identity formation and ethnic cohesion of the politically designed titular nationality of each republic.'20 In the Kazak case, the nominal and actual promotion of native leadership and native culture created a systemic legitimacy that played a significant role in national identity formation. Korenizatsiia, the policy of 'rooting' indigenous languages and native party cadres in Soviet national governments, increased local knowledge and public accessibility to Soviet ideology and political institutions. Ultimately, the policy was designed to integrate nationalities into the multinational state that Stalin conceived.21 In addition to the official emphasis on language policy and the promotion of local elites, there is the cultural aspect of korenizatsiia that is often overlooked.22 The effort to transcribe national histories, to build and promote libraries, and to modernise national folk arts served to inculcate national consciousness as well as socialist values among the local nationalities. This form of cultural incorporation and indoctrination had an enduring infuence well beyond the official end of korenizatsiia; in fact, cultural korenizatsiia ultimately became an integral part of the socialist realist aesthetic. In Marxism and the National Question, Stalin provided additional clues to his understanding of national consciousness. He affirmed, 'National character' is not a thing that is fxed once and for all, but is modifed by changes in the conditions of life; but since it exists at every given moment, it leaves its impress on the physiognomy of the nation.23

Stalin's statement is central to the understanding of early Soviet nationality culture. Here again, Mark Saroyan's work provides insight: While the culturally mediated 'nationalization' of the republics often referred back to ethnic traditions, the process of national-cultural construction developed not simply from the amorphous activisation of

'tradition' by the cultural intelligentsia but refected the 'modern' institutional innovations of Soviet national-state formation.24

Eventually, the ethnic construct of 'national in form' was subsumed by the modernist notion of 'socialist in content'. Following the early evolution of Kazak culture allows us better to understand how this process took place. The idea that art plays a role in modern national consciousness emerged during the European Romantic movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Johann Gottfried von Herder proclaimed that: 'A poet is the creator of the nation around him; he gives them a world to see and has their souls in his hand so that he can lead them to it.'25 The artist thus holds the key to the Volksgeist. As European nationalism spread in the nineteenth century, national schools of literature and music followed. In his infuential history of modern European music, Carl Dalhaus avers that folk music expresses a national spirit at a fundamental level.26 He further identifes modern symphonies from Beethoven's Eroica to Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde as mobilisers of the musical nation-building effort. Marina Frolova-Walker addresses similar concerns in her recent work on Soviet Central Asian music. Using musical production in Uzbekistan as her platform, she maintains that national cultures developed within the authority of Moscow while being presented as genuinely native.27 This is part of the Soviet modernisation process that brought Central Asian culture closer to Russian and European models. Shirin Akiner argues that Soviet Kazak culture was designed to fulfil an ideological role that replaced 'primitive' traditional art, to create strong linkages with other Soviet cultures while maintaining diversity, and to shape local understanding of their historical past.28 This process of transforming native music from ethnographic subject to a nationalising force did not make either culture less authentic, but recontextualised and reinterpreted music along national and modern lines. Certainly, scholars voiced criticism of the new Soviet artistic ethic from abroad. Andrey Olkhovsky, for example, claimed: The musical creative life of the other Soviet republics is extremely weakly developed. These republics have neither national composers of their own nor a sufficient basis for their development, since their artistic consciousness has not yet been developed. At best, ethnographism fourishes and even that only within the limit of harmonization of folk songs.29

He then described the development of 'national' arts as follows: 'As a rule experienced composers are periodically sent out to these areas on missions from Moscow; they collect ethnographic material and then, back in Moscow, write a "national opera" for yet another musical festival in Moscow.'30 In his

view, a process of Gleichschaltung31 prevailed in which music corresponded to party dogma rather than celebrating the artistic innovation of a pre-existing cultural tradition. It is easy to dismiss early Soviet music as kitsch, and many scholars have chosen to ignore Soviet Kazak art for this reason. Several writers, however, have reclaimed the otherwise dismissed Soviet folk art and public celebrations of Soviet power that were laden with official rhetoric and imbued them with a manipulation of meanings.32 The emergence of new styles, the discourse on nation, and the reinterpretation of folk traditions provide a rich read for analysis. Rather than fatly dismissing 'nationality music' for its lack of artistic merit, we should consider it a lens through which to understand the cultural climate of the time and place. Roger Scruton reminds us that 'a musical culture arises wherever music enters into the life of the tribe, to become a system of allusion, and a way of "joining in".'33 In Soviet music under Lenin and Stalin, the music became the way that the masses as well as the nationalities 'joined' the Soviet experience.

Cultural Revolution on the Steppe On 4 October 1920, the Declaration of the Rights of Workers of Kirgiz ASSR officially established Kazakstan as an autonomous republic within the RSFSR.34 A week later, the Kazak government set up a quasi-governmental organisation to lead a 'complete analysis of questions regarding the Kirgiz Republic' called the Society for the Study of the Kirgiz People.35 Its role was to promote scientifc and ethnographic studies of the region as well as opening and supervising museums and libraries. In a similar undertaking, the local People's Commissariat of Enlightenment set up a Commission for the Collection of Kazak Songs, and Kazak party officials invited Alexander Zataevich, a Russian amateur composer serving as a railroad official in Orenburg, to collect, classify and publish traditional Kazak folk songs and instrumental works known as küi .36 The policy of ethnographic musical research intended to locate 'national musical forms' and to identify the 'ancient idiom' of a national group.37 Zataevich's seminal book, A Thousand Songs of the Kazak People, published in Orenburg in 1925, was the culmination of this ethnographic research. He even addressed his introduction to the Kazak people: Save, learn, and rejuvenate your national spiritual riches, develop and adorn them with the achievements of the highest universal culture, to which you shall strive, so that Kazak national music may be renewed and fourish from the very depths of humanity.38

This seminal collection of Kazak music established an interpretation of traditional Kazak folk music that successive generations of Kazak composers imitated. Zataevich undermined the authenticity of the collection by 'correcting' the folk music through notation.39 This process marks the beginning of the transformation of traditional Kazak folk music to a more modern manifestation: Kazak national music. Zataevich claimed that the collection should not be 'a cold observation, but a lively participant in public creation'.40 He readily interpreted the folk material and experimented with polyphonic counterpoint, contrasting polyphony, and sonata form.41 After studying his original research notations, Varvara Dernova remarked that the exactness of these notes shows the abundance in his archive of rejected melodies, which had difficult and variable metric designations. He apparently wanted 'to express vitally' the free and whimsical fow of melody, and those with unsatisfactory results were excluded from the collection.42

This process was more than ethnographic; it constituted part of the 1920s effort to explore the confnes and meanings of national identity through artistic creation. Even at this early stage, the audience for Kazak national culture reached beyond Kazakstan. Zataevich arranged several public concerts that introduced Kazak folk music in Moscow and Leningrad.43 These exhibitions culminated in the ten-year celebration for the October Revolution in Moscow, where several Kazak performers took the stage in an ethnographic exhibition of Kazak music.44 Zataevich often performed the music himself on the piano, and occasionally he invited the Russian dombïra ensemble of Grigorii Liubimov to present the music with him.45 However, we should remember that Kazaks were not alone in the turn towards folk.46 In fact, Iurii Sokolov frst articulated the importance of folklore in the Soviet Union when he wrote in 1938 that: 'Never, in all the history of Russia, has the oral-poetic word served social aims so broadly and powerfully as in the Soviet period.'47 Zataevich's ethnographic research consolidated Kazak national consciousness. Whereas earlier efforts to promote national consciousness by the Kazak intelligentsia never reached a wide audience, the new Soviet government, with the work of Zataevich, engaged an eager and ready Kazak society. Public recognition of Zataevich's research initiated a wider discussion of Kazak music as well. The editor of the newspaper Orenburg rabochii, for instance, remarked: 'Of course, every narod should have its own style, its own general characteristics. This exists in Kazak music.'48 People were beginning to see Kazak music as a symbol of Kazakstan. With the development of national cultural forms, the demarcation of the national territories of Central Asia that was carried out in 1924–25 fnally settled the national territorial boundaries and provided the means to promote discrete moulds of 'national consciousness'.49 Although these borders remain to this day with only several small revisions, the adequacy and acceptability of the borders were the subjects of debate at the time.50 Despite intense political wrangling over border disputes, official enthusiasm for cultural production was unwavering. Concurrent with Zataevich's work in the 1920s, poetry rooted in folk music but infuenced by Russian versifcation played an increasing role in communicating information to the masses.51 In 1927, a collection of ten-year anniversary poems by akïns, entitled Akïndardïn shashuï, reflected the

shifting themes and styles.52 The hero of this movement, Saken Seifullin, combined both Kazak and Russian poetic forms in Sovetstan (1925). Theatre also emerged as an important forum for promoting Soviet cultural views. Theatre troupes travelled to the major cities of Orenburg, Alma-Ata, KïzlOrda, Akmolinsk and Semipalatinsk.53 In all of these performances, music played an important role. The repertoire comprised Honoré de Balzac's Père Goriot, Carlo Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters, Maxim Gorky's The Lower Depths, Molière's The Cheats of Scapin, and William Shakespeare's Othello.54 The Kazak writer Mukhtar Auezov added his Enlik Kebek to the repertoire in 1926 when the frst official Kazak drama theatre opened in the capital Kïzl-Orda.55 In this environment, the Kazak operatic stars of the 1920s and 1930s such as Amre Kashaubaev, Isa Baizakov, Shara Jandarbekova, Manarbek Erzhanov, Kalibek Kuanïshbaev, Kanabek Baiseitov, Kuliash Baiseitova and Jumat Shanin emerged. Travelling across the steppe, actors with the Red Yurts and Red Caravans also organised events for the workers of the Turkestan-Siberian railroad and inculcated an amalgam of nationalist and socialist values.56 As the Soviets and Red Army consolidated power in Kazakstan, the introduction of Stalin's first five-year plan and the simultaneous mass arrests of the Kazak intelligentsia ushered in a new era of artistic fervour.57 In this context, the delegates of the 1929 Plenum of the Kazak Regional Committee of the party decided that the theatre needed to improve its repertoire and include more 'themes of socialist construction'.58 National music underwent a struggle parallel to the repression of the arts and to the attacks on 'formalism' in Moscow. With the growing ideological demands of high-Stalinism, a greater effort was made to standardise socialist artistic creation and make it more accessible to the masses. A new artistic methodology for socialism became evident with the creation of a new Union of Composers that replaced the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) and Association of Contemporary Music (ASM) in April 1932.59 Evolving into an All-Soviet platform for musical creation, the Union played an important role in defning and regulating the official policies on music. The Union's journal, Sovetskaia muzyka, became the offcial voice of Soviet music. In January 1934, a new formal musical aesthetic was introduced in the article, 'The Development of Cultures National in Form and Socialist in Content',60 which emphasised the

requirement that national cultures make use of the outward form and expression of national art while the meaning and subjects remain consistent with the more universal theme of socialism. In a subsequent issue, Vladimir Iokhelson wrote, Socialist realism is above all a style of profound optimism. The whole historical experience of the proletariat is optimistic in essence. And we can and must affirm that optimism is intended as an obligatory feature of this style, its very essence.61

Intense enthusiasm for national cultural creation superseded the ideological vagueness of the theory. In the case of Kazakstan, the hopefulness involved transforming a nomadic conglomeration of peoples into a modern nation. As we have seen, however, Zataevich's work already blurred the distinctions between national form and socialist function. Intense discussions erupted in Kazakstan about the value of the arts (in particular the application of socialist realism) and their intrinsic value to the process of strengthening socialism. Musical theatre was seen as an ideal means of reinforcing communist ideology among children.62 In 1933, these efforts culminated in the statutes 'Concerning the Preparation of National Musical-Theatre Cadres' and 'Concerning the Measure to Develop National Art', which officially addressed the further need to support both Kazak national and socialist art.63 Before these decrees were passed, Shakhmet Khusainov, the Kazak playwright, recalled in 1940 that: In Alma-Ata, there was one Kazak drama theatre [in 1933]. Opera only existed in the minds of irrepressible dreamers, … theatre was still so inexperienced … [and] in a month seven productions were shown, and of these three or four turned into concerts.64

Kazak scholars identify the founding of the Kazak State Musical-Drama Theatre on 10 January 1934 as a signifcant turning point in the history of Kazak music.65 Whilst this superfcially indicated a turn towards professionalism, the evolution of professional music and theatre in Kazakstan emerged slowly.66 Shakhmet Khusainov again recollected that in 1934, when the Kazak Drama Theatre performed the musical production Aiman Sholpan for the frst time: There was no choirmaster, no director, no artistic director. [But] the actors did not give up. They wrote their own music … In the mornings they practised in the club of the Pedagogical Institute and in the evenings they practiced in the club of the Trade Union. All the while they practised without costumes, properties, and decorations.67

Seeing the poor condition of the arts in Kazakstan, the local and Soviet governments initiated a special plan to ameliorate native arts. Funds were soon invested in the arts in order to expand musical theatres, to build an opera house and musical college, and to invite Russian-educated composers to

Kazakstan to set scores based on Kazak music. In the vibrant period following these latest efforts – but before the defnitive experiment of the Kazak dekada (ten-day festival) of national art in Moscow in 1936 – two major figures shaped Kazak national music: Akhmet Jubanov and Evgenii Brusilovskii. A native of northern Kazakstan, Akhmet Jubanov graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1932 and returned to Alma-Ata to apply his education to the development of Kazak music. He was invited in 1933 to oversee the small musical college (renamed the Kazak Music and Drama College), which offered courses in folk instruments, vocal music, piano, and orchestral (i.e. string and wind) instruments. Before his arrival, the college almost closed due to the Russian professors' scepticism and poor knowledge of Kazak folk instruments.68 In addition to his academic work, Jubanov founded the Kazak state orchestra, based exclusively on local instruments, which created a new space for national musical culture within a uniquely Kazak sphere.69 At the same time, the Union of Composers in Leningrad commissioned Evgenii Brusilovskii to undertake research and to teach at the Kazak Music and Drama College. Rena Moisenko described this as part of a larger project: 'For the frst few constructive years, Russian Soviet composers, scientists and technicians stood in 'loco parentis' to the musicians of non-European Union Republics.'70 As there was a great deal of official support for this type of musical production, within two years Brusilovskii wrote the frst of two operas for Kazakstan: Kïz Jibek [The Silk Maiden] and Jalbïr (a famous Kazak revolutionary). When they were finally brought to the Moscow stage, Platon Kerzhentsev, director of the All-Soviet Committee on Art Affairs, enthusiastically endorsed his work: 'It is worthy to mention that the young composer Brusilovskii brought Kazak melody to the European orchestra quite well. Many young composers would do well to follow this example and accomplish such useful work.'71 The work of Jubanov and Brusilovskii during this period provided a lasting infuence on Kazak music that became evident in the frst dekada of Kazak Literature and Art in Moscow. Their artistic leadership helped crystallise a modern interpretation of folk music that led to the formalisation of Kazak national music. The dekada represented the ideal opportunity for these composers to explicate their understanding of Kazak culture as a response to socialist realism and to the active interest and support of the Kazak government.

Modern nations on stage Starting in 1936, dekady were held in Moscow to promote the development of Soviet nationality arts following the first five-year plan and the initiation of the Stalinist Cultural Revolution.72 Beginning with the Ukrainian troupe, all the major non-Russian official nationalities presented their arts and culture on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.73 In February 1936, the Kazak government embraced the Soviet plan to bring Kazak arts to Moscow.74 Critics argued that 'the festival was not for artistic reasons or to show the development of the arts but to cover up its naked political objectives and ignoble relationship towards the oppressed peoples'.75 Another critic asserted that 'such "parades" – the festivals of national art of the Soviet republics – always appear fying the banner of "gratitude" by the particular national group in question to the party, the government, and its leaders for their "happy life".'76 The dekada thus seemed to legitimise Soviet imperial aggression and the subjugation of so-called autonomous regions, but such polarising terms obscure the actual complexities and realities of the situation. Rather than a simple example of the subjugation of the Kazaks, the first dekada of Kazak Literature and Art in Moscow in May 1936 served as the culmination of the effort to create a national space for the Kazaks. Three hundred Kazak actors, dancers, musicians, poets and writers descended upon Moscow for the festival starting on 17 May 1936. Artists from the Kazak State Musical Theatre and the National Orchestra of the Kazak Philharmonic, as well as popular writers and singers, composed the delegation from Kazakstan.77 Music functioned at the very centre of the festival and inspired great excitement in the Moscow media.78 Izvestiia ran a full-page layout including articles on music by Temirbek Jurgenev, the Kazak Commissar of Enlightenment; on history by Sanjar Asfendiarov, the pre-eminent scholar of his day; on the most prominent writer, Saken Seifullin; and on the exhibits of Kazak cultural artefacts associated with the festival by Andrei Bubnov, Commissar of Enlightenment.79 Not to be outdone, Sovetskoe iskusstvo also ran a two-page spread entitled, in Kazak and Russian, 'Brotherly Greetings to the Artists of the Kazak People', and even Stalin, Molotov and Zhdanov attended the opening ceremonies at the Bolshoi Theatre.80 The festival was designed to show the 'progress' and evolution of Kazak art

since the Bolshevik Revolution.81 It comprised improvisational concerts by akïns (see above), poetry readings, and presentations of old folk songs, as well as the new musical theatre. The festival also highlighted the two new Kazak operas, Kïz Jibek and Jalbïr. Musicians revealed the simplicity, precision, short form, liveliness, and joie de vivre of the music of the south and northwest, alongside the soft and sincere lyrics, narratives, and epics of western Kazakstan. Boris Asafev, the leading Soviet music critic, commented that Kazak music 'radiates a multitude of intonational hues from the soft lyrics to the dramatic saturated epic'.82 Due to the rich regional variation of local styles, the success of the festival depended on the construction of a unifed national style. As Rena Moisenko asserted: these Festivals, or 'Decades' [were] deemed necessary for the creation of true Soviet citizens, for the knitting together of the vast State, because they bring to European Soviet Russia the music, ideas and costumes of peoples from all the corners of Soviet land, and give the westernised population an opportunity to understand other nationalities.83

From this Union of Composers' perspective, the evolution from an impe- rial instinct to collect and classify ethnographic subjects to a multinational approach that sees nations as part of 'the vast State' became clearer. From the perspective of the 'other nationalities', the festival provided an opportunity to prove that their national culture effectively expressed the international messages of socialism. As James von Geldern has shown, festivals were used by the state to legitimise tenuous authority and to create a myth of the revolution that could unify society, while Karen Petrone has investigated the signifcant role Soviet celebrations played in the dissem- ination of political ideas during the 1930s.84 But these events were more than just a means of propaganda, they engaged the population in a public spectacle in order to educate them. The opening performance of the festival was clearly intended to re-create the visual and musical experience of the steppe. At the beginning of the festival, the curtain opened to reveal the scene of the aitïs: i.e. dombïra players competing and experimenting with various traditional styles.85 The aitïs played a particularly important role in the culture of the Kazak steppe, and akïns could only become famous if they performed well in such competitions.86 Short segments of the two new Kazak operas, Kïz Jibek and Jalbïr, and the sampling of traditional Kazak folk songs, set the tone for the cultural exhibition. One spectator observed: [When the orchestra played] we were in the steppe. In the distance snow-covered mountains turned

blue. The river fowed calmly, like a song. It was a celebration. Singers, musicians, story-tellers, and the dancers of the Kazaks came together on the village courtyard.87

