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, high-
quality, 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
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or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
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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 Finnish-
American 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 state-
building 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 fellow-
critic 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 pre-
Revolutionary 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 sharply-
contrasting, 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 extra-
musical 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 Marxist-
Leninist 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: nineteenth-
century (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 African-
American '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 counter-
revolutionary 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 dance-
and-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. Pre-
war 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-and-
war 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 high-
modernism. 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 art-
loving 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 non-
repeating 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 pre-
Soviet 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 double-
act 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 Music-
Hall 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 music-
hall 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 Music-
Hall 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 avant-
garde 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 'light-
entertainment 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 fast-
talking 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 Music-
hall', 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 full-
orchestral 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 Tea-
dzhaz 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 movie-
actors 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 Saraeva-
Bondar', 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 gas-
masks 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 mini-
genre 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 re-
edited 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 cat-
woman 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, ever-
climaxing 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 fin-
desiècle 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, anti-
Symbolist 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 triple-
meter 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 pre-
revolutionary 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 socio-
cultural 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 Lesley-
Anne 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 pro-
Soviet 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 two-
part 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 [petit-
bourgeois] or pseudo-revolutionary (i.e. propaganda texts set to pre-
Revolutionary 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 Moscow-
Kazan 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. Agitationno-
prosvetitel'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 state-
supported) 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 20-
strong 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 reading-
circle 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 strunno-
khorovogo 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 twelve-
tone 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 self-
awareness 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 oft-
stated 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 conductor-
arrangers 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 Russian-
speaking 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 re-
formed 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 Finnish-
Karelian 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 large-
scale, 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 Finnish-
Karelian 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 home-
made 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 Finnish-
Americans 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 Western-
style 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 socio-
cultural 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, Kïzl-
Orda, 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 artist-
heroes 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 poet-
composers) 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 Mid-
nineteenth 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 Ak-
Mechet (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 (Alma-
Ata, 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 self-
taught 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, mistak-
enly 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 so-
called 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 poverty-
stricken 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. Vodarskii-
Shiraeff, 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