It was noted by the same observer that 'Sarïarka [The Golden Steppe] was the name of the song that brought everyone together. The musicians played without notes, but even then the orchestra sounded together, expressive, and free in their performance of Kurmangazï's song.'88 Immediately following the first performance, Moscow papers praised the 'progress' of Kazak national art. Platon Kerzhentsev, who oversaw the events, declared: 'Kazak musical theatre has only been around for three years, but its performance shown in Moscow refects that it may be boldly compared with the performances of the other nationalities of the Soviet Union.'89 He also confirmed that 'the successes the Kazaks have achieved in such a short amount of time make the correct path clear. They established their own art on the foundation of the national epic as well as rich and diverse songs.'90 The process of converting Kazak folk music into a European musical system in terms of notation and style made the music more palatable and the messages more accessible. Hence, a spectator noted: The Kazaks have significantly lifted their musical culture by appealing to the European symphonic orchestra, but not dropping their national instruments. On the contrary, they assembled a variety of national instruments and created a harmonious and sonorous large orchestra, which is able under the directorship of Akhmet Jubanov to translate to the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre the lyrical song [Kïzil bidai] and even the more difficult Kobik shashkan.91

While the centrality of traditional forms remained, the spontaneity of Kazak instrumental pieces disappeared upon conversion into orchestral movements and opera. There was, however, an effective blending of traditional steppe music and instruments with a European sense of harmonising and staging: Above the steppe hung the lithe voices of women, a little guttural and a little sad. There was a desire to fnd the eyes of the singers, but there were no singers. Singing in unison [were] the narrow-necked violins dried in the sun … [or] kobïz.92

The kobïz, an instrument traditionally reserved for the religious rites of shamans, was therefore transformed into an instrumental mass choir. A comprehension of the problems involved in incorporating Kazak music into the European tradition makes us question the observation of the French novelist and scholar Romain Rolland: Just like you, I was struck by the strength of the touching mood of the Aksak-Kulan legend and by the colourful and enthusiastic melody that adorns the steppe … I was surprised also by the fact that the melodies ceased to be strange to me. I fnd them, after all, related to European music, perhaps not as it is today but as it was before cultivated music stifled the folk quality in it.93

These remarks, republished for an English-language newspaper in Moscow,

suggest the commonality of Kazak folk musical forms. However, they overlook the European-inspired editing process of Kazak folk music, which began with its collection and continued through its interpretation by the Kazak national folk orchestra. As noted, the national Kazak music festival centred on the two new operas by Brusilovskii that were based on Kazak folklore. Kïz Jibek relates the epic tale from the seventeenth century of a young woman caught in a love triangle, while Jalbïr portrays the modern tale of heroism in the 1916 uprisings in Kazakstan. The operas departed from a European defnition of opera, for as L.I. Goncharova observes: 'Kïz Jibek, like the later Jalbïr, is an opera of dialogues arranged with alternating conversational dialogues and musical numbers.'94 Gaziza Jubanova went as far as to suggest that they did not completely correspond to the classical canon of opera, lacking extensive arias and a genuine ensemble and choir; and there was nothing positive to say about the ability to symphonise. But aside from this, it was a valuable musical production with surprisingly poetic themes and wonderful original popular melodies.95

The operas were built on the structure of the aitïs because this form was more familiar to the actors.96 Despite their aesthetic insufficiencies as formal operas, though, the official music review stated that The Kazak music, as shown in Kïz Jibek and Jalbïr, made the impression of huge signifcance and emotional diversity. Any so-called gourmet who hopes to charm the so-called primitives was disappointed: here was a developed, emotionally clear melody and amazingly rich rhythm.97

Brusilovskii's operas demonstrated the artistic values of national Soviet music. The Soviet view maintained that 'national music is, first of all, idiomatic – a faithful reproduction of the very essence of that national spirit (and sound) which distinguishes it from all others'.98 Following this ethic, Brusilovskii's operas played an important role in the cultivation of a distinct national style from strong regional variations. In response to the shift from Zataevich's ethnographic studies that objectified native peculiarities to a state musical institution that consciously embraced a singular national music, Varvara Dernova later remarked: 'The triumphal success of Kazak opera at the Festival of Kazak Art and Literature in Moscow in 1936 obstructed and neglected Zataevich's many years of work on Kazak songs; and the compositional school in Kazakstan emerged without his influence.'99 The expression of national consciousness thus assumed greater importance in Soviet Kazak music than ethnographic objectivity, and as such Zataevich was not invited to the 1936 festival. Kïz Jibek was first staged at the Kazak Music and Drama Theatre on 7

November 1934 and gained recognition as the first Kazak opera.100 The opera tells the story of a Kazak bride and the triumph of traditional love over tyranny.101 The narrative begins with Tulegen searching for true love across the steppe rather than accepting his parents' arranged marriage. Tulegen travels across the steppe to fnd Kïz Jibek, the 'Silk Maiden', and obtains her consent to marry him. Tulegen then returns home to gain approval from his parents and prepare for the wedding, but his father refuses to allow it. Tulegen is unswayed by his parents' wishes and sets out alone to meet his bride. Along the way, he meets another suitor of Kïz Jibek, Bekejan, who kills him. Kïz Jibek then transfers her love to Tulegen's younger brother Sansïzbai and exacts revenge on Bekejan. The love story ends with the union of Sansïzbai and Kïz Jibek. In Mukhtar Auezov's estimation: '[Kïz Jibek] appears as an epic form of folklore where the customs and moral principles of the ancient life of Kazak nomads are clearly represented'.102 The opera espouses the tradition of amengerstvo, a pre-revolutionary Kazak law stating that the widow must marry one of the husband's male relatives a year after the husband's death. The Kazak audience was familiar with the themes of this popular story and recognised the emotions and characters of the drama. The Soviet audience additionally perceived the theme of class struggle. In the opera, Bekejan symbolises the wealthy and oppressive feudal lord who aims to exploit the populace and subjugate the Kazak people. Kïz Jibek rejects his brutish love for the true love of Tulegen and its extension through Sansïzbai. The idealization of Kïz Jibek as a heroine is common in Kazak epics, as well as in many Turkic epics.103 The opera entirely consists of traditional Kazak folk songs. The love story is replicated through the folk song of 'Gakku', which relates a traditional love parable. The opera includes the familiar traditional Kazak instrumental works: Kos baraban, Tolkïma, Kok kobelek, Algaraikok, Sarï moiïn, Aksak kulan, Ulken oraz, Raushan, Madi, Abai Kunanbaev's Kor boldï, janïm, and Mukhit Meraliev's Duniiai. The direct incorporation of these works reflected a strong motive to maintain a traditional musical form. At the same time, the careful arrangement of these instrumental pieces into the operatic form of epic legend demonstrated a commitment to reinterpreting traditional folk music. This opera did not necessarily provide a cultural symbol through which to unite the Kazak populace; instead it represented an effort by the Union of Composers to ensure that Soviet nationality culture evolved along common lines.

Jalbïr was first performed at the Kazak Music and Drama Theatre on 7 November 1935 for the fifteenth anniversary of the creation of the Kazak state. The hero was, as noted, based on a real-life revolutionary who led a group of rebels against the tsarist labour conscription in 1916.104 There are two major elements in the story: first, the popular uprising against the state and, second, the love story between Elemes and Kadisha.105 The libretto begins at a wedding at which Jalbïr's brother, Elemes, falls in love with Kadisha while she laments the fate of Kazak women and the tradition of being sold to men whom they do not love. At the height of the festivities, the mullah and village elder announce that the Russian Empire has initiated a policy of labour conscription in the region by 'Order of the White Tsar'. The guests immediately seek the advice of Jalbïr, who initiates a struggle against the local officials in their support of the Tsarist government. In the meantime, the elders condemn Kadisha for her strong criticism of the treatment of women and they cut off her braids. Jalbïr's rebels, in the meantime, burn down the house of Saim and destroy the conscription records, in turn freeing Kadisha. As the struggle continues, armed rebels confront the local regiment without the support of the Alash Orda, the progressive local government and early rival to the socialists in Kazakstan. The wealthy elite as well as Jalbïr's brother Elemes are eventually killed. Kadisha dies of a broken heart, but the masses continue their struggle. Jalbïr attained a higher state of operatic refinement than Kïz Jibek . It is consciously based on the poem Elimai [My Country], which provides a clear patriotic reference and expresses the melancholy fate of the Kazak land and people. By using Elimai, the opera also echoed the plight of the Kazak people as they suffered under the Jungar invasions of the eighteenth century. It was because of these attacks that the Kazaks allied with the Russian Empire for protection against the invaders from Eastern Turkestan. Observers would have understood the melodic connection of Elimai to the contemporary theme of 1916: once again allying with Russia against the 'oppressive' forces of capitalism confronting the steppe.106 Elimai thus appeared as the leitmotif for the entire opera.107 The text of the song assumed the form of the traditional koshtasu,108 a kind of farewell song, and refected the despair of being driven from their ancestral lands: A caravan is marching from the heights of the Karatau … How hard it is to bid farewell to our native land. Tears stream from dark eyes … What times we must live in! Oh, the times of misery!

The tears from my eyes from seas and lakes. Oh, what times of hardship! Happiness and riches have forsaken us. Dust rises from the wandering caravan, Worse than the icy storms of December.109

In order to draw conclusions about the impact of the opera, we must examine the dual effort to apply socialist realism and to develop a more systematic symphonic form. It is important to understand that socialist realism served as more than protest against miserable conditions and national oppression; the opera had to inform, enlighten, and take on the forms of familiar music and legend. The opera succeeded in conveying the necessary political messages while remaining true to familiar Kazak themes and characters. In Jalbïr, Brusilovskii established a consistent musical motif and introduced choral features that demonstrated a striking progression towards modern operatic forms, but these innovations never ignored the importance of Kazak folk music. Although some modifications of musical notation and expression were influenced by European styles, these operas were not implicitly Russifed. Just before the festival, members of the Institute of Nationalities met to address the problem of Russian infuence in nationality music. Semen Dimanshtein, the director of the Institute, argued that musicians representing the nationalities should not focus on European styles, but translate their opera into their native language, study and master their historical past, and re-create this culture in the 'challenging conditions of the present'.110 He also suggested integrating Western and native instruments. Aleksei Ogolovets was more open in fearing the dangers inherent in mechanically translating 'Western music' in the 'east'.111 These sentiments counter the common belief that Russifcation became necessary for the stability of the state.112 In fact, these operas reflect a remarkable ability to maintain distinctive musical and historical characteristics while under the influence of great pressure by both the Kazak government and Kazak musical institutions to replicate accepted European and Russian patterns of music. The success of these operas revealed the efficacy of establishing Kazak national symbols at the centre of the nation-building process whilst bowing to the larger cultural modernisation campaign. If Brusilovskii's operas symbolically confrmed the national status of Kazakstan in the world of Soviet music, then the icons of Kazak national music were the akïn and jïrshi (the epic storytellers). Articles associated with

the festival were at pains to link the performers of traditional songs (the akïns) and their new role as socialist agitators: 'Today's akïn is a local newspaper, a mass organiser of Soviet society in the aul, a denouncer of enemies of the people, and the most popular and honoured person in the aul.'113 Traditional cultural representatives were transformed into symbols of the new Soviet Kazak state. The best example of this process exists in the elevation of Jambïl to a national icon. Although traditionally glorifed by the Soviet press as the hero of Kazak music and Soviet poet from the steppe,114 Jambïl was little more than a public creation designed to demonstrate the diversity of socialist form and vast love for Stalin.115 Dmitrii Shostakovich's supposed memoirs, as recalled by Solomon Volkov, provide the most complete account of the Jambïl affair. He does not reveal his source, but we can assume it was Evgenii Brusilovskii.116 Shostakovich claims that: Dzhambul Dzhabayev may have been a good man, but he was no poet. I suppose he might have been, but no one cared, because the so-called translations of the nonexistent poems were written by Russian poets and they didn't even ask our great folk singer for permission. And if they had wanted to ask they couldn't have, because these translators didn't know a word of Kazakh and Dzhambul didn't know a word of Russian.117

Shostakovich then goes on to criticise the process of 'creating' national artistheroes at all cost: People will say that none of this is typical, and I'll reply: Why not, it's very typical. There's nothing here against the rules; on the contrary, everything followed the rules, everything was as it should be. The great leader of all the peoples needed inspired singers from all the peoples, and it was the state's function to seek out these singers. If they could-n't find them, they created them, as they did with Dzhambul.118

He also describes how a journalist travelling the Kazak steppe reported a socially progressive poem written by a local akïn. When the editors wanted to know more about the origins of the poem, they learned that it was a ruse. Nevertheless, the poem was attributed to Jambïl anyway because he was photogenic.119 Jambïl therefore became a convenient cultural institution in Kazakstan; the state used his symbolic status as an akïn and elder to promote cultural linkages among Soviet nations. The myth even claimed that his musical creative ability was re-energised and inspired by collectivisation!120 At the festival, Jambïl fulfilled the important role of Kazak cultural ambassador. No other Kazak writer or musician enjoyed his status in the Soviet Union, as the poems written in his name were readily available in Russian, and his noticeable beard and old age made him a distinctive member of the Kazak delegation. The poem Moia rodina, attributed to Jambïl, was

particularly lauded and promoted, and one can get a feel for its message in just a few lines: In the name of Lenin our hearts beat! In the name of Stalin happiness arrived! In the name of Stalin the steppe blossomed!121

Jambïl's authenticity did not matter, because the state needed a model artist for Kazaks to emulate, and his status as a legitimate akïn and respected elder helped establish his importance in a culture that highly esteemed these attributes. The state presented an ideal citizen integrated into a national culture and underlined the readiness of the Kazak nation to be validated as a republic. The final concert of the dekada on May 23 1936 offered a broad view of the musical arts and culture of Kazakstan. Poets and musicians engaged in competitions (aitïs), wrestling, games, dances, songs, and solo instrumental pieces (küi).122 The fnale highlighted the work of the forty-strong Kazak National Orchestra. It was led by Akhmet Jubanov and played the Kazak classics, such as Kurmangazï's Sarïarka, Adai, Serper, Balbïraun, Kobik shashkan, as well as the newer Kïzïl bidai.123 An examination of some of these instrumental works reveals the sentiment of the concert. Kobik shashkan [Foam and Sprays ], for example, was composed following the disastrous foods of the Caspian Sea in the nineteenth century, and the music evoked a sense of the confusion, shouts, tragedy, and despair of the displaced and distressed communities of Kazaks by the sea. Sarïarka [Golden Steppe] was composed as Kurmangazï's farewell to the steppe. Harassed by the tsarist government, he was forced to leave his home and to wander, this instrumental piece testified to the limitless expanses of the steppe: full of the heroes, songs, and legends that he loved. These works refected the dynamic national dialogue of the Kazaks. The festival created a unifed national image by drawing from diverse themes in the cultural history of Kazakstan, and Jubanov's use of the more contemporary Kizil bidai [Red Wheat] concluded with a telling missive: 'Alapa kulai, aka-ai!' ('Seek knowledge, and don't lag!'). Contemporary and historical forms were juxtaposed throughout the concert. Reinhold Glière alluded to some of them when he noted: The last brilliantly successful performances by the Kazak State Musical Theatre, built on the foundation of popular works, demonstrate one of the paths of the Soviet composer. This path leads to the creation of works in the style of socialist realism.124

Through this official rhetoric, national consciousness expressed through a state-sponsored cultural medium thus became the object of socialist realism.

The Soviet audience also played a role in Kazak national development. Their role as spectators refected the validating and critiquing process of the Soviet state apparatus. Platon Kerzhentsev observed: 'The play of Kazak singers was marked by great simplicity, naturalness, and deep emotionality. It is not surprising that many scenes of Kïz Jibek and Jalbïr brought a reaction from the audience, even through an unintelligible language.'125 Other spectators enjoyed the 'novelty' and 'beauty' of the performance.126 The ultimate achievement of the dekada, however, was realised by transcending the role of an ethnographic subject and becoming a valid Soviet nationality culture. Hence, Kerzhentsev's concluding remarks: The successes of the Kazak opera and the Kazak ensemble were the new joyous evidence of the stature of the culture of this people, put in place by favourable conditions thanks to Leninist national politics. We know a lot about Kazakstan and its success in the realm of socialist construction, but only through Kazak music, through Kazak art, can we begin to understand the character of the heroic and gifted Kazak people.127

The Kazak government hailed the success of the Kazak artists upon their return from Moscow.128 At a self-congratulatory meeting held in September 1936 where the government planned the artistic strategy for the next year, it was concluded that: the festival demonstrated that the socialist art (national in form, socialist in content) of the Kazak people had achieved a high level. The Kazak musical theatre, ignoring its youth, showed itself as a high-art theatre.… One of the greatest successes of the decade was the principal role and meaning of the akïns. The local organisation took note of the need for systematic work among the akïns and the collection of their work, which is rich with folklore and has great popular agitation factor that could be useful to us.129

The 1936 Festival of Kazak Literature and Art therefore represented a complex blending of national and super-national elements of Soviet realpolitik. This strategy demonstrated a deliberate attempt to establish a cultural base through which to promote Kazak national identity. Soviet policy utilised music as the ideal traditional medium through which to articulate Kazak nationality. Moreover, pro-worker, pop-opera, and mass dance themes presented socialist realism as a legitimate aesthetic that reached deep into the collective consciousness of the Kazaks. The careful blending of these elements allowed Kazakstan to ascend to the Soviet stage and to establish the 'fresh breath of the rich culture of Kazakstan'130 as a new national culture. While the nation-building programme in Kazakstan suffered Soviet standardisation, the festival legitimised the unique nature of the Kazak cultural 'nation' in the same year that Kazakstan attained the status of a full constituent republic. Just as the Kazaks had transcended their role as

ethnographic subjects, they now become nominal masters of their own nation.

Notes I am grateful to Natalie Rouland, Richard Stites, Laura Adams, James Class, and the history kruzhok at Stanford University for helpful comments and suggestions. A draft of this essay was presented at the Third Annual Conference of the Central Eurasian Studies Society meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. Research was funded by the International Research and Exchanges Board and the American Council's ACTR/ACCELS programme with funds provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Information Agency, and the US Department of State, which administers the Russian, Eurasian, and East European Research Program (Title VIII). 1 M. Auezov, 'Kazakhskaia muzyka', in Izvestiia, 21 May 1936, p. 4. 2 With regard to transliteration, I generally used a Russian transliteration system as Kazak is written with the Cyrillic alphabet. However, I chose the blending of the English and Continental 'j' and 'ï' because it is less cumbersome and more distinctive than the Russian 'dzh,' 'zh', and 'y'. For the same reasons, I used 'k' and 'g' for both hard and soft forms of the letters. These choices were made in order to make Kazak spelling more accessible to a Russian scholarly audience while maintaining a degree of Kazak distinction. During the period under Lenin and Stalin, the official name for the Kazak state underwent several transformations. First, in 1920 the territory that became Kazakstan was known as the Kirgiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Then, in 1925 the 'Kirgiz' was changed to 'Kazak' to better refect the historical and ethnic differences between the Kyrgyz (of the mountains) and Kazaks (of the steppe). Lastly, the 'Kazak' was changed to 'Kazakh' in 1936 as the territory evolved into the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic offcially in order to refect 'the native pronunciation', but in reality it was to draw a greater distinction between the Russian words for Cossacks ('Kazak') and Kazaks ('Kazakh'). 3 W. Malm, The Music Culture of the Pacifc, the Near East, and Asia, 3rd edition (Princeton: Prentice Hall, 1996), p. 112. 4 By 'popular culture', I mean traditional folk culture that had popular appeal and participation, rather than commercial popular culture. 5 B. Erzakovich, 'Narodnyi pesni Kazakhstana', in Izvestiia Akademii nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, Seriia iskusstvovedeniia, vyp. 1, 1950, p. 29. There is a wide literature on the role of the akïns (itinerant poetcomposers) as the keepers of the spiritual and ethnic culture of the steppe. See, for example, A.A. Asankanov, Akïndar zhane manashlar: kyrgyz elinin rukanii madaniiatyn tuzuuchulor zhana saktoochular (Bishkek, 1999). 6 See M. Karataev, Ot dombry do knigi (Moscow, 1969); and M. Auezov, 'Kazakhskaia muzyka', in Izvestiia, 21 May 1936, p. 4. 7 Important more recent works on the studies of nationality include B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); E.J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); M. Hroch, Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); and A. Smith, The Ethnic Origin of Nations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986). The study of nationalism through music is one area in which we can take advantage of recent research in the felds of post-modern and post-colonial studies, such as C. Dalhaus, 'Nationalism in Music', in Between Romanticism and Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); M. Frolova-Walker, 'National in Form, Socialist in Content: Musical Nation-Building in the Soviet Republics', in Journal of the American Musicological Society, 2, 1998, pp. 331–71; R. Taruskin, Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); and P. Wade, Music, Race, and Nation: Musica Tropical in Colombia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). 8 R. Brubaker, Reframing Nationalism: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); R.J. Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); T. Rakowska-Harmstone, 'The Dialectics of Nationalism in the USSR', in Problems of Communism, 3, 1974, pp. 1–22; Y. Slezkine, 'The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism', in Slavic Review, 2, 1994, pp. 414–52; R.G. Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1994); and R.G. Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993). 9 Even the most recent general works on Central Asia continue to emphasise the lack of national identity in the region before the Soviet 'divide-and-conquer' stage. See, for example, O. Roy, The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000); and P.G. Geiss, Nationenwerdung in Mittelasien (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995). 10 D. Brandenberger, 'National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956' (Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, 2000); A. Edgar, 'The Creation of Soviet Turkmenistan, 1924–1938' (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1999); F. Hirsch, 'Empire of Nations: Colonial Technologies and the Making of the Soviet Union, 1917–1939' (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1998); S. Keller, To Moscow not Mecca: The Soviet Campaign against Islam in Central Asia, 1917–1941 (Westport: Praeger, 2001); A. Khalid, The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); T. Martin, An Affirmative-Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001); P. Michaels, 'Shamans and Surgeons: The Politics of Health Care in Soviet Kazakhstan, 1928–1941' (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1997); D. Northrop, 'Uzbek Women and the Veil: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia, (Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University, 1999); M. Payne, Stalin's Railroad: Turksib and the Building of Socialism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001); and J. Smith, The Bolsheviks and the National Question, 1917–1923 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999). 11 G. Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923–1934 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 2–3, 33–37, and 107–20. 12 See G. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). 13 N.A. Baskakov and R.G. Kuzeev (eds), Razvitie iazykov i kul'tur narodov SSSR v ikh vzaimosviazi i vzaimodeistvii (Ufa, 1976); G. Estraikh, Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); W. Fierman, Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Experience (New York: Mouton, 1991); R. Masov, Istoriia topornogo razdeleniia (Dushanbe, 1991); S. Shermukhamedov, Na iazyke edinstva (Tashkent, 1991); and M. Smith, Language and Power in the Creation of the USSR, 1917–1953 (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998). 14 The Kazak Constitution of 1924 established both Russian and Kazak as official languages of the state. 15 J. Stalin, 'Marxism and the National Question', in Works, 2 (Moscow, 1953), pp. 300–81. 16Ibid., p. 307. 17 M. Saroyan, 'Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia', in R.G. Suny (ed.), Transcaucasia, Nationalism, and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 404. Note also T. Martin, op. cit. 18 Stalin uses this phrase to describe the multinational state when he introduces the 1936 constitution, in Pravda, 26 November 1936, p. 2. For more details on the displacement of the concept, see T. Martin, pp. 432–42. 19 V.I. Lenin, 'The Tasks of the Youth Leagues', in Selected Works, 3 (Moscow: Progress Press, 1971), pp. 470–83. 20 M. Saroyan, p. 405.

21 For an in-depth discussion of the policy of korenizatsiia, see T. Martin, pp. 172–81. 22 For similar shortcomings, see ibid., pp. 182–84. 23 J. Stalin, p. 307. 24 M. Saroyan, pp. 405–6. 25 J.G. Herder, Ueber die Würkung der Dichtkunst auf die Sitten der Völker in alten und neuen Zeiten (1778), VIII, p. 433. 26 C. Dalhaus, op. cit. 27 M. Frolova-Walker, pp. 338–39. 28 S. Akiner, The Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-State (London: Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1995), pp. 38–39. 29 A. Olkhovsky, Music under the Soviets: The Agony of Art (New York: Praeger, 1955), p. 265. 30 Ibid. 31 Gleichschaltung in this sense can be translated as 'an elimination of opponents'. 32 See, for example, F. Miller, Folklore for Stalin: Russian Folklore and Pseudofolklore of the Stalin Era (London: M.E. Sharpe, 1990); K. Petrone, Life Has Become More Joyous, Comrades: Celebrations in the Time of Stalin (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000); and J. von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals, 1917–1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 33 R. Scruton, The Aesthetics of Music (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 478. 34 Early sources on Kazaks generally use the term 'kirgiz' to describe them. In fact, sources on Central Asia consistently confuse Kirgiz and Kazak until the Soviets officially differentiated between the two in 1925. 35 TsGARK (Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakstan), f. 693, op. 1, d. 1, l.1. The name was changed in 1925 to Society for the Study of Kazakstan. 36 This was not the first such study. The collecting and classifcation of traditional Kazak culture and songs by Russian trained ethnographers began with Chokan Valikhanov in the mid-nineteenth century. M. Rouland, 'Chokan Valikhanov and the Russian Intelligentsia: Reform and Enlightenment in Midnineteenth Century Russia', in Otan Tariki, 2, 1999, pp. 21–31. Valikhanov was followed by a host of geographers and ethnographers in the late-nineteenth century who recorded and transcribed Kazak folk songs and epics. 37 R. Moisenko, Realist Music: 25 Soviet Composers (London: Meridian Books, 1949), pp. 30–31. 38 A. Zataevich, 1000 pesen kirgizskogo naroda (Orenburg, 1925), p. xi. 39 V.P. Dernova, A. V. Zataevich i Kazakhskaia narodnaia muzyka (Avtoreferat, kand. isk., Leningradskaia Konservatoriia, 1960). 40 Quoted from ibid., p. 8. 41 G. K. Kotlova, 'Priemy var' irovaniia v fortepiannoi p' esakh A. V. Zataevicha', in Muzykoznanie, 5 (Alma-Ata, 1971), p. 153. 42 V.P. Dernova, p. 6. The document she mentions is available in GTsMMK (The Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture) f. 6, inv. 1. 43 The Society for the Study of Kazakstan organised a series of concerts of Kazak music led by Zataevich at the Polytechnical Museum in Moscow in 1923–24. Zataevich also published fve series of 'Kazak Songs in the form of Miniatures on folk themes for the piano' from 1923 to 1927 in Leningrad and Moscow. Moreover, he played an important role in preparing Amre Kashaubaev to perform with other artists from the Soviet Union in Paris at the International Exposition of Decorative and Modern Industrial Arts in 1925 and in Frankfurt at the International Music Festival ('Music in the Life of the Nation') in 1927. 44 I. Levitskaia, Zhivye dragotsennosti (Alma-Ata, 1976), p. 142. 45 V.S. Vinogradov, Muzyka sovetskogo vostoka: ot unisona k polifonii (Moscow, 1968), p. 216. Grigorii Liubimov founded the first professional orchestra of the four-stringed dombïra in Petrograd in 1919. The Kazak dombïra, though, traditionally has two strings. 46 See F. Oinas, 'The Political Uses and Themes of Folklore in the Soviet Union', in idem (ed.),

Folklore Nationalism & Politics (Columbus: Slavica Publishers, 1978), pp. 77–95. 47 I. Sokolov, Russkii fol'klor (Moscow, 1938), p. 111. 'Soviet folkloristics [sic]', he continued on the same page, 'has promoted the opening of the agitational and propagandist signifcance of folklore. And therefore Soviet folkloristics [sic] has frmly linked itself with the practical tasks of our public lives.' 48 TsGARK f. 847, op. 1, d. 1, l. 1; Orenburg rabochii, 1 April 1923. 49 M. Nemchenko, Natsional'noe razmezhevanie Srednei Azii (Moscow, 1925). 50 See A.A. Gordienko, Sozdanie sovetskoi natsional'noi gosudarstvennosti v Srednei Azii (Moscow, 1959), p. 168. 51 R.B. Suleimenov and Kh.I. Bisenov, Sotsial'nyi put' kul'turnogo progressa otstalykh narodov (Alma-Ata, 1967), pp. 140–43. 52 The akïn is a traditional Kazak poet-composer who travelled from village to village. They gained fame for their musical improvisational abilities honed to a high level in 'steppe-music' competitions called aitïs. 53 Ibid., p. 145. For a general discussion of the early years of Kazak theatre, see G. Sharipova, 'Kazakhskii teatr', in I. Shukhov (ed.), Kazakhstan: sbornik khudozhestvennykh ocherkov (Alma-Ata, 1940), pp. 488–503. 54 Ibid., p. 500. 55 As part of the re-districting in Central Asia, the Kazak capital was moved from Orenburg to AkMechet (later named Kïzl-Orda). The capital was then moved in 1929 to Alma-Ata. 56 Carole Pegg offers a similar account of the process in Mongolia. C. Pegg, Mongolian Music, Dance, and Oral Narrative: Performing Diverse Identities (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001), pp. 253–283. 57 For an account of the political repression among native elites in the 1920s and 1930s, see L.D. Kuderina, Genotsid v Kazakhstana (Moscow, 1994). Zh. Abylkhozhin, Traditsionnaia struktura Kazakhstana (Alma-Ata, 1991) is still the most complete account of the urbanisation and collectivisation drives of the 1920s in Kazakstan. 58 M. Auezov (ed.), Istoriia Kazakhskoi SSR, vol. 2 (Alma-Ata, 1959), p. 347. 59 See the discussion in N. Edmunds, The Soviet Proletarian Music Movement (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000), pp. 289–97. 60 Sovetskaia muzyka, 1, 1934, p. 3. 61 V. Iokhelson, 'Tvorcheskaia diskussia v Leningrade', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 4, 1936, pp. 5–15; quoted in R. Taruskin, 'Public Lies and Unspeakable Truth', in D. Fanning (ed.), Shostakovich Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 33. 62 See the debates in APRK (Archive of the President of the Republic of Kazakstan) f. 141, op. 1, d. 6209, l. 33–36; APRK f. 141, op. 1, d. 6212, l. 32–39; and APRK f. 141, op. 1, d. 6213, l. 74–75. 63 The Kazak state statute 'O meropriiatiakh po podgotovke natsional'nykh muzykal'nykh-teatral'nykh kadrov', TsGARK f. 30, op. 6, d. 19, l. 404–406 and 'O meropriiatiiakh po razvitiiu natsional'nogo iskusstva', APRK f. 141, op. 1, d. 6560, l. 130–131. 64 Sh. Khusainov, 'Rozhednie kazakhskoi opery', in I. Shukhov (ed.), p. 512. 65 Ibid., p. 514. 66 There was a trend by Soviet scholars to erase the pre-Soviet cultural past of the Kazaks and deny the continuity between feudal and socialist artistic expression. Edward Allworth's pioneering study on Soviet theatre in Central Asia shows that native culture had a strong tradition before the onset of Soviet cultural infuence, despite Soviet claims otherwise. E. Allworth, 'The Beginnings of the Modern Turkestanian Theater', in Slavic Review, 4, 1964, pp. 676–687. Allworth argued that despite claims that professional artists came only with Soviet education, the roots of Kazak opera can be found in the street performing singers of sal and sere. Although cast out by the secular and religious elite, they performed lyrical poetry and songs at bazaars, auls, and on the steppe. Soviet sources, however, maintained that 'Soviet Kazakstan began from practically nothing.' Article celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of the Kazak Autonomous Republic in 1935 quoted in A. Nazarov, 'Prazdnik Kazakskogo naroda', in Pravda,

25 October 1935, p. 1. 67 Sh. Khusainov, 'Rozhednie kazakhskoi opery', in I. Shukhov (ed.), p. 513. 68 B. Gizatov, Akademik Akhmet Zhubanov: Zhizn' i tvorchestvo (1906–1968) (Alma-Ata, 1972), p. 21. 69 A full account of the development of the Kazak orchestra can be found in B. Gizatov, ibid., pp. 40– 73; and B. Gizatov, Ot kiuia do simfonii (Alma-Ata, 1976), pp. 30–41. Jubanov studied Russian folk orchestra at the Leningrad Conservatory, and his orchestra is based on the Russian folk instrument orchestras that emerged in the 1920s and 1930s. For a study on the Russian folk orchestra, see E. Maksimov, Orkestry i ansambli russkikh narodnykh instrumentov: istoricheskie ocherki (Moscow, 1983). An interesting contemporary account is available in K.S. Alekseev, Kak organizovat' ansambl' massovykh strunnykh instrumentov v derevne (Moscow, 1936). 70 R. Moisenko, p. 33. 71 P. Kerzhentsev, 'Kazakhskoe iskusstvo', in Pravda, 24 May 1936, p. 4. For more information on the career of Platon Kerzhentsev, see R. Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 155–159. 72 A list of the festivals ( dekady) and their dates is as follows: Ukraine (11–21 March 1936); Kazakstan (17–25 May 1936); Georgia (5–15 January 1937); Uzbekistan (21–30 May 1937); Azerbaidzhan (5–15 April 1938); Kirgizia (26 May–4 June 1939); Armenia (20–29 October 1939); Belorussia (5–15 June 1940); Buriat-Mongolia (20–27 October 1940); and Tadzhikistan (12–20 April 1941). 73 Two articles reveal the official enthusiasm for the Ukrainian art festival: Anon, 'Mastera ukrainskogo iskusstva v Moskve', in Teatr i dramaturgiia, 4, 1936, p. 229; and K. Kuznetsov, 'Ukrainskaia opera v Moskve', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 4, 1936, pp. 16–20. However, they contrast with the émigré musicians' account of events. See, for example, H. Kytasty, 'Some Aspects of Ukrainian Music under the Soviets', in Research Papers on the U.S.S.R., vol. 65 (New York, 1954). 74 There is a detailed discussion of plans and concerns for the festival in APRK, f. 141, op. 1, d. 10682a. 75 H. Kytasty, p. 34. 76 A. Olkhovsky, p. 266. Note also J. Brooks, Thank You Comrade Stalin: Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); and K. Petrone, op. cit., on the wider implications of 'banners of gratitude' and 'happy lives'. 77 It included Eleubai Umurzakov, Kuliash Baisetova, Kanabek Baisetov, Kormanbek Zhandarbekov, Kalï bek Kuanïshbaev, Akhmet Jubanov, Evgenii Brusilovskii, Saken Seifullin, Ilias Zhansugurov, Mukhtar Auezov, Sabit Mukanov, and Beimbet Mailin amongst others. 78 The Moscow papers in May 1936 were full of articles about Kazak culture and art. They included G. Togzhanov, 'Prazdnik kazakhskogo iskusstva', in Literaturnaia gazeta, 1 May 1936, p. 2; Zh. Shanin, 'Prazdnik kazakhskogo iskusstva', in Vecherniaia Moskva, 8 May 1936, p. 3; A. Zataevich, 'Kazakhskie pesni', in Izvestiia, 10 May 1936, p. 4; G. Sharipova, 'Baimbet Mailin', in Literaturnaia gazeta, 10 May 1936, p. 4; K. Altaiskii, 'Akyny Kazakhstana', in Literaturnaia gazeta, 10 May 1936, p. 4; M. Auezov, 'Kul ' tura vozrozhdennoi strany', in Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 11 May 1936, p. 1; 'Artisty Kazakhskogo naroda', in Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 17 May 1936, p. 1; and A. Gaiamov, 'Rozhdenie iskusstv', in Vecherniaia Moskva, 19 May 1936, p. 3. 79 Izvestiia, 17 May 1936, p. 3. 80 Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 May 1936, pp. 2–3. Literaturnaia gazeta ran its two-page spread welcoming the Kazak artists as well on 15 May 1936, pp. 2–3. When the medals were awarded and the Kazak delegation left, Pravda ran its entire front-page tribute on 27 May 1936 under the title 'Iskusstvo pobedivshego naroda'. See also Izvestiia, 21 May 1936, p. 1 and 'Dekada Kazakhskogo iskusstva v Moskve', in Teatr i dramaturgiia, 6, 1936, p. 382 for other glowing tributes. 81 The use (or overuse) of the word razvitie or 'progress' in scholarly literature should be questioned. In the Soviet Union, the predominant idea of historical development required that 'feudal' or 'backward' peoples like the Kazaks needed to pass through a stage of national development before they could reach

socialism. Literacy, building economic infrastructure, national literature and culture were therefore all part of the socialist nation-building project. 82 B. Asaf'ev, 'Muzyka Kazakhstana', in Muzykal'naia kultura Kazakhstana (Alma-Ata, 1955), p. 6. 83 R. Moisenko, p. 34. 84 J. von Geldern, op. cit.; and K. Petrone, op. cit. 85 The word comes from aitu (to speak or talk), literally meaning a 'conversation'. The dombïra has two strings, tied on frets and usually tuned to the fourth string (sometimes the fifth). Dombïra pieces are set in continuous two-part polyphony where the melody is played on one string and the drone is played on the other. The music is made through strumming both strings. 86 M. Auezov, 'Kazakhskii epos i dorevoliutsionnyi fol'klor', in L. Sobolev (ed.), Pesni stepei: antologiia kazakhskoi literatury (Moscow, 1940), pp. 15–16. 87 Pravda, 25 May 1936, p. 4. 88 Ibid. 89 P. Kerzhentsev, in Pravda, 24 May 1936, p. 4. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid. 92 Pravda, 25 May 1936, p. 4. As an ancient two-stringed instrument with a bow, the kobïz is considered an ancestor of the violin. 93 Quoted from Moscow Daily News, 15 May 1936, p. 1. Rolland wrote to Zataevich after reading his A Thousand Songs of the Kazaks. P.V. Aravin et al. (eds.), A. V. Zataevich: issledovaniia, vospominaniia, pis'ma i dokumenty (Alma-Ata, 1958), p. 275. 94 L. I. Goncharova, 'Kyz Zhibek', in A. Zhubanov (ed.), Ocherki po istorii kazakhskoi sovetskoi muzyki (Alma-Ata, 1962), p. 38. 95 G. Zhubanova, Mir Moi – Muzyka, vol. 1 (Almaty, 1997), p. 20. 96 For more information on the structural significance of the aitïs in Kïz Jibek, see A. Omarova, Traditsiia aitysa i kazakhskaia opera: Brusilovskii E. G. 'KyzZhibek' (Almaty: 1993). 97 N. Kuznetsov, 'Kazakhskii muzykal'nyi teatr v Moskve', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 7, 1936, p. 54. 98 R. Moisenko, p. 32. 99 V.P. Dernova, p. 14. 100 There are eleven recorded versions of the legend. See B.G. Erzakovich, Muzykal'noe nasledie kazakhskogo naroda (Alma-Ata, 1979), p. 14 for the precise classifcation of each version. Gabit Musrepov wrote the libretto, and Evgenii Brusilovskii composed the music for the version presented as the first Kazak opera. 101 A basic description can be found in A. Zhubanov (ed.), Ocherki po istorii kazakhskoi sovetskoi muzyki (Alma-Ata, 1962), p. 37. For a more complete description, see L. Sobolev (ed.), Pesni stepei: Antologiia kazakhskoi literatury, pp. 92–107. 102 M. Auezov, Mysli raznykh let (Alma-Ata, 1961), p. 437. 103 T.G. Winner, The Oral Art and Literature of the Kazakhs of Russian Central Asia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1958), p. 75. 104 The author of the libretto is Beimbet Mailin, who personally knew Jalbïr and his friends, and the composer is Evgenii Brusilovskii once again. Recently, more archival information has become available on 1916. See, for example, the two-volume collection, M. Kozybaev (ed.), Kaharlï 1916 jïl: Groznyi 1916-i god (Almaty, 1998). This work, however, provides no mention of Jalbïr. 105 A. Zhubanov (ed.), Ocherki po istorii kazakhskoi sovetskoi muzyki, pp. 48–49. 106 A good visual representation of this threat as it concerns Mongolia is described in Pudovkin's film Potomok Chingis-khana [Storm Over Asia, 1929]. 107 K. Jandarbekov wrote the version of the song used in the opera, and great efforts were made to avoid ruining the original popular appeal and sense of the songs. A. Zhubanov (ed.), Ocherki po istorii kazakhskoi sovetskoi muzyki, p. 51. According to Jubanov, this illustrates the serious effort to include a symphonic element in one of the first Kazak operas. Ibid., p. 53.

108 'Koshtasu' means 'to bid farewell'. It is often used in epics to express farewell to one's native land, loved ones, or even horses. T.G. Winner, p. 42. 109 Quoted from ibid. It can also be found in Kazak and Russian in T. Zhumalieva and A. Temirbekova (eds.), Istoriia kazakhskoi muzyki, vol. 1 (Almaty, 2000), p. 85. 110 'Khronika', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 6, 1936, pp. 72–73. As well as director of the Institute of Nationalities of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, Semen Dimanshtein was deputy secretary of the Council of Nationalities and editor of Revoliutsiia i nationalnosti. 111 Ibid., p. 73. 112 For one example, see G. Liber, p. 152. 113 G. Togzhanov, 'Prazdnik Kazakhskogo iskusstvo', in Literaturnaia gazeta, 1 May 1936, p. 2. An 'aul' is a village. 114 G. Ormanov, 'Den' Dzhambula', in I. Shukhov (ed.), pp. 504–10. 115 Despite (or possibly because of) his place as a mouthpiece for the state, Jambïl's infuence in Kazak music remains unsubstantiated despite the praice. In her account of Brusilovskii, Rena Moisenko, for example, claims that Jambïl had a particular infuence on Brusilovskii's work. R. Moisenko, pp. 56–62. For more specifc studies on Jambïl, see: M.I. Festisov, Dzhambul Dzhabaev: zhizn' i tvochestvo (AlmaAta, 1946); N.S. Smirnov (ed.), Tvorchestvo Dzhambula: stat'i, zametki, materialy (Alma-Ata, 1956); E. Ismailov, Akyny: monografiia o tvorchestve Dzhambula i drugikh narodnykh akïnov (Alma-Ata, 1957); M. Duisenov, Dzhambul i sovremennoe narodnoe tvorchestvo (Alma-Ata, 1975); N. Torekulov (ed.), Dastan ata: Jambïl Jabaev turalï (Almaty, 1989); and S. Sadyrbaev, Fol'klor jane Jambïl (Almaty, 1996). 116 Brusilovskii was also a student of Maximillian Steinberg and in the year below Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatory. Shostakovich also refers to his source as a sort of 'courtly musician', which Brusilovskii certainly was for Kazakstan. 117 S. Volkov (ed.), Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, trans. A. Bouis (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 209. 118 Ibid., pp. 210–11. 119 Ibid., p. 211. 120 R. Moisenko, p. 58. 121 Dzhambul, 'Moia rodina', in Pravda, 7 May 1936, p. 3. 122 A general description of the concert can be found in Z. Dikovskii, 'Kazakhskii kontsert v Bol'shom teatre', in Pravda, 25 May 1936, p. 4. 123 A. Jubanov, Kazaktïn kalïk kompozitorï Kurmangazï (Alma-Ata, 1936). Jubanov predictably selected the songs of Kurmangazï after the recent publication of his collected works. For a deeper discussion on the infuence of Kurmangazï in Jubanov's work, see Z. Kospakov, Kazaktïn anshilik oneri (Almaty, 1999), pp. 165–83. 124 R. M. Glière, 'Sokrovishchnitsa muzykal'nogo tvorchestvo', in Pravda, 26 May 1936, p. 4. 125 P. Kerzhentsev, 'Kazakhskoe iskusstvo', in Pravda, 24 May 1936, p. 4. 126 See the Stakhanovite letter by K. Volkov, quoted in A. Zhubanov (ed.), Ocherki po istorii kazakhskoi sovetskoi muzyki, p. 61. 127 P. Kerzhentsev, 'Kazakhskoe iskusstvo', in Pravda, 24 May 1936, p. 4. 128 At the end of the competition, numerous Kazaks were awarded prizes. Kuliash Beisetov was named an artist of the Soviet Union, while Kuliash Baisetova, Saken Seifullin, Eleubai Umurzakov, Kurmanbek Jandarbekov, and Temirbek Jurgenev received the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. Kanabek Baisetov, Evgenii Brusilovskii, Manarbek Erjanov, Serke Kojamkulov, Kalibek Kuanïshbaev, Uriia Turdukulova, Shara Jandarbekova, and Akhmet Jubanov also received the Order of the Badge of Honour. When Jambïl was given an award for his contribution to Soviet arts, he extolled: 'he was not the one being honoured, but the national poetry of Kazakstan', in N. Kuznetsov, 'Kazakhskii muzykal'nyi teatr v Moskve', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 7, 1936, p. 53. 129 TsGARK, f. 1242, op. 1, d. 40, ll. 17–20.

130 N. Kuznetsov, 'Kazakhskii muzykal 'nyi teatr v Moskve', in Sovetskaia muzyka, 7, 1936, p. 52.

11 Uzeyir Hajibeyov and his role in the development of musical life in Azerbaidzhan

Matthew O'Brien On 18 September every year, Azerbaidzhan celebrates its annual Music Day and the opening of the new theatre and concert season. The date is chosen because it is the birthday of Uzeyir Hajibeyov (1885–1948), a composer who is venerated among Azeris as the founder of the nation's classical music tradition.1 Yet Hajibeyov is almost unknown outside Azerbaidzhan, and what reputation he had did not survive the end of the Soviet Union. Indeed one would be hard pressed to fnd a better example of a composer so highly thought of in his own country, but yet so little known internationally. While musicologists such as Stanley Krebs and Marina Frolova-Walker have to differing degrees acknowledged the debt owed to Hajibeyov for the development of Azeri music, the true extent of this debt has never been fully appreciated, and some Western writers have ignored Hajibeyov altogether. He does not, for example, warrant a single mention in Boris Schwarz's monumental Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917–1981. One of the aims of this essay is to redress the balance and discuss the achievements of Hajibeyov's varied career and its huge impact on Azeri culture. In doing so, I aim to show why Hajibeyov transcended the ideological battles of the past to remain one of Azerbaidzhan's favourite sons. Critical attitudes towards Hajibeyov over the past sixty years will also be examined with particular reference to some of the misconceptions that certain authors working outside of the former Soviet Union have about Hajibeyov both as a man and as a composer.

The pre-Soviet period Uzeyir Hajibeyov was born on 18 September 1885 in the small mountain village of Aghjebadi. Shortly after his birth, the Hajibeyov family moved to Shusha where Rena Moisenko notes that the young Uzeyir received little schooling, because of the poor roads and the difficulty in reaching Baku as a result.2 But later writers have preferred to emphasise the importance of Shusha, one of the leading centres of Azeri culture, as providing a 'creative cradle' for the young boy.3 In 1899, Hajibeyov entered the Teachers' Seminary at Gori where he learnt to play violin, cello and various folk instruments, as well as performing in the school choir.4 It was also at this time that Hajibeyov began his lifelong research into folk music. In 1905, having completed his studies at Gori the previous year, Hajibeyov moved to Baku where he worked as a teacher and translator. At the same time, he also started writing newspaper articles and satires criticising social attitudes of the time, particularly the position of women in society. Amongst others he contributed articles to the newspapers and journals Irshad, Kaspii [Caspian], Molla Nasraddin, and Yeni Igbal [New Destiny]. Of these journals, Molla Nasraddin was a particularly influential publication that covered many of the important social and political issues of the time. It was especially well known for championing women's rights and the then radical idea of education for all irrespective of class and gender. At the same time the journal castigated conservative elements in Azeri society, such as the Muslim clergy, as well as members of the intelligentsia who were scornful of Azeri culture and language.5 Many of the issues that were raised in journals such as Molla Nasraddin can later be found in Hajibeyov's stage works, especially the musical comedies O Olmasin Bu Olsin and Arshin Mal Alan (see below). It was while earning a living as a writer and translator that Hajibeyov conceived the ambitious plan to compose a specifcally Azeri opera. The problems facing Hajibeyov in this undertaking were many, not least his own lack of compositional experience and technique. It is fair to say that when Azerbaidzhan was backward in terms of a classical music tradition compared to its neighbours Armenia and Georgia. Armenia had a number of composers who were actively researching their nation's rich musical heritage and attempting to construct a national school of composition, such as Tigran Chukhadzhian (1837–1898), Khristofor Kara-Murza (1853–1902), Makar

Yekmalian (1856–1905), Nikolai Tigranian (1856–1951), and most famously Komitas (1869–1935).6 Georgia also had a number of composers working on their own musical traditions, including Andrei Karashvili (1857–1924), Meliton Balanchivadze (1862–1937),7 Zakhari Paliashvili (1871–1933), and Dmitrii Arakishvili (1873–1953). Moreover, Georgia had its own branch of the Russian Music Society (RMS) based in Tifis that was presided over at different times by conservatory-trained Russian composers like Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov and Nikolai Klenovskii.8 The RMS school in Tifis offered the chance of professional training for aspiring local musicians, the most talented of whom could then be sent to the conservatories in St Petersburg and Moscow.9 In contrast to Armenia and Georgia, there were no professional composers in Azerbaidzhan prior to Hajibeyov, and neither was there any kind of educational infrastructure in place to train any. Hajibeyov was primarily selftaught as a composer, and what little formal musical education he had received was, as noted, provided by the Gori Seminary in Georgia. Nevertheless, on 12 January 1908, his opera Leyli va Majnun [Leyli and Majnun] was premiered at the Taghiyev Theatre in Baku. This was an event that would have far-reaching implications for the cultural development of Azerbaidzhan. Leyli and Majnun was not only the frst opera by an Azeri composer, but also the Islamic world's frst opera. In addition to composing the music, Uzeyir co-wrote the libretto with his younger brother Jeyhun. The brothers based their version of the story of two doomed lovers that resembles Romeo and Juliet (but predates Shakespeare's play) on a sixteenth-century adaptation of the legend by the poet Fuzuli. However, to describe Leyli and Majnun as an opera, in the traditional Western sense of the word, would be quite wrong. The work contains lengthy sections based on traditional Azeri mugams (i.e. modal structures) sung in the traditional mugam style and accompanied by the tar, a traditional Azeri stringed instrument similar to the lute. Hajibeyov suggested to the performers the type of mugam he felt was appropriate for different sections, and then allowed the musicians to improvise as they saw ft. In contrast to these mugam sections, the opera also contained lengthy passages for more traditional (i.e. Western) orchestral forces and choir. The genre of mugam opera was thus born, but it was only after the work had been performed several times that as complete as possible a version of the score was published. Not only was the composer of Leyli and Majnun effectively an amateur, but

so were many of the original cast. The singer who played the role of Majnun, Huseingulu Sarabski, worked at a water distribution centre in Baku, for example. Finding someone to play the heroine Leyli proved particularly difficult, because according to Islamic tradition, Muslim women were not allowed to perform on the stage. Nor could Hajibeyov cast a Russian woman in the role because she would have been unable to sing the mugams correctly, and eventually a young waiter called Abdulrahim Farajev was persuaded to play the part.10 That Hajibeyov managed to overcome these difficulties was a very real achievement. The standard Soviet version of these events claimed: 'that such a thing had been done in the days of tsarism, when all national manifestation was rigorously suppressed, showed how energetically the 22 year old composer toiled to render Azerbaidzhan[i] people conscious of their national heritage'.11 In truth, Hajibeyov almost certainly met more resistance from certain sections of the local Azeri population than from the tsarist authorities in their attempts to suppress the Russian Empire's national cultures. Prominent amongst Hajibeyov's opponents were members of the local religious authorities and the ultra-conservative gochis, the local Baku mafa. According to one source, Huseingulu Sarabski was even attacked the day after the premiere by order of a local mullah as a result of his role in the opera.12 As with all of Hajibeyov's works, Leyli and Majnun is hardly known in the West except by reputation (i.e. written about but never heard), and even its reputation is dogged by inaccuracies and prejudices. For example, Calvocoressi, one of the frst musicologists to mention Hajibeyov, mistakenly describes Leyli and Majnun as 'a play, the incidental music of which consisted of native tunes without much elaboration'.13 This though is more a case of mistaken identity than anything else. More serious are the more recent charges brought against mugam operas, and therefore by association the genre's creator, by Marina Frolova-Walker. Frolova-Walker notes that while Armenia and Georgia had produced their first operas prior to the Revolution, Azerbaidzhan 'could claim only a much more modest achievement – the socalled mugam opera, a string of loosely connected solo improvisations'.14 She also describes the effect of mixing a Western operatic style with traditional mugam performance as producing 'startlingly incongruous effects'.15 One of the few Western writers to express a balanced opinion on Leyli and Majnun is Stanley Krebs, who describes the work as 'still the closest to a truly

Azerbaidzhanian opera any composer has written'.16 This is an important point, because Hajibeyov's work was not just the first Azeri or Muslim opera; it was also the first opera that attempted to incorporate the ideals of Western opera with traditional Eastern ways of music making. It is quite different from the majority of operas that came out of Transcaucasia. Works such as Alexander Spendiarian's Almast (1918–28) and Zakhari Paliashvili's Absalom and Eteri (1909–1918) were more an attempt to create a traditional Western opera based on the idioms and intonations of Armenian and Georgian indigenous musics respectively. Whilst musically more acceptable to Western ears, these works lack the elements of fusion, however 'incongruous' they may seem, that makes Leyli and Majnun sound so fresh, original and innovative. The apparent incongruity of mugam opera has therefore from a Western perspective at least resulted in an incomprehension of Eastern forms of music. The mugam and Eastern aspects of Leyli and Majnun appear undiluted and not dressed up in the kind of European clothing applied by a composer such as Reinhold Glière or even Hajibeyov himself in later works like Koroghlu. In lacking such treatment, mugam opera leaves itself open to the charge of crudity and a lack of sophistication. Admittedly, Hajibeyov's compositional technique at the time was not particularly advanced, as one would expect in light of his background and lack of training. But the sections of the opera that can be described as mugam are extremely complex in places as Hajibeyov skilfully interweaved not only different mugam modes, but also other traditions of Middle Eastern music making, such as the shabekh and destan.17 However, Aida Huseynova claims that Frolova-Walker, by deriding mugam operas, 'fails to grasp the mixed nature and true intent' behind Leyli and Majnun.18 An attitude like Marina Frolova-Walker's has guaranteed that the genre of mugam opera remained almost totally unknown outside Azerbaidzhan. Ironically, mugam opera was later seen as representing bourgeois elitism by Soviet ideo logues, a view that even threatened the genre's existence in Azerbaidzhan itself (see below). Not all of Hajibeyov's early compositions can strictly be described as mugam operas. His third stage work, Sheikh Sanan, written in 1909, was Hajibeyov's first attempt to compose in a more European style. It included arias, choruses, recitatives, and was scored for a full symphony orchestra without folk instruments. The short lifespan of this work highlights some of the problems that Hajibeyov faced in the performance and reception of some of his earlier

work. According to Ramazan Khalilov, for many years Hajibeyov's personal assistant, Hajibeyov could not fnd a choral ensemble competent enough to sing the parts he had written. He therefore had to visit the local Jewish synagogue, and ask its choir to perform in the opera.19 Sheikh Sanan was also one of Hajibeyov's most progressive works in terms of its social and moral message. Its plot tells the story of a sheikh who falls in love with the daughter of a Georgian swineherd. The sheikh eventually renounces his own religion and disciples in order to be with his beloved, but opposed by his disciples and the girl's family, the couple are forced to fee into the mountains. The plot of the opera in advocating interracial relationships and the importance of true love over one's religion was too much for many Azeris, who simply got up and left during the performance in protest. Indeed the local reaction was so hostile that Hajibeyov decided to destroy the score, but he later reused much of the music in his Koroghlu .20 No doubt dissatisfied with his own musical training, Hajibeyov enrolled at a music school in Moscow in 1911 and received private lessons from Nikolai Ladukhin and Nikolai Sokolov. His letters at this time describe the struggles with debt and creditors that Hajibeyov and his wife, Maleyka, faced. He was forced to pawn personal items in order to pay the rent, including his violin and his wife's jewellery, and they could not even attend the theatre and concerts because they could not afford the clothes. Hajibeyov consoled himself, though, with the knowledge that Wagner had also suffered much poverty during his stay in Paris.21 In 1913, Hajibeyov enrolled at the St Petersburg Conservatory where he began studies in harmony with Vasilii Kalafati. However, Hajibeyov left the Conservatory the following year due to a lack of funding.22 His unhappy experiences as a student in Moscow and St Petersburg, coupled with his own lack of opportunity for study in his native land, would later fuel his desire to create a proper system of musical education in Azerbaidzhan itself. Despite opposition from certain groups within Azerbaidzhan and his povertystricken circumstances while studying in Russia, Hajibeyov was extraordinarily prolifc in the fve years following the premiere of Leyli and Majnun. It was during this period that he composed the operas Sheikh Sanan (1909), Rustam va Sohrab (1910), Shah Abbas va Khurshid Banu (1911), and Asli va Karam (1912). With the exception of Sheikh Sanan, all these works were based on a development of the style first used in Leyli and Majnun, and can be described as mugam operas. In addition, Hajibeyov also completed

three musical comedies: Ar va Arvad [Husband and Wife] (1909), O Olmasin Bu Olsin [If Not That One, Then This One] (1911) and Arshin Mal Alan [The Cloth Peddler] (1913). Hajibeyov's reason for working in the genre of musical comedy was, he claimed, due to a strong belief in the power of music and a desire to castigate the social and everyday life vices by means of music, to reflect by music the struggle of the progressive forces of the Azeri intelligentsia against stagnation and ignorance.23

We can therefore view these works as an extension and continuation of Hajibeyov's earlier satires that had been published in various Baku newspapers prior to his career as a composer. At this stage in his career, Hajibeyov either wrote his own librettos, or they were written in collaboration with his brother Jeyhun.24 The librettos themselves are important both in terms of Hajibeyov's career as a composer and writer, and as social documents reflecting many of the issues that were being debated in publications like Molla Nasraddin. Many of these issues were related to the position of women in society, in particular arranged marriages and veiling. For example, in both Ar va Arvad and O Olmasin Bu Olsin, the groom mistakenly marries the wrong person because the bride is veiled. They also both feature heroines who are bartered like property by either their father or husband, but who eventually outwit the men to come out on top. Yet while Hajibeyov's espousal of women's rights is central to both Ar va Arvad and O Olmasin Bu Olsin, the satirical elements of both librettos are more wide-ranging in their treatment of wider issues in Azeri society. Marjan Bey in Ar va Arvad, for example, is a self-proclaimed nationalist, but cannot help sprinkling his conversation with Russian words and phrases to show off his 'intelligence'. O Olmasin Bu Olsin, on the other hand, contains a dinner party scene in which each guest represents a different aspect of Baku society at the time. They include Mashadi Ibad, a traditional Azeri who is uneducated and sticks stubbornly to old-fashioned values; Gochu Askar, a Mafoso type racketeer; Reza Bey, a Pan-Turkist whose mixture of spoken Azeri and Ottoman Turkish is hardly understood; and Hasan Bey, an alcoholic, westernised Azeri who speaks an equally incomprehensible mixture of Azeri, French and Russian.25 Of the musical comedies, Arshin Mal Alan rivals Leyli and Majnun and the later Koroghlu with regard to popularity in Azerbaidzhan. The plot is based on Hajibeyov's memories of life in Shusha and deals with the quest of Asgar, a wealthy young merchant, to fnd a wife. In a time and place when most

marriages were arranged Asgar wants to choose his own wife. He has the right to examine other goods before purchasing them, so why should he not get to examine a potential wife beforehand? Unfortunately, due to the custom of veiling women and keeping them segregated from male society, Asgar finds it difficult to meet the woman of his dreams. On the advice of his friend, Suleyman, Asgar resorts to subterfuge and disguises himself as a poor itinerant cloth peddler, a disguise that gives him access to the women's quarters of the Sultan Bey. There he meets and falls in love with Sultan Bey's daughter, Gulchohra, and after a number of incidents, including an abduction scene, Asgar and Gulchohra along with three other couples are finally married in the work's joyous conclusion. Described by one writer as a work of 'hopefulness and optimism', Arshin Mal Alan clearly advocates the right of people to choose their own future husband or wife.26 It was this progressive social message that led to critics in the Baku press charging Hajibeyov with 'sending our girls down the wrong path'.27 One of his most vociferous detractors, the critic A. Akhliyev-Mamedov, in attacking Arshin Mal Alan even wrote that: 'if we bring up our children on musical comedies, the end result can be nothing but Sodom'.28 Hajibeyov himself in an article on Arshin Mal Alan written in 1938 also admitted that the work was critical of aspects of Islam and its traditions, but defended himself by arguing that at the time of the work's composition, Azeri women were 'deprived of even the most elementary human rights'.29

The Soviet period Hajibeyov's prolifc period that began with Leyli and Majnun ended with the composition of Arshin Mal Alan. Events of a wider political and military significance were then to overtake him, and for numerous reasons he would never again attain the same levels of creativity. The declaration of war between Russia and the Axis powers in 1914 was shortly to be followed by a declaration of war between Russia and Turkey. The main theatre of the war was eastern Turkey and the southern Caucasus. The October Revolution then sparked a conflict that was often based on ethnic and religious ties between various political parties and the Bolsheviks. We know very little about Hajibeyov's movements at this time except that he was a member of the Musavat Party, which played a leading role in the short-lived Azerbaidzhan Democratic Republic (ADR), and he wrote the ADR's national anthem. One source has also claimed that during this period Hajibeyov wrote a number of newspaper articles, often under various pseudonyms, in which he attacked the tsarists and Bolsheviks.30 While there is no strong evidence to support this claim, it would certainly account for the lack of information about this period of Hajibeyov's life in Soviet sources. Whatever Hajibeyov's links to the opposition to the Bolshevik takeover of the ADR, one can only assume that he was soon on good terms with the new government. This is the impression given in light of the sheer breadth of his involvement in the organisation of Azeri musical life over the next few decades. From the early 1920s, Hajibeyov was to hold a number of increasingly important official positions within the cultural and political life of what was to become the Azerbaidzhan SSR. If Hajibeyov's earlier opposition to the Bolsheviks was true, it is at first glance difficult to explain the apparent volte-face in Hajibeyov's attitude to Soviet rule. There are, though, a number of factors that could be taken into account. First, Hajibeyov had been involved in the opposition to the Soviet takeover, and many of his former colleagues in the Musavat Party, like his brother Jeyhun, were in exile abroad or had met their deaths when Azerbaidzhan lost its independence in 1920. It is therefore quite probable that Hajibeyov sensibly decided to err on the side of caution and make himself useful to the new regime. From the new regime's perspective, there was also only one real candidate when it came to finding someone to help organise the cultural life of the region. Such a

mutually benefcial arrangement thus suited both parties, however wary they might have been of each other. Second, it is possible that Hajibeyov did not entirely disagree with the Bolshevik agenda. The final emancipation of Muslim women, a subject close to Hajibeyov's heart, had after all occurred in the early years of Soviet rule in Azerbaidzhan. Third, according to Igor Boelza: 'the October revolution opened unheard of possibilities for the development of national cultures in the Soviet Union, and from that time he [Hajibeyov] could devote himself wholly to Azerbaidzhan music'.31 Whilst the first part of Boelza's statement did not always ring true, he is quite correct with regard to Hajibeyov and the development of music in Azerbaidzhan.32 Hajibeyov very astutely saw the opportunity to take advantage of the Soviet policy of bringing culture to the masses. In fact, Safarova describes the 1920s as the 'organisational years' in the history of Azerbaidzhan music, and credits Hajibeyov with being at the forefront of the movement to improve musical education in Azerbaidzhan.33 In 1922, Hajibeyov helped establish the Baku Music School, an institution that he himself would have benefted from had there been such a place in his youth. In 1926, the Music School was upgraded to become the Baku State Conservatory of Music, and Hajibeyov was appointed its permanent director twelve years later after heading its traditional music department. Due to the lack of sufficient local composers and musicians who were suitable for teaching posts, it was necessary for Hajibeyov, in a move reminiscent of the Rubinstein brothers the previous century, to invite a number of outsiders (i.e. Russian and especially Russian Jews) to fill the teaching positions. Ironically, one of those invited to come and teach in Baku was Georgi Sharoev, a pianist and the grandson of the great Anton Rubinstein, while another of the teachers Hajibeyov invited was the cellist Leopold Rostropovich, father of Mstislav Rostropovich. Composers who took up residence in Baku to teach at the Conservatory included Boris Karagichev (from 1922 and 1931), the Latvian-born Leopold Rudolf (from 1932 to 1938), and Boris Zeidman (from 1939 to 1957).34 Zeidman in particular was to play a major part in the education of Azerbaidzhan's future composers. Amongst his pupils were Suleyman Alasgarov, Fikret Amirov, Afasiyab Badabeyli, Sultan Hajibeyov, Jahangir Jahangirov, and Azer Rezayev. Consequently, one writer, in crediting Hajibeyov for encouraging this infux of teaching talent to Baku in the 1920s and 1930s, notes that: 'with superb trainers at the helm of our educational

system, we went from what might be called "zero level" to being able to compete at world class standards in a very brief period of about 30–40 years'.35 Hajibeyov also signifcantly contributed to the future development of Azeri music as a pedagogue. In addition to teaching many of the aforementioned composers, he also taught Kara Karaev, Jovdat Hajiyev, Niyazi, and Asaf Zeynally. Perhaps even more important, however, was the encouragement Hajibeyov gave to young Azeri women to take up a musical career. In 1934, just fve years after the chador (the veil worn by Muslim women) had been banned, the frst young Azerbaidzhani women began their studies at the Conservatory. Young women such as Aghabaji Rezayeva and Adila Huseinzade were actively encouraged by Hajibeyov to take up composition and became Azerbaidzhan's frst female, professional composers.36 Most studies of musical life in the Soviet Union in the 1920s quite rightly highlight the ideological battle between the politically militant Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians and members of the musically progressive members of the Association of Contemporary Music. These conflicts were mainly confined to the main musical centres of Moscow and Leningrad, but this is not to say that there were no ideological debates on the future of music taking place in the outlying republics. In Azerbaidzhan, for example, there was a lively debate during the 1920s as to what degree of Westernisation was acceptable in music. This debate was partly the result of the cultural tastes of Mustafa Guliyev, Azerbaidzhan's Minister for Education. Guliyev was a frm believer in the Westernisation (i.e. Russifcation) of Azerbaidzhan. In 1924, he turned his attention to the blossoming genre of mugam opera, criticising it for being bourgeois and provincial. His criticisms of mugam opera found support amongst certain sections of the populace. There was a sudden infux of letters in the local press from oil and rail workers demanding 'cultural modern opera or nothing' and that 'Turk opera must go', 37 and performances on traditional folk instruments such as the tar, kamanche and zurna came under attack. Local poets also became embroiled in the westernisation controversy. Suleyman Rustam, for instance, wrote: 'Stop tar, stop tar. You're not loved by proletar!', only to prompt Mikayil Mushfig's reply: 'Sing tar, sing tar! Who can forget you?38 One of the practical results of Guliyev's policy of westernising Azeri music was the commissioning of Reinhold Glière's opera Shakh Senem, which is often erroneously described as the first national opera of Azerbaidzhan.39 The

debate over the direction Azerbaidzhani opera should take led to the obsolescence of mugam opera as a viable musical genre. However, mugam operas survived in performance largely as a result of Hajibeyov's official successes in the late 1930s, and President Nasser of Egypt was entertained on the frst night of his state visit to Azerbaidzhan with a performance of Leyli and Majnun in 1957. Accompanying Nasser were members of the Azerbaidzhan Supreme Soviet. Leyli and Majnun was now perceived as an important cultural achievement, rather than as an embarrassing example of pre-Revolutionary bourgeois art.40 Conse- quently, later Soviet writers would brand the attacks on mugam opera during the 1920s as constituting 'a far from true Marxist dialectical attitude to the heritage of the past'.41 Hajibeyov's role amidst the controversies of the 1920s was as a unifying and conciliatory figure between the opposing factions. He played a large part in inviting Russian musicians to teach in Baku, and was thus certainly not averse to westernising Azeri music. It could be argued in fact that from Leyli and Majnun onwards, one of Hajibeyov's main aims was to modernise (and therefore westernise) Azeri music. Conveniently, this aim also happened to be in line with Soviet musical policy during the 1930s. Hajibeyov's attempts to westernise certain aspects of Azerbaidzhani music can clearly be seen in his work with various choral groups during the 1920s and 1930s. Azeri music was essentially monophonic, unlike that of the neighbouring Armenians and Georgians, and primarily performed by itinerant solo singers and instrumentalists (ashugs and khanandes). Choral music and polyphony was alien to Azeri musical traditions, but Hajibeyov had included it in Leyli and Majnun. The choruses in question were somewhat basic, partly as a result of his own limited technique at the time, and partly because of the quality of performers available to him. Hence, the aforementioned invitation to a Jewish chorus to perform in Sheikh Senan, because the local Azeri singers were not up to the task. Hajibeyov set about rectifying this defciency, however, when in 1926 he organised and trained Azerbaidzhan's first choir, and founded the Azerbaidzhan State Choir in 1936, a decision also infuenced by the desire to have a local ensemble capable of performing his new work, Koroghlu . It was no coincidence therefore that the writing for the chorus is noticeably more sophisticated in Koroghlu than in earlier works. While Hajibeyov was engaged in westernising certain aspects of Azeri music, he was also safeguarding the survival of the performance of traditional instruments and music. He made a systematic study of Azeri folk music in

the mid-1920s with Muslim Magomayev that resulted in numerous transcriptions of folk songs, which were published in 1927, and the book Osnovy azerbaidzhanskoi narodnoi muzyki [The Foundations of Azerbaidzhani Folk Music] (1945). Hajibeyov also founded an ensemble of folk instruments in 1931 for which he wrote a number of pieces, including the two fantasises Chahargar and Shur, and arranged a number of works by Western and Russian composers. Moreover, Hajibeyov helped ensure the survival of Azeri folk instruments by incorporating them into the traditional Western symphonic orchestra. Whilst he included instruments like the tar in nearly all of his works, it is in Koroghlu that Hajibeyov assimilated Azeri instruments into a European orchestra in the most sophisticated fashion. The choruses of Koroghlu give the work a rather Western feel, but there can be little doubt about the work's nation of origin in passages such as the Jangi [Warrior's Dance] with its full array of folk instruments. The incorporation of folk instruments into a symphonic orchestra would also become standard practice in Azerbaidzhan, although later composers were to go one step further and write concertos for solo folk instruments and orchestra.42 Hajibeyov was therefore involved in many aspects of musical life in Azerbaidzhan during the 1920s and early 1930s. However, he was not particularly prolifc as a composer in comparison to his pre-Revolutionary period, since much of his time was devoted to education. Apart from the aforementioned works for folk instrument orchestra, Hajibeyov also composed a trio for piano, violin and cello called Ashug saiaghi (1931). Furthermore, the only works of Hajibeyov that were being regularly performed at the time were his comedies Arshin Mal Alan and O Olmasin Bu Olsin, and even they were only staged in Azerbaidzhan. This perhaps explains why his profle, although high in his native Azerbaidzhan, was rather low in the Soviet Union and almost totally non-existent in the West. But the situation was to change dramatically in 1938 with the performance in Moscow of his new opera Koroghlu as part of the first dekada of Azeri National Art. The dekadas were ten-day festivals that had recently been organised to introduce Russian audiences to the culture of the other ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. At the same time they served the propaganda purpose of highlighting to the Western world the Soviet regime's celebration and supposed tolerance of nationality and ethnicity.43 Koroghlu can be regarded as the crowning achievement of Hajibeyov's career as a composer. The opera's libretto, written by Mammad Sayid Ordubadi in

close collaboration with the composer, tells the story of the Ashug Rovshan's rebellion against the oppressive local khans and beys after his father Ali had been blinded by Hasan Khan; hence, Rovshan's nickname of Koroghlu ('the blind man's son'). Undoubtedly the plot of Koroghlu helped the work gain official favour from the Soviet press and Party members.44 Anecdotal evidence suggests that a number of top Party officials approached Hajibeyov after the Moscow premiere and started to congratulate the composer. One official then suggested that he should compose a couple more operas like Koroghlu. The speaker, however, was interrupted by an emphatic 'No!' from no less a person than Stalin. This interjection resulted in Hajibeyov breaking out in a cold sweat in fear, but he needn't have worried, because after a long pause Stalin exclaimed: 'don't write a couple more, write two couples!'45 Hajibeyov certainly benefited from Stalin's approval of his work, and he was awarded a Lenin Prize for Koroghlu in 1938. The opera also won for the composer the newly inaugurated Stalin Prize in 1941, which amounted to nearly 50,000 roubles, and Hajibeyov became the first Azeri to be made a People's Artist of the Soviet Union in 1941. The high critical and political esteem that both Koroghlu and its composer were held in at the time is particularly well illustrated in a drawing (Plate 11.1) by an artist known only by his surname, Aleksich, dating from 1940. Based on Repin's The Barge Haulers, it depicted a number of leading Soviet composers of operas, including Prokofiev, Kabalevskii, Khrennikov, and Shaporin, but the composer chosen to lead the group with a tar in his hand was Hajibeyov. In conversation with Ramazan Khalilov, the artist claimed that Koroghlu was considered by many to be the best Soviet opera ever composed, and as a result Hajibeyov deserved his position at the head of the procession.46 Evidence has also recently come to light that suggests that Koroghlu not only increased Hajibeyov's reputation as a composer, but that it may also have saved his life. The opera was produced at the height of Stalin's Terror when the charge of Pan-Turkism or religious fundamentalism resulted in a number of intellectuals and cultural figures in Azerbaidzhan being either arrested and sent to the gulags or simply murdered. One victim of this purge was the poet Mikayil Mushfig, who like Hajibeyov had been a vocifierous supporter of the use of Azeri traditional instruments. The composer also feared for his own safety, and according to Rugiyia Rezhayeva, a former student of Hajibeyov, Mir Jafar Baghirov, one of Stalin's henchmen in Azerbaidzhan, asked Huseingulu Sarabski in 1937, who had performed Majnun in the premiere of

Leyli and Majnun, whether he should 'get rid of' Hajibeyov. Sarabski dissuaded Baghirov by saying that Hajibeyov

Plate 11.1 Drawing by Aleksich depicting leading Soviet composers with Hajibeyov at their head.

was needed to help organise and participate in the forthcoming Azeri Arts Festival in Moscow.47 Fortunately, the festival was a success, the threat to the composer receded, and Stalin personally authorised Hajibeyov's membership of the Party shortly after the Moscow performance of Koroghlu . The success of Koroghlu not only raised Hajibeyov's profle in the Soviet Union, but it also raised awareness of him in the West. Consequently, he received a mention in a number of publications dating from the 1940s. There are references to him in Vodarskii-Shiraeff's Russian Composers and Musicians (1940), Boelza's Handbook of Soviet Musicians (trans. Alan Bush, 1943), Calvocoressi's Survey of Russian Music (1944), and Moisenko's Realist Music (1949). With the exception of Boelza's work, however, these books all display a lack of accurate information on the composer. VodarskiiShiraeff, for instance, claims that Hajibeyov only became prominent as a composer after the revolution, and the only compositions she lists are Leyli and Majnun and Koroghlu.48 Despite devoting eight pages to Hajibeyov, Moisenko only refers to Leyli and Majnun and Koroghlu , and a cantata he wrote in 1947 for the 800th anniversary of the birth of the Azeri poet Nizami.49 One possible reason why Western authors were so poorly informed about the true extent of Hajibeyov's compositions prior to the October Revolution was because his works were still mostly unknown outside Azerbaidzhan. Moreover, Hajibeyov's work had also been ignored in other parts of the Soviet Union prior to the success of Koroghlu , despite the

official claims by the regime of its dedication to developing the cultures of the non-Russian nationalities. Only after the success of Koroghlu was it remembered how thirty years earlier Hajibeyov had composed Leyli and Majnun, but his other works were neglected. The situation changed in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s, however, and Hajibeyov found himself the man of the moment as earlier works, such as the musical comedy Arshin Mal Alan, were revived.50 The rehabilitation of Arshin Mal Alan was completed in 1944 when Stalin personally commissioned a film version of the work. Hajibeyov was too ill to adapt the original score for the cinema himself, but his nephew, the conductor Niyazi, carried out the task. The film proved a critical (and political) success, and Hajibeyov was awarded his second Stalin Prize in 1946. Arshin Mal Alan was undoubtedly one of the most famous films produced in Azerbaidzhan, and it launched the career of the popular singer Rashid Behbudov.51 The original comedy was well suited for adaptation to the big screen, and has been recently praised for the 'beauty, the refnement and the melodic wealth' of its music.52 The success of Arshin Mal Alan also contributed to the adaptation of another of Hajibeyov's early works, O Olmasin Bu Olsin, for the cinema in 1956. It was renamed Mashadi Ibad after its main character, and proved to be almost as popular as Arshin Mal Alan. When Hajibeyov succumbed to the diabetes that had plagued him in his later years and died in 1948, the seeds he had sown in laying the foundations of Azeri music and musical life had only just begun to blossom. A whole generation of composers, including Fikret Amirov and Kara Karaev, would shortly make their mark not only in Azerbaidzhan, but also in the rest of the Soviet Union and abroad. The experiments in adapting the mugam to Western musical forms that Hajibeyov began in 1908 with Leyli and Majnun would continue in the symphonic mugams of Amirov and Niyazi, and the art of mugam would later also be adapted to other types of music, most notably the mugam jazz of Vagif Mustafazade. Composers such as Amirov, Karaev, Sultan Hajibeyov, Jovdat Hajiyev, Haji Khanmammadov, Arif Malikov, and Niyazi would also go on to create an Azeri repertoire of symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and ballets. Moreover, the popularity of singers like Rashid Behbudov, who had had their frst successes performing Hajibeyov's music, would infuence songwriters, such as Tofg Guliyev, to compose for them and thus give birth to the genre of Azeri popular song.53 However, in the genres of musical comedy and opera, Uzeyir Hajibeyov still

reigns supreme almost a century after he composed his first stage work.

Conclusion Mikhail Glinka is often described as the 'Father of Russian Music', but Hajibeyov's achievement with regard to Azerbaidzhan far outshone that of Glinka in terms of Russia. While it is true that Glinka composed A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Ludmilla, two works that are seen as the beginnings of a specifc Russian school of music, his achievement is matched by Hajibeyov's stage works, which have influenced almost every Azeri composer who followed and are still a staple part of the repertoire in Azerbaidzhan. However, Glinka was not the first Russian composer, nor was he the frst Russian composer to compose music based on Russian subjects or traditional folk-song intonations. Hajibeyov was Azerbaidzhan's first composer, and the first to incorporate Azeri subjects and traditional folk melodies into his music. Stanley Krebs has also compared Hajibeyov to Komitas, but even he has to admit that Hajibeyov had 'no legacy of research, [or] no tradition upon which to build as Komitas'.54 Hajibeyov played a number of roles in the development of his nation's music. His importance as a composer can be compared to Glinka, his significance as an ethnomusicologist can be compared to Komitas, his importance as a teacher can be compared to Rimsky-Korsakov or Taneev, and his importance as an organiser of musical education can be compared to the Rubinstein brothers. It is therefore little wonder that Azeris recognise Hajibeyov as a uniquely creative individual whose infuence on the development of a national school of composition is incalculable.55 While Hajibeyov's reputation continues to grow in his native land, the opposite is true elsewhere, and he has gradually faded from Western consciousness since his death in 1948. There seem to be a number of reasons for this. First, Hajibeyov came to international prominence quite late in his career, and his success with Koroghlu was not followed with any major work of note. Between 1938 and his death eleven years later, Hajibeyov's output consisted of the cantatas Rodina i front [Motherland and the Front] and Pamiati Fizuli [Memories of Fizuli], and a number of wartime marches and songs. Hajibeyov has therefore been perceived as something of a 'one-hit wonder', despite the success in the Soviet Union of the cinematic version of Arshin Mal Alan, and his prolifc pre-1915 period. Hajibeyov's death in 1948 was also unfortunate in that it also came at a time when Western attitudes to

Soviet music were beginning to cool. During the 1930s and 1940s, Western musicologists took a particular interest in the application of Socialist Realism to music and the new 'national' schools of composition developing in the exotic republics of the Soviet East. This interest began to cool, however, after Andrei Zhdanov's attack on some of the Soviet Union's leading composers at the first conference of the Soviet Composers' Union in February 1948. As the Cold War intensifed, musicologists increasingly emphasised composers who were in conflict with, or who had suffered at the hands of, the Soviet authorities. Composers who were deemed to have found a working compromise with the regime were simply ignored or at best slandered, while composers from the Caucasian and Central Asian Republics were dismissed as provincial. Marina Frolova-Walker claims Hajibeyov personifed the failure of Soviet musical policy towards the nationalities, and that 'natives of the former Soviet republics and Russians alike consider most of this music dead and unworthy of revival', because it is 'tainted with Stalinism'.56 This is a reasonable assertion with regard to Hajibeyov in light of the close links he had with the Soviet regime, and how Stalin personally approved Koroghlu and Arshin Mal Alan. However, it is testament to Hajibeyov's standing in Azerbaidzhan that his music has transcended any associations he had with the Soviet regime and its ideology. This was clearly illustrated during the fnal days of the Soviet Union when thousands of Azeris took to the streets of Baku to campaign for independence to the strains of the overture to Koroghlu blaring out from loudspeakers.57 There is also now some hope for Hajibeyov's reputation being resurrected outside of Azerbaidzhan. The US-based magazine Azerbaijan International has recently set up the website www.hajibeyov.com in honour of the composer's memory, and released for the frst time on compact disc recordings of Hajibeyov's most important works, including Leyli and Majnun, Arshin Mal Alan, O Olmasin Bu Olsin and Koroghlu. Hajibeyov also made his debut on US National Public Radio on 26 May 2002 when excerpts from the aforementioned recordings were played, and Princeton University Radio broadcast the whole of Koroghlu on 16 June 2002. Hopefully in its own small way, this essay will also help enhance Hajibeyov's reputation outside of Azerbaidzhan.

Notes 1 I have decided upon the spelling of Hajibeyov, because this has been the spelling in the last two additions of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , and it is the correct transliteration from the Azeri. Other spellings that occur in texts cited in this essay include Gajibekov, Gadzhibekov, Hadjibekov, and Khadzhibekov. 2 R. Moisenko, Realist Music (London: Meridian Books Ltd., 1949), p. 80. 3 Z. Safarova, Uzeir Hajibeyov (Baku, 1985), p. 14. 4 Gori was of course also the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. I. Boelza, Handbook of Soviet Musicians (London: Pilot Press, 1943), p. 8. 5 For greater detail on the social and political issues tackled by Molla Nasraddin, see N. Qiiasbeyli (Jala Garibova), 'Molla Nasraddin – The Magazine', in Azerbaijan International, Autumn, 4.3, 1996, pp. 22–23. 6 Chukhadjian was the author of Arshak II , the first Armenian opera, which was composed as early as 1868. The other composers noted also did a lot of valuable work in notating, transcribing and recording folk songs, as well as composing original works. See Andy Nercessian's essay in this volume for further details of these composers' activities. (Editor's note). 7 Meliton Balanchivadze was the father of the composer Andrei Balanchivadze and the choreographer George Balanchine. 8 Ippolitov-Ivanov was active in Tifis between 1882 and 1893. A direct result of his stay there was his two sets of Kavkazskie eskizy [Caucasian Sketches]. When he joined the staff of the Moscow Conservatory in 1893, he was replaced by Klenovskii, who stayed in Tifis until 1902. 9 Of the Armenian and Georgian composers mentioned, only Chukhadjian (who studied in Milan), Kara-Murza and Tigranian (who was taught by Klenovskii in Tifis) did not seem to have had any training in either Moscow or St Petersburg. 10 For more information on the casting and original production of Leyli and Majnun, see R. Khalilov, 'Leyli and Majnun – 90th Jubilee – The Opera that Shaped the Music of a Nation', in Azerbaijan International, Winter, 5.4, 1997, p. 25. For some amusing anecdotes concerning Farajev's belated jitters about performing the role of a woman on stage, see F. Alakbarov, The Diary of Actor Huseingulu Sarabski (1879–1945): Staging Hajibeyov's Opera 'Leyli and Majnun', www.Hajibeyov.com. 11 R. Moisenko, p. 81. 12 Ibid., p. 83. 13 M.D. Calvocoressi, A Survey of Russian Music (Penguin Books: Harmondsworth, 1944), p. 122. 14 M. Frolova-Walker, 'National in Form Socialist in Content: Musical Nation Building in the Soviet Republics', in Journal of the American Musical Society, vol. 51, no. 2, 1998, p. 340. 15 Ibid. 16 S. Krebs, Soviet Composers and the Development of Soviet Music (Allen & Unwin: London, 1970), p. 134. 17 For a discussion of Hajibeyov's use of the traditions of destan and shabekh, in addition to different mugams, such as rast and shur, see A. Huseynova, 'Azerbaijani Mugam Opera: Challenge of the East', in P.V. Sysoyev (ed.), Identity, Culture, and Language Teaching (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002), pp. 62–64. The destan and shabekh are both Persian in origin and date back to medieval times. The latter can be compared to the Western oratorio in its alternating solo and choral sections, while the former is an epic genre consisting of the spoken word and music. It is the inclusion of choral singing in the destan and shabekh that distinguishes them from native Azeri genres. 18 Ibid., p. 66. 19 B. Blair and F. Akhundov, About Uzeyir Hajibeyov – A Conversation with Ramazan Khalilov, www.Hajibeyov.com.

20 Ibid. 21 U. Hajibeyov, 'Letter to his Brother, Jeyhun – Moscow 1912', originally published in the paper Adabiiat va Injasanet [Literature and Art ], 4 November 1988, no. 45, 2336, www.Hajibeyov.com. 22 I. Boelza, p. 8. 23 Z. Safarova, p. 37. 24 There is still some controversy over Jeyhun's role, since for political reasons, he was not credited for his role in co-writing the libretto of Leyli and Majnun during the Soviet period. While credit for this has now been given, Jeyhun's grandson, Clement Bailly, has expressed his belief in a letter posted on the Hajibeyov.com website that there is evidence to show that Jeyhun closely collaborated with his brother on all the works from this period. See www.hjibeyov.com/reesearch/clement/clement2.html, for further details. 25 For a fine article detailing some of the background to some of the social satire in O Olmasin Bu Olsin, see A. Bahadori, 'Mashadi Ibad', Azerbaijan International, Winter 1998, 6.4, pp. 18–21. 26 B. Blair, 'Arshin Mal Alan (The Cloth Peddler)', in Azerbaijan International, Autumn 2001, 9.3, p. 58. 27 U. Hajibeyov, 'Some Observations About My Work – Arshin Mal Alan', republished in M. Aslanov (ed.), Uzeyir Hajibeyov – Selected Works (Baku, 1985). 28 Z. Safarova, pp. 43–44. 29 U. Hajibeyov, op. cit. 30 A. Malikov, 'Hajibeyov – His Real Genius', in Azerbaijan International, Winter 1997, 5.4, p. 27. 31 I. Boelza, p. 8. 32 Perhaps the best example of a national school that did not beneft from the October Revolution was the Jewish national school. It was fully established prior to 1917, but had been forcibly disbanded by the end of the 1920s. Those Jewish composers who stayed in the Soviet Union, such as Mikhail Gnessin, Alexander Krein and Alexander Veprik, were 'encouraged' to use the indigenous music of other nationalities of the Soviet Union in their work. 33 Z. Safarova, p. 48. 34 Karagichev (1869–1946) and Rudolf (1877–1938) had been pupils of Sergei Taneev. Zeidman (1908–81) had graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory where he been taught by Maximillian Steinberg. 35 A. Malikov, p. 26. 36 For some recollections surrounding some of the earliest women to attend the Conservatory see A. Huseinzade, Reminiscences of Uzeyir Hajibeyov; and R. Rezayeva, Memories of Uzeyir Hajibeyov. Both can be found online at www.Hajibeyov.com. 37 M. Frolova-Walker, p. 340. 38 A. Malikov, p. 27. 39 For example, see M. Frolova-Walker, p. 336. 40 J. Hajibeyli, 'Fiftieth Anniversary of Azerbaijan Opera – Hajibeyov's "Leyli and Majnun" (1908)', in Caucasian Review, Munich Institute for the Study of the USSR, vol. 7. www.hajibeyov.com. 41 Z. Safarova, p. 47. 42 There are currently over twenty concertos for tar and orchestra by Azeri composers, the first composed by Haji Khanmammadov in 1952, who was selected by Hajibeyov to perform the tar in the early performances of Koroghlu. F. Sadikhova, 'Famous People: Then and Now – An Interview with Haji Khanmammadov', in Azerbaijan International, Winter 1999, 7.4, p. 44. 43 The dekada of Azeri art in 1938 was the fourth such festival, following those of Kazakhstan and Ukraine in 1936, and Uzbekistan in 1937. See Michael Rouland's essay in this volume for further details of the dekada of Kazakh art (Editor's note). 44 There is no evidence to corroborate Marina Frolova-Walker's claim that Hajibeyov wrote Koroghlu 'at the behest of the Soviet authorities'. In fact, the author contradicts this with the earlier and equally erroneous assertion that Koroghlu was 'consciously written as a corrective to the orientalism of Glière's

Shakh Senem'. M. Frolova-Walker, p. 355. 45 B. Blair, 'Koroghlu – Son of a Blind Man', Azerbaijan International, Autumn 2001, 9.3, p. 59. 46 B. Blair and F. Akhundov, About Uzeyir Hajibeyov – A Conversation with Ramazan Khalilov. www.hajibeyov.com. 47 R. Rezayeva, Memories of Uzeyir Hajibeyov. www.hajibeyov.com. Ironically, Baghirov was one of the pallbearers at Hajibeyov's funeral. 48 A. Vodarskii-Shiraeff, Russian Composers and Musicians (New York: Greenwood Press, 1940), p. 46. Calvocoressi also mentions only these two works. M.D. Calvocoressi, pp. 122–123. 49 Moisenko also claims that Hajibeyov completed an opera, Iskander Name, based on the life of Alexander the Great in 1941. R. Moisenko, pp. 86–87. However, this is not corroborated in any other source. Moisenko was possibly thinking of the children's opera Iskander i pastukh [Alexander and the Shepherd] that was composed by Hajibeyov's nephew Sultan Hajibeyov in 1947. 50 An article written by Hajibeyov that was published in 1938 fnds him discussing the musical comedy Arshin Mal Alan (1913), his last stage work prior to Koroghlu. From the article it is clear that Hajibeyov is describing a recent performance of Arshin Mal Alan, because he describes how well the leading tenor, Bulbul, made the transition from Koroghlu to the role of the merchant Asgar. The article was clearly written to introduce a work that previously was little known to the Soviet public. Hajibeyov adds with more than a trace of irony at the end of the article that 'I would like to thank the Party and our State for preserving the most valuable of my earlier works.' U. Hajibeyov, in M. Aslanov (ed.), www.Hajibeyov.com. 51 Behbudov would also take the role of Asgar in the colour version of the film when it was released in 1965. 52 T. Egorova, Soviet Film Music – An Historical Survey (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997), p. 89. 53 Young Azerbaidzhani composers in the late 1960s and 1970s also began to embrace modernism. The main exponents of this so-called 'yeni musiqi' ('new music') included Kara Karaev and Ismail Hajibeyov. The combination of modern compositional techniques with mugam elements has also brought a measure of recognition to Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, whose music has been performed by artists of the calibre of Yo Yo Ma and the Kronos Quartet. 54 S. Krebs, p. 133. 55 The Azerbaidzhani poet Vagif Samadoghlu, for example, has recently summed up Hajibeyov's contribution to the development of Azerbaidzhani music as: 'he alone did the work of an entire nation'. V. Samadoghlu, Memories of Uzeyir Hajibeyov. www.hajibeyov.com. 56 M. Frolova-Walker, p. 332. 57 B. Blair, 'Koroghlu – Son of a Blind Man', p. 59. Furthermore, after Azerbaidzhan gained its independence it was Hajibeyov's national anthem of 1918 for the Azerbaidzhan Republic that was chosen to replace the anthem that Hajibeyov himself had written for the Azerbaidzhan SSR.

Index

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Page numbers in italic refer to plates or figures Afinogenev, Alexander 47 Agatov, V. 28 'agitmuzyka' 106, 107 Agitodel 12, 105–6, 107, 108, 115, 117 Aino (Pergament) 169–70 aitïs 192, 193 Akhliyev-Mamedov, A. 215 Akimov, Nikolai Pavlovich 33, 40, 44, 47–8 Akiner, Shirin 185 akïns 187, 192, 197–8, 200n 'Akvarium' 39 Alasgarov, Suleyman 217 Aleksich (artist) 220 Alexanderov, Grigorii 15, 43–4 Ali-Zadeh, Franghiz 226n All-Union Radio Committee 127 Allworth, Edward 204n Alone (film) 67, 68, 69 amateur activities: drama groups 171; mugam opera in Azerbaidzhan 210–11; musical activities in Karelia 5, 163, 168, 169, 171–5, 176; musical propaganda 112–13, 115; Olympiads 4, 5, 123–43; professionalisation 4, 5, 139–40, 141, 153–4, 155–6, 210 American Congress of Scientific and Art Workers in Defense of Peace March (1949) 74 Amirov, Fikret 217, 222 Anush (Armenian opera) 150 Ar va Arvad/Husband and Wife (Hajibeyov) 214 Arakishvili, Dmitrii 210 Aram Merangulian Ensemble 5, 153, 159 Armenian folk music 15, 148–62;

composers 210; demographic context 157; ethnomusicological school 150–1, 159–60; folk music ensembles 153–6, 158–61; and nationalism 149–50, 152, 160–1; and Soviet cultural policy 4, 149, 151–61 Arnshtam, Lev 69 Arshak II (Armenian opera) 150 Arshin Mal Alan/The Cloth Peddler (Hajibeyov) 2, 210, 214–15, 219, 223; film version 221 Arte Nova (record label) 1 Asafiev, Boris 10, 11, 191 Aseev, Nikolai 40 Asfendiarov, Sanjar 191 Association of Contemporary Music (ASM) 11, 12, 188, 217 Association of Proletarian Musicians 12, 107 Association of Revolutionary Composers and Musical Activists(ORKiMD) 105, 106, 107, 116 Atovmian, Lev 71, 72, 74 Attraktsiony v deistvii/Attractions in Action (music-hall show) 41–2 Auezov, Mukhtar 181, 187–8, 194 avant-garde: European and Russian connections 82, 83, 84; film music 67; and music-hall 35, 38; Prokofiev's Le Pas d'Acier 3–4, 81, 82; tonal compositions 10–11, 22 Avedissian, Garen 160 Avraamov, Arsenii 10, 89 Azerbaidzhan 4, 5, 209–27; composers in 209–27, 216–17, 222; lack of classical tradition 210–11; mugam opera and music 210–13, 213–14, 217–18, 222; music education 216–17; music under Soviet regime 215–22, 223; popular song 222; westernisation of music 212, 217–18; women in society 210, 214–15, 216, 217; see also Hajibeyov, Uzeyir Azerbaidzhan Democratic Republic(ADR) 215 Azerbaidzhan State Choir 218 Azerbaijan International (journal) 223 Badabeyli, Afasiyab 217 Baghirov, Mir Jafar 220–1 Baiseitov, Kanabek 188, 207–8n Baiseitova, Kuliash 188, 207n Baizakov, Isa 188 Baku Music School/Conservatory, Azerbaidzhan 216–17 Balanchine, George 82, 224n Balanchivadze, Meliton 210

ballet: 'mechanical ballet' 88, 99; Mosolov 12, 89; musical propaganda 112; Prokofiev 3–4, 13, 16–17, 81–104; Shostakovich 14, 36, 47, 48, 53, 54 Ballet Russes, Les 82, 83, 84, 89–90, 91–3, 98–100 Barbashov, Igor 76 Bartók, Béla 11 Bass, Richard 104n Beaumont, C.W. 99 Bednyi, Demian 40, 53, 136 Beethoven, Ludwig van 22 Behbudov, Rashid 221, 222 Beisetov, Kuliash 207n Beliaev, Viktor 11 Belyi, Boris 117 Belyi, Viktor 13, 107, 117, 118 Berg, Alban 9, 17 Berlin, Irving 22, 27 Bernes, Mark 28 Bernstein, Leonard 74 Bezymenskii, Alexander 47 biomechanics 87–8 Blok, Alexander 20 Boelza, Igor 216, 221 Bogoslovsky, N. 28 Bolshakov, B.A. 129 Bolsheviks: music ideology 21–2; musical propaganda 2–3, 105–122; see also Soviet cultural policy Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra 15 Bolt (Shostakovich) 47, 48, 54, 75 Braun, Edward 61n Brendler, Charles 71 Briusova, Nadezhda 10 Brown, Malcolm 2 Brusilovskii, Evgenii 5–6, 189, 193–7, 208n; Jalbïr 190, 191, 192, 193–4, 195–6, 199; Kïz Jibek 190, 191, 192, 193–5, 199 Brutian, Tsitsilia 150 Bubnov, Andrei 191 Burnt by the Sun (film) 65n Bychkov, Boris 60 Calvocoressi, M.D. 211–12, 221 Carter, Humphrey 98 centralisation see Soviet cultural policy centre–periphery relations 4

Chandos (record label) 1 chastushka 108 Chatte, La (ballet) 82–3 Cheremushki (film) 75–6 Cheremushki (operetta) see Moskva, Cheremushki Cherkasov, Nikolai Konstantinovich 41 Chernomordikov, David 106 Chervinskii, Mikhail 75 Chion, Michael 104n choirs: in Azerbaidzhan 213, 218; in provinces 126, 127, 129–31, 133–5, 138, 139 choral music: as propaganda 108–9, 112–14; see also mass songs 'chromatic displacement' 104n Chukhadzhian, Tigran 150, 210 circus 35, 49 City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra 59–60 Civil War 9, 10 classical music: in Azerbaidzhan 209–10, 216–17; centralisation and cultural control 13–17, 30; condemned by Bolsheviks 22; as focus of musicology 148; as model for folk ensembles 153–4; modernism in early Soviet era 8–13; popular influences 23–4; see also composers Cloth Peddler, The see Arshin Mal Alan Cocteau, Jean 104n Cold War: jazz purges 29–30 collective declamations 108–9 Collective Farm Olympiads 123, 125, 134, 141 Communist Party resolutions 12–13, 16, 107; see also Soviet cultural policy competitions see dekady; Olympiads composers: in Armenia 210; in Azerbaidzhan 209–27, 216–17, 222; cultural control 13–17; European composers in Russia 8–9, 11; of folk ensembles 156; in Georgia 210; influence of jazz 23–4; in Karelia 168–70; in Kazakstan 6, 189–90; and modernism 8–13;

of musical propaganda 105–22; Soviet defence of film composers 78n; and standardisation of folk music 159–60; study of 1–2; see also Union of Soviet Composers conductors: of folk ensembles 154–6; and standardisation of folk music 159–60 Constructivism 12, 84, 85; Pas d'Acier ballet 82–101 Cotton Workers' Olympiad 131 Counterplan, The (film) 27, 67, 68–71 Craig, Edward Gordon 104n 'cruel songs' 20 cultural policy see Soviet culturalpolicy Cultural Revolution 24–5 Dalhaus, Carl 184–5 dance: Communist names for 30; folkdance 25, 133; popular dances of jazzage 20, 23, 176; social evenings in Karelia 171–2; in Uslovno ubityi 48–9; see also ballet Danilychev, Serafim 'Sima' 136, 137 Dark is the Night (song) 28 Davidenko, Alexander 109–10, 113, 114, 116–17, 118–19; Konnitsa Budennogo 110–11; and Prokoll 12, 107 Debussy, Claude 8 declamations 108–9 Declared Dead see Uslovno ubityi dekady: Azerbaidzhan 219; Kazakstan 5–6, 189, 190–200 Delaunay, Sonia 103n Denisov, Edison 17 Derevenskaia simfoniia (Kastalskii) 114–15 Dernova, Varvara 186, 194 Derzhanovskii, Vladimir 10, 11 Deshevov, Vladimir 11 destan 212 Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich 8, 81, 82, 83–4, 89, 92, 93, 100, 101 Dimanshtein, Semen 196 Dmitriev, K.S. 49 Dmitriev, Vladimir Vladimirovich 47, 48 dombïra 192, 206n Dorozhkin, Alexander 127–9, 131, 133, 139 Dovzhenko, Alexander 73

drama groups 171 Dunaevskii, Isaak Osipovich 15, 27, 30, 34; music director for music-hall 40–2, 43, 44; Uslovno ubityi 33, 49, 54 Duncan, Isadora 93 Dva boitsa/Two Warriors (film) 28 Dve guitary/Two Guitars (song) 19, 22 Dzerzhinskii, Ivan 14 Dzhaz na povorote/Jazz on the Turn (revue) 41–2 'Eccentric Manifesto, The' 35 Edens, Roger 71 Ehrenburg, Ilia 75, 77n, 82, 83 Eiges, Konstantin 10 Eisenstein, Sergei 15, 35, 63n, 68, 84, 85, 120n Elder, Mark 59–60 elderly Olympiad performers 134, 135 electronic instruments 10–11 Elimai/My Country (Kazak poem) 195–6 Engels, Friedrich 72 Engineerists 31n 'enlightenment' programmes 10 Erdman, Nikolai Robertovich 40, 41, 43, 63n Erjanov, Manarbek 208 Ermler, Fridrikh 68 Erzakovich, Boris 182 Erzhanov, Manarbek 188 estrada (light entertainment) 3, 42, 43, 61n; see also music-hall ethnomusicology: Armenian school 150–1, 159–60; Hajibeyov and Azeri folk music 218–19, 222; Kazak folk songs 186–7, 194 European composers in Russia 8–9, 11 Evenings of Contemporary Music 8 Expressionism in Pas d'Acier 88, 89–90 Exter, Alexandra 86–7 Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS) 35 Farajev, Abdulrahim 211 Fay, Laurel 33, 42–3, 50–1, 53–4 Feinberg, Samuel 9, 11, 15 Festival of Kazak Literature and Art see dekady film music 15, 49; of Great PatrioticWar 28; mass songs 26, 30; popularity 24, 27, 30; Shostakovich 27, 63n, 67–77; sound quality 70; Soviet defence of composers 78n

Finland: Karelian history 163, 164–7 Finnish Pedagogical College (Pedteknikum), Petrozavodsk 168, 173 Finnish-American musicians 5, 165, 169, 170, 172 Firsova, Elena 17 Fitzpatrick, Sheila 125 Foam and Sprays (Kurmangazï) 198 Fokine, Michel 83, 100 folk dances 25, 133 folk instrument ensembles 30, 115; Azerbaidzhan 218–19; difficulties of conducting 154–6; Karelia 5, 167, 172–5; Kazakstan 189–90; and Olympiads 126–9, 131, 133, 138–9; and Soviet cultural policy in Armenia 153–61 folk instruments 29, 30; Armenia 155, 156; Azerbaidzhan 206n, 211, 217, 219; Karelia 172–4; Kazakstan 192, 193, 206n folk music 12, 15; Armenia 15, 148–62; Azerbaidzhan 218–19; composed'folk' songs 19, 25; condemned by Bolsheviks 22, 115; Karelia 163–80; in musical propaganda 115; and nationalism 4–5, 148–9, 152, 160–1, 169, 175, 184–5; Olympiads 4, 123–47; provincial musicians 4; revival in 1930s 25; satisfies nostalgia 29; and Soviet cultural policy 151–61, 169, 181–2, 186–200; Soviet tolerance 148; standardisation 156–7, 192–3, 196, 200; transcription and harmonisation 150, 159–60; see also folk instrument ensembles Foregger, Nikolai 35, 83, 88, 89 formalism 11, 15, 16, 29; see also modernism French revolutionary songs 111 Frolova-Walker, Marina 185, 209, 212, 223 Futurism 34, 88 Gabo, Naum 82 Garafola, Lynn 83 Garland, Judy 71 Gastev, Aleksei 87–8 Gavrilov, Maksim 176

Geldern, James von 191 Georgia: composers 210; folk music 149 Germany: Germans ridiculed in song 27–8; invasion of Soviet Union (1941) 15 Gershuni, E.P. 49 Gladkovskii, Arsenii 114 Glan, Natalia Alexanderovna 48–9 Gleichschaltung 185 Glière, Reinhold 5, 13, 111, 198–9, 212, 217–18 Glikman, Isaak 74–5 Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich 2, 222 Gnessin, Mikhail 225n Gogol, Nikolai: Nos opera 13–14, 36–7 Golden Age, The (ballet) 36, 37, 47, 53 Golden Mountains, The (film) 67, 68, 69 Golden Steppe, The (song) 192, 198 Goleizovskii, Kassian 83 Goncharova, L.I. 193 Gorbenko, Arkadii 47 Gorky, Maxim 24 Gotovkin, V. 129–30 Grach, D.Ia. 40 Great Patriotic War music 15–16, 27–9 'Great Retreat' campaign 25 Gubaidulina, Sofa 17 Gudkov, Viktor 5, 172, 173–4, 175 GULag: jazz in 29 Guliyev, Mustafa 217 Guliyev, Tofg 222 Guzman, Boris 101 Gylling, Edward 164–5, 166 'gypsy' music 19–20, 22, 24 Haikakan Knar/The Armenian Lyre(journal) 150 Hajibeyov, Ismail 226n Hajibeyov, Jeyhun 211, 214, 216 Hajibeyov, Sultan 217, 222, 226n Hajibeyov, Uzeyir 2, 209–27; background and training 209–10, 213; critical acclaim 220, 221; defence of women's rights 210, 214–15, 217; as ethnomusicologist 218–19, 222; international reputation 223–4; and music education 216–17, 222; musical comedies 214–15, 219, 221;

operas 2, 210–14, 217–18, 219–21; political sympathies 215–16; and Soviet rule in Azerbaidzhan 215–22, 223 Hajiyev, Jovdat 217, 222 Hakobian, Levon 2 Happy Guys (film) 15, 26, 43–4, 49, 54 Harburg, E. Yip 71 harmonisation of folk music 150, 160, 192–3 Head, Nancy 70, 71 Helo, Lea 168 Herder, Johann Gottfried von 184 Herschkowitz, Filip 17 Hindemith, Paul 9, 11 Hitler, Adolf 25 Hokkanen, Andrei 173–4 Honegger, Arthur 11 House of Folk Culture, Ivanovo 125–6, 138, 140–1 Hovannisian, R. 149 Hrabovsky, Leonid 17 'human robots' 87–8 Husband and Wife (Hajibeyov) 214 Huseinzade, Adila 217 Huseynova, Aida 212 Hymn of the United Nations 3, 27, 71 Hypothetically Murdered (McBurney)3, 59–60; see also Uslovno ubityi Iakulov, Georgii 4, 81, 83, 84–7, 88, 89–101 'Iakulovisation of the Theatres' 86 Ianchuk, Nikolai 10 Iaroslavl province 123; Iaroslavl StateFolk Instrument Orchestra 138–9; Olympiads 125, 129; Stompelev's orchestra 127, 128–9, 131, 133, 138–9 If Not That One, Then This One see O Olmasin Bu Olsin Igumnov, Konstantin 10 Ilf, Ilia (I.A. Fainzilberg) 41 Ilin, Iurii 112 illiteracy in Karelia 163, 167–8, 177n improvisation in folk music 158–9 Industrial Cooperatives' Olympiads 141, 142 'industrialisation flms' 68 institutionalisation of folk music 153–6 instrumental music as propaganda 111–12, 114–15 instruments see folk instruments 'international constructivism' 82 International Exhibition (Paris, 1925) 83 International Society of Contemporary Music (ISCM) 9, 11 Into the Storm (Khrennikov) 14–15, 16 Iokhelson, Vladimir 188

Ippolitov-Ivanov, Mikhail 210 Iron Curtain, The (film) 78n Iron Foundry, The (Mosolov) 12, 31n, 89 Iskander Name (Azeri opera) 226n Iturbi, José 71 Iureva, Izabella 55 Iutkevich, Sergei 35, 61n, 63n, 68, 69 Ivanov-Borestskii, Mikhail 10 Ivanovksii, Alexander Viktorovich 36 Ivanovo province: House of Folk Culture 125–6, 138, 140–1; Olympiads 4, 123–47; professional ensembles 140, 141 Ivanovo writers' organisation (IVAPP) 125 Izvestiia 191 Jahangirov, Jahangir 217 Jalbïr (Brusilovskii) 190, 191, 192, 193–4, 195–6, 199 Jambïl affair 197–8, 208n Jandarbekov, Kurmanbek 206n, 207n Jandarbekova, Shara 188, 208n jazz 23–4, 25–6; Bolsheviks condemn 22; Communist anti-jazz campaigns 24, 26, 29–30, 172; influence on classical composers 23–4; in Karelia 172, 178n; mugam jazz 222; inmusic-halls 40; popular dances 20, 23, 176; rehabilitation during war 28–9; Soviet jazz 23, 26–7 Jazz on the Turn (revue) 41–2 Jews: Jewish national school 225n; as song writers 27 jïrshi 197 Jousinen, Lauri 169, 178n Jubanov, Akhmet 5–6, 189–90, 192, 198, 208n Jubanova, Gaziza 193 Jurgenev, Temirbek 191, 207n Kabalevskii, Dmitrii 13, 27 Kaiser, Kay 26 Kalafati, Vasilii 213 Kalevala, The (Finnish epic poem) 163, 169–70, 173 Kalman, Emmerich 22 Kantele Ensemble in Karelia 5, 172–5 kapustniki 43, 52 Kara-Murza, Khristofor 210 Karaev, Kara 217, 222, 226n

Karagichev, Boris 216–17 Karashvili, Andrei 210 Karatygin, Viacheslav 8, 10 Karelia 163–80; amateur musical activities 4, 163, 168, 169, 171–5, 176; Gudkov's Kantele Ensemble 5, 172–5; historical context 164–7, 175–6; language issues 165–6, 172, 175, 176; Petrozavodsk musical life 167–70, 173; and Soviet cultural policy 5, 169, 170, 175–6 Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR) 165 Karelian Radio Committee Orchestra 169, 170 Karelian Wedding, The (Rautio) 168–9 Karelian Workers' Commune 164–5, 167–8 Karelian-Finnish Soviet Republic 166–7 Kashaubaev, Amre 188, 203n Kastalskii, Alexander 10, 116, 117, 118; Derevenskaia simfoniia 114–15 Katiusha (song) 28 Kats, Sigizmund 109, 110 Kazak National Orchestra 198–9 Kazak State Musical-Drama Theatre 189 Kazakstan 4–5, 181–208; as constructed nation 181, 182–3, 186, 200; dekady 5–6, 189, 190–200; ethnomusicology 186–7, 194; folk instrument orchestra 189–90; folk songs 181, 182, 186, 194, 195, 196; opera 188, 190, 191, 192, 193–7, 199; poetry 187, 195–6, 197–8; Soviet cultural policy andnational music 5–6, 181–2, 183–200; theatre companies 187–8, 188–9 Keldysh, Iury 101 Kerzhentsev, Platon 190, 192, 199 Khachaturian, Aram 13, 15, 16 Khalilov, Ramazan 213, 220 Khanmammadov, Haji 222, 226n Kharms, Daniil 38 Khodasevich, Valentina 47 Khrennikov, Tikhon 14–15, 16, 69, 72, 73 Khrushchev, Nikita 72, 76 Khusainov, Shakhmet 189 'Kiddy band' 171 Kirgiz Republic see Kazakstan Kirov, Sergei 68 Kïz Jibek/The Silk Maiden (Brusilovskii) 190, 191, 192, 193–5, 199 Kizil bidai/Red Wheat (Kurmangazï) 198 Klenovskii, Nikolai 210 Klimov, Elem 76 Kobik shashkan/Foam and Sprays (Kurmangazï) 198

kobïz 193 Kohonen, Toivo 172 Kojamkulov, Serke 208 Komintern 165 Komitas 150–1, 159–60, 210, 222 Komsomol 106, 115 Kononov, Vasili 174 Koralli, Vladimir 40, 41, 49, 50, 57, 58, 59 Korchmarev, Klimentii 107, 111, 112–13 korenizatsiia 4, 184, 188; in Karelia 165–6; see also Soviet cultural policy Kornilov, Boris 70 Koroghlu (Hajibeyov) 2, 212, 213, 219–21, 223 Kort, Sigizmund 23 koshtasu song 196 Kostroma province 123, 131 Koval, Marian 107–8, 115, 116, 117, 118 Kozintsev, Grigorii M. 61n, 67–8 Krasev, Mikhail 107, 117, 118; Petrushka 112, 113, 114 Krasin, Boris 10 Krasnyi perekop choir 129–31, 134, 139 Krebs, Stanley 1, 209, 212, 222 Krein, Alexander 225n Krenek, Ernst 9 Kuanïshbaev, Kalibek 188, 205n, 208n Kubanskie kazaki/Kuban Cossacks (film) 30 küi 186 Kunanbaev, Abai 195 kuplety songs 37–8 Kurmangazï 192, 198 Kuusinen, Otto Wille 166 Ladukhin, Nikolai 213 Lady Macbeth (Shostakovich) 14, 37, 48 Lamm, Pavel 10, 11 Landsberg, Georgii 23 Lang, Fritz 89 Lazarev, Mikhail 109, 110 Lebedinskii, Lev 106, 117 Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uezda (Shostakovich) 14, 37, 48 Leger, Fernand 103n Lehár, Franz 22 leitmotifs in musical propaganda 112 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 68, 87, 165; on cultural issues 8, 118, 152, 183; as musical subject 109; and 'Theremin' 11 Leningrad:

concerts 9 'Leningrad Absurdists' 38 Leningrad Academic Theatre of Drama(LATD) 47 Leningrad Academic Theatre of Operaand Ballet (GATOB) 47 Leningrad Music-Hall 38–44, 49, 62n; Uslovno ubityi 45–60 Leningrad Symphony (Shostakovich) 15 Lermontov, Mikhail 56 Lerner, Max 29 Leskov, Nikolai 14 Lesson of Life (film) 76 Letonmäki, Lauri 168, 175 Leyli va Majnun (Hajibeyov) 2, 210–13, 218, 223 Life in Bloom (film) 73 light entertainment see estrada Limpid Stream, The (Shostakovich) 14, 48 Lissitzky, El 83, 87, 88 literacy rate in Karelia 163, 167–8, 177n litmontazh 40 Liubimov, Grigorii 187 'living newspapers' 179n Lodder, Christine 82 London, Kurt 78n Lopukhov, Fedor Vasilievich 33, 47, 48 Lourié, Arthur 9, 10 Lubotskii, Mark 77 Lunacharskii, Anatolii 9, 10–11, 12, 39, 81, 82, 109, 178n Lvov, Nikolai 47 Lvov-Veliaminov, A.K. 23 Lysenko, Trofm 72, 73 McBurney, Gerard 3, 59–60, 75 machine music 22, 24 Magomayev, Muslim 218 Maiakovskii, Vladimir 35, 40, 45, 53, 77n; The Bedbug 47, 49 Mailin, Beimbet 206n Malevich, Kazimir 45 Malikov, Arif 222 Malm, William 181 Malmi, Helmi 174 Marasanova, Elena 130 Marco Polo (record label) 1 Marinetti, E.F.T. 34 Marx, Karl 72, 152 Mashadi Ibad (film) 221 Mass, Vladimir Zakharovich 40, 41, 43, 63n, 75 'mass musical work' 118–19 mass recitations 171 mass songs 26–7, 30, 109–11

Massell, Gregory 183 Massine, Leonid 89, 90, 92, 99, 100, 101 Mastfor 35, 63n 'mechanical ballet' 88, 99 Meraliev, Mukhit 195 Metropolis (film) 89 Meyerhold, Vsevolod 4, 35, 45, 47, 53, 98; biomechanics 87–8, 99; and Iakulov 86; and Pas d'Acier ballet 83, 84, 85, 101 Miaskovskii, Nikolai 9–10, 11, 12, 15, 111; Party resolutions against 16 Michurin, Ivan Vasilievich 72–3 Michurin (film) 67, 72–4 Mikhalkov, Nikita 65n Milhaud, Darius 9, 11 modernism: in early Soviet era 8–13; and music-hall 3, 34–8, 45; Party opposition to 13, 14–15, 16–17, 29 Moiseev, Igor 25 Moisenko, Rena 190, 191, 209, 221 Molla Nasraddin (journal) 210, 214 montage techniques 40, 114 Morley, Thomas 105 Moscow: music-halls 39, 44, 53 Moscow Conservatory see Prokoll Moskva, Cheremushki (Shostakovich) 24, 67, 74–6 Mosolov, Alexander 9, 11, 12, 89; Zavod 12, 31n, 89 Mozzhukhin, Dmitrii 135 mugam music 210–13, 213–14, 217–18, 222 Muradeli, V. 16 Musavat Party 215, 216 Mushfig, Mikayil 217, 220 music-hall 33–66; decline 44, 62n; on film 43–4; Leningrad Music-Hall 38–44; and modernism 3, 34–8, 45; Uslovno ubityi 3, 4, 33, 42–3, 45–60 Music Store, The (satirical show) 43–4 'musical activists' 105, 118 musical propaganda 2–3, 27, 105–22; forms of 108–12; 'mass musical work' 118–19; motivations of composers 116–18; non-professional performers 112–13, 115; out put 107–8;

popularisation 115–16; structural organisation 105–7; themes 108 musicology: focus on classical music 148; Karelian folk music 163–4; Party censure of music scholars 16; study of Soviet composers 1–2; see also ethnomusicology Mustafazade, Vagif 222 Muzika'nyi magazin/The Music Store (satirical show) 43–4 Muzyka i revoliutsiia (journal) 106–7 Muzyka'naia nov' (journal) 106 My Country (Kazak poem) 195–6 Narkompros 9–10, 11, 12, 127 nationalism: Armenian nationalism 149–50, 152, 161; Azerbaidzhan national music 216; and film 73; and folk music 4–5, 148–9, 152, 160–1, 169, 175, 184–5; in Karelia 163; Kazak national music 5–6, 186–200; Kazakstan as constructed nation 181, 182–3, 200; and Romanticism 184; see also dekady Nazi regime 25, 27–8 Naz'mov, B.M. 139 'Negro revues' 23 Nemtsova, Klavdiia 131 New Babylon (film) 67, 68 New Economic Policy (NEP) 8–13, 22–3 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The 1 Niyazi 217, 221, 222 Nogin factory choir, Vichuga 129, 130–1, 134, 138, 139 Noller, Joachim 88 Norris, Christopher 1 Nos/The Nose (Shostakovich) 13–14, 36–7, 47, 48 nostalgia: aged Olympiad performers 134; in war-time songs 28; wins Party approval 29 Novyi Vavilon/New Babylon (film) 67, 68 Nuorteva, Santeri 168 O Olmasin Bu Olsin/If Not That One, Then This One (Hajibeyov) 210, 219, 223; film version 221 OBERIU 38 O'Connell, Charles 71 Odisseia/The Odyssey (comic play) 40–1

Odna/Alone (film) 67, 68, 69 Ogolovets, Aleksei 196 Okurokov, E.I. 47 older Olympiad performers 134, 135 Oleynikov, Nikolai Makarovich 38 Olkhovsky, Andrey 185 Olympia (record label) 1 Olympiads 4, 123–47; choirs 129–31, 133–5, 138, 139, 141; cultural aims 134–8, 140, 142; factors for success 142; judging and prize-giving 135–6; orchestras 126–9, 131, 133, 138–9; organisational shortcomings 126, 132, 136, 140; press coverage 124, 125, 136, 137; professionalisation of performers 139–40, 141; range ofrepertoires 133–4; staging of events 131–3, 140–1 opera 2, 5; in Armenia 150; in Azerbaidzhan 2, 210–13, 217–18, 219–21; in Kazakstan 188, 190, 191, 192, 193–7, 199; musical propaganda 112; Party resolution against 16; Prokofiev 13, 17; Shostakovich 13–14, 36–7, 47; song opera 14–15 operettas 30, 49; Shostakovich 67, 74–5 orchestras: folk music revival 25; in Karelia 5, 167, 168, 169, 170; Kazak National Orchestra 198–9; see also folk instrument ensembles Ordubadi, Mammad Sayid 219 Oreshkov, N.S. 40 ORKiMD 105, 106, 107, 116 Orlova, Liubov' 64n Palace Theatre, Leningrad 39–40 Paliashvili, Zakhari 210, 212 Panina, Varia 20 Paradzhanov, Sergo 68 Pas d'Acier, Le/The Steel Step (Prokofiev) 3–4, 81–104; Ballets Russes productions 88, 89–90, 91–3, 98–101; critical reception 98, 99, 100–1; dance–music relationship 92–8; Expressionist interpretation 88, 89–90; sailor figures 85, 90, 94–5; stage design 85, 86–7, 90, 91–2, 98;

train motif 85, 90, 91, 94, 95 Path of October (Prokoll) 112–14 Pavlov Motor Factory orchestra 139 Pergament, Ruvim 169–70, 174 Persimfans orchestra 10 Pesnia o vstrechnom/Song of the Counterplan (Shostakovich) 3, 27, 67–80 Petrone, Karen 191 Petrov, Evgenii (E.P. Kataev) 41 Petrov, Nikolai Vasilevich 47 Petrova, Natalia 123 Petrovskii, Adrian 47 Petrozavodsk, Karelia 167–70, 173 Petrushka (ballet) 83, 96 Petrushka (Krasev) 112, 113, 114 Pevzner, Antoine 82 Piatnitskii Choir 129, 139 Piatnitskii Folk Ensemble 115 Pimenov, Iurii 85 placards: vocal placards 109 Plevitskaia, Nadezhda 20 Poema o rodine/Poem of the Motherland (Shostakovich) 67, 71–2 poetry: Kalevala 163, 169–70, 173; in Kazakstan 187, 195–6, 197–8 Pokrass, Dmitrii 111 political songs 22 Polovinkin, Leonid 11 Popov, Alexander 72 Popov, Gavriil 16, 73 Popova, Liubov Sergeevna 83 popular music 2, 3, 19–30; Bolshevik policy 21–4; Cold War purges 29–30; Communist control 24–7, 133; during Great Patriotic War 27–9; Olympiad requests 133; propaganda as 115–16; segregation under tsars 21; see also folk music Pravda on Ledi Makbet 14 Press, Stephen 94 Pro Lenina (vocal placard) 109 Production Collective of MoscowConservatory Students see Prokoll professionalisation of music 4, 5, 139–40, 141, 153–4, 155–6, 210 Prokofiev, Sergei 2, 15, 27; ballet music 3–4, 13, 16–17; film music 15; operas 13, 17; in Paris 82;

Party resolutions against 16–17, 30; Le Pas d'Acier 3–4, 81–104; proletarian compositions 13 Prokoll 12, 105, 107, 109, 116, 118–19; Put' Oktiabria oratorio 112–14 Proletarian Culture movement 22, 24 proletarianisation of music 8–13; songs 22–3, 24, 26–7; see also musica lpropaganda; Soviet cultural policy Proletarskii muzykant (journal) 101 Proletkult 8–13 propaganda see musical propaganda provincial musical activities 4, 123–43; folk instrument orchestras 126–9, 131, 133, 138–9 Prussak, Evgenii 114 publishers 9, 24 Put' Oktiabria/The Path of October (Prokoll) 112–14 quarter-tone compositions 10–11 Quiet Don, The (Dzerzhinskii) 14 Rabochii i teatr (journal) 40, 42, 44; and Uslovno ubityi 45, 54, 57, 59, 65n Rabochii krai (local newspaper) 124, 126, 140 radical songs 21, 22 Radiks 38 ragtime dances 20 Rapoport, Gerbert 75, 78n RAPP 47 Rautio, Kalle 168–9 Rayok (Shostakovich) 75 record labels 1 Red Army Band/Ensemble 25, 139, 173 Red Army Propaganda section (PUR) 115 'red jazz age' 25 Red Wheat (Kurmangazï) 198 Reger, Max 8 regional music 4–5 Renoir, Jean 70, 76 revolutionary avant-garde 22; Pasd'Acier ballet 3–4, 81, 82 revolutionary songs 21, 22, 111, 116 Rezayev, Azer 217 Rezayeva, Aghabaji 217 Rezhayeva, Rugiyia 220 Riefenstahl, Leni 25 Rimskii-Korsakov, Georgii 10 Rimskii-Korsakov, Nikolai 21 Rintala, Väinö 170, 172

Rodchenko, Alexander Mikhailovich 45, 83 Rolland, Romain 193 Romanticism and nationalism 184 Rome, Harold J. 71 Roslavets, Nikolai 11, 12, 21 Rosner, 'Eddie' (Adolph) 29, 172 Rossi, Mildred 172 Rostropovich, Leopold 216 Rovio Kustaa 166 Rudnitsky, Konstantin 35 Rudolf, Leopold 216–17 Ruhanen, Urho 171 rune singers 176 Rusko, Ragnar 168 Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) 12, 22, 24, 168, 188, 217; denounces Pas d'Acier 100–1; discourages Olympiads 125; and musical propaganda 105, 106, 107, 116 Russian Music Society (RMS) in Georgia 210 Russification see standardisation of music Rustam, Suleyman 217 Rybinsk Motor Factory orchestra 127–9, 131, 133, 138, 139 Ryss, Evgenii Samoylovich 46, 54 Sabaneev, Leonid 9, 10, 11 Safarova, Z. 216 St Petersburg: concerts 8 Salmi, Laila 172 Salo, Lillian 179n Salute to Life (song) 70 Samadoghlu, Vagif 226n Sarabski, Huseingulu 211, 220–1 Saradzhev, Konstantin 11 Saraeva-Bondar', Avgusta 40 Sarïarka/The Golden Steppe (song) 192, 198 Saroyan, Mark 183, 184 Satie, Erik 11 Sauget, Henri 82 Schillinger, Joseph 11 Schnittke, Alfred 17, 76 Schoenberg, Arnold 8, 9, 11, 109 Schreker, Franz 9 Schwarz, Boris 2, 209 scores 9, 24 Scriabin, Alexander 11, 93–4 Scruton, Roger 185 Second World War see Great PatrioticWar Seifullin, Saken 187, 191, 207n Semen Kotko (Prokofiev) 13

Sergeev, Aleksei 106 set design see stage design shabekh 212 Shakh Senem (Glière) 217–18 Shanin, Jumat 188 Shaporin, Iurii 13, 15 Sharoev, Georgi 216 Shcherbachev, Vladimir 9–10, 11 Shebalin, Vissarion 11, 16 sheet music 24 Sheikh Sanan (Hajibeyov) 213 Shekhter, Boris 107, 117, 120n Shostakovich, Dmitrii 2, 11, 13–14, 15, 34; ballets 14, 36, 47, 48, 53, 54; film scores 27, 63n, 67–71, 72–7; on Jambïl affair 197; jazz influences 23–4, 27; Michurin score 72–4; Moskva, Cheremushki operetta 67, 74–6; music for Uslovno ubityi 3, 4, 33, 42, 45, 47–8, 50, 51–5, 57; music-hall influences 36–8; operas 13–14, 36–7, 47; Party resolutions against 16, 17, 30; Pesnia o vstrechnom/Song of the Counterplan 3, 27, 67–80; Poema o rodine 67, 71–2; Rayok satire 75; songs 3, 21, 27; symphonies 14, 15–16, 37–8; Veselye rebiata reference 64n Shulgin, Lev 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 116 Shulzhenko, Klavdiia 33, 41, 49, 50, 54–5 Shumiatskii, Boris 43 Shvart, Evgenii 48 Silk Maiden opera see Kïz Jibek Silvestrov, Valentin 17 Simfoniia gudkov (Avraamov) 10, 89 Simonov, Konstantin 28 Sinisalo, Helmer 169 Sirén, Risto 178n Skriabin, Alexander 11, 93–4 Smyslov, Ivan 129, 130 Social Portraits (satirical show) 41 socialist realism: Aino as 170; and cultural korenizatsiia 184, 188; inauguration of 12–13 Sokolov, Iurii 187 Sokolov, Nikolai 213 Soloviev-Sedoy, V. 75 Solntseva, Iulia 73

Song of the Counterplan (Shostakovich) 3, 27, 67–80 Song of the Komsomols (Shostakovich) 70 'Song of the Motherland' 15 song opera 14–15 Song over Moscow (film) 75 song symphonies 15 songs: Azeri popular song 222; from films 15, 30, 67; of Great Patriotic War 27–9; Karelian folk songs 168; in Kazak culture 181, 182, 186, 195, 196; mass songs 26–7, 30, 109–11; in music-hall 37–8; Pesnia o vstrechnom 3, 27, 67–80; popular forms 19–21, 22–3, 29, 30; proletarian songs 22–3, 24, 26–7; revolutionary songs 21, 22, 111, 116; in Uslovno ubityi 54–6, 60; see also vocal music Sotsial'nye portrety/Social Portraits (satirical show) 41 Souritz, Elizabeth 48, 88 Sovetskaia muzyka (journal) 13, 188 Sovetskoe iskusstvo (journal) 191 Soviet Composers Union see Union of Soviet Composers Soviet cultural policy 13–17, 133; and Armenian folk music 4, 149, 151–61; in Azerbaidzhan 217–18, 220–1, 222; criticism of 185; in Karelia 5, 169, 170, 175–6; in Kazakstan 5–6, 181–2, 183–200; and popular music 21–30; raising cultural levels 134–8, 140, 142, 152–3, 167–8; standardisation 156–60, 188, 192–3, 196, 200, 217–18 Soviet folk ensembles see folk instrument ensembles Soviet jazz 23, 26–7 'Soviet Karelian' language 166 Soviet State Publishing House 9 Spendiarian, Alexander 212 Sport, Sport, Sport (documentary) 76 Sprechstimme 109 stage design: Pas d'Acier ballet 85, 86–7, 90, 91–2, 98; Uslovno ubityi 47–8 Stal'/Steel (Mosolov) 12, 89 Stalin, Josef: amateur performances for 171; and film 30, 64n, 73, 221; fond of horse operetta 30; as musical

subject 108; nationality and nationalism issues 25, 152, 175, 183, 184; opera likes and dislikes 14, 219–21 standardisation of music 156–60, 188, 192–3, 196, 200, 217–18 Stanislavskii, Konstantin 83, 88 Starr, S. Frederick 25, 40, 43 State Institute of Musical Science(GIMN) 10 State Jazz Orchestra 26 State Music Press 107 State Press's Music Sector 105; Agitodel 12, 105–6, 107, 108, 115, 117 State Russian Folk Orchestra 25 Steel see Stal' Steel Step, The see Pas d'Acier Stokowski, Leopold 74 Stoliarov, Grigorii 74 Stompelev, Evgenii 127, 128–9, 131, 133, 138–9 storytellers see akïns Stothart, Herbert 71 Strauss, Johann 22 Stravinsky, Igor 8, 9, 81, 100 Stray Dog café, Leningrad 39–40, 47 Strutinskaia, E.I. 48 Supinskaia, Irina 75 Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir 139 Svetlov, Mikhail 40 Svetlyi ruchei/The Limpid Stream (Shostakovich) 14, 48 Symbolism 93, 111 synaesthesia 93–4 Szymanowski, Karol 11 Tairov, Alexander 49, 83, 84, 86 Tajikistan 183 Tamara, Nina 41 tar 211, 217, 220 Tatlin, Vladimir 85 Taylor, Frederick W. 87 Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich 22 Tea-dzhaz ensemble 41, 42, 43, 44; in Uslovno ubityi 49, 53, 54 Temnaia noch'/Dark is the Night (song) 28 Teplitskii, Leopold 5, 169 Termen, Lev 11 'Termenvox' 11 theatre companies: Kazakstan 187–8, 188–9; see also drama groups Theatre of Folk Art 25 'Theremin' 11 Thousands Cheer (film) 71

Three Left Hours (revue) 38 Tigranian, Armen 150 Tigranian, Nikolai 210 Tikhii Don/The Quiet Don (Dzerzhinskii) 14 Titov, Alexander 109 Tolstoy, Leo 20 tonal compositions 10–11 Trade Union of Art Workers (Rabis) 10 Trade Union Olympiad 131 TRAM 47 Trauberg, Leonid Z. 61n, 67–8 Tretiakov, Sergei 87 Tri levykh chasa/Three Left Hours (revue) 38 Trotskii, Leon 118 Tseitlin, Lev 10 Tsfasman, Alexander 23, 26 Tsirk i estrada (journal) 42 Tupitsin, Teppo 174 Turdukulova, Uriia 208n Turenkov, Aleksei 108 Two Guitars (song) 19, 22 Two Warriors (film) 28 Udarova, E.D. 42, 44, 53 Ukrainian nationalism in film 73 Umurzakov, Eleubai 207n Union of Soviet Composers 13, 14, 16, 17, 188, 190, 223 United Nations: Hymn of the United Nations 3, 27, 71, 74 Universal Edition (music publishers) 9 'urban romance' songs 20 urban songs 19–20 Uritskii Club, Karelia 179n; 'Kiddyband' 171 Urok v zhizn'/Lesson of Life (film) 76 Ursignol (ballet) 81, 100, 101; see also Pas d'Acier Uslovno ubityi/Declared Dead (stageshow) 3, 4, 33, 42–3, 45–60; artistic contributors 46–50; musical sketches 51–4, 57; present-day interpretation 3, 59–60; publicity for 45–50; texts of 54–9; themes and plot 50–4 Utesov, Leonid Osipovich: jazz career 23, 25–6, 28–9, 40, 41; music-halland Uslovno ubityi 33, 34 , 40, 41, 43–4, 49, 50; in Veselye rebiata 26, 43–4 Utomplennye solntsem/Burnt by the Sun (film) 65n Uzbekistan 183, 185

V buriu/Into the Storm (Khrennikov) 14–15, 16 Vakhtangov, Evgenii 84 Valikhanov, Chokan 203n Varese, Edgard 11 Vasilev-Bulgai, Dmitrii 106, 107, 108, 115–16, 116–17, 117–18 Veprik, Alexander 225n Vertinskii, Alexander 20 Veselye rebiata/Happy Guys (film) 15, 26, 43–4, 49, 54 Vesnin, Alexander 87 Vialtseva, Anastasia 19–20 Vichuga Nogin factory choir 129, 130–1, 134, 138, 139 vie est à nous, La (film) 70, 76 Vinogradova, Evdokiia 131 Vinogradova, Mariia 131 Virtanen, Jalmari 168 Vladimir province 123 vocal music: as propaganda 108–11; see also choral music; songs vocal placards 109 Vodarskii-Shiraeff, A. 221 Voevodin, Vsevolod Petrovich 46, 54 Voina i mir/War and Peace (Prokofiev) 17 Volga Song and Dance Ensemble 139 Volkov, Solomon 197 Volkova, Zhenia 129, 144n Vstrechnyi/The Counterplan (film) 27, 67, 68–71 Vustin, Alexander 17 Vvedenskii, Alexander Ivanovich 38 Vyshnegradskii, Ivan 10 Wagner, Richard 98 Wait for Me (song) 28 War and Peace (Prokofiev) 17 war symphonies 15–16 Webern, Anton 17 Western music: composers in Russia 8–9, 11; influence of popular music 22–7; Westernisation of Azeri music 212, 217–18; see also jazz Whiteman, Paul 23 women in Azerbaidzhan society 210, 214–15, 216, 217 Wood, Henry 71 Workers' Music Association (UK) 70 World of Art group 8 World War II see Great Patriotic War

Yekmalian, Makar 210 Youmans, Vincent 22 Zagornyi, Nestor 167 Zataevich, Alexander 186–7, 188, 194 Zavod/The Iron Foundry (Mosolov) 12, 31n, 89 Zeidman, Boris 217 Zeynally, Asaf 217 Zhdanov, Andrei 16, 29, 30, 223 zhdanovshchina 16; jazz purges 29–30 Zhdi menia/Wait for Me (song) 28 Zhizn' v tsvetu/Life in Bloom (film) 73 Zimin, Petr 10 Zlatye gory/The Golden Mountains (film) 67, 68, 69 Zolotoi vek/The Golden Age (Shostakovich) 36, 37, 47, 53 Zoshchenko, Mikhail 41