Boris Asaf'ev and the Soviet Musicology - E-thesis

The younger generation, Aleksander Blok (1880–1921), Vjačeslav Ivanov (1866–1949)
and Andrej Belyj (1880–1934) were mostly inclined to German Romantics and idealist
philosophy. Their generation is often called “mystic Symbolists” because they had
strong interest to religion and Vladimir Solov’jev’s (1853–1900) mystical doctrines.
However, the second generation did not break its ties either with French Symbolist
poetry, painting or music. For example Belyj was very interested in Stéphane
Mallarmé’s (1842–1898) ideas on the musicalization of poetry 24 .
Characterizing the two generation Simon Morrison has written that according to the first
generation of Symbolists, symbols stimulated the imagination, “invoking ancient times,
recalling forgotten experiences, and, as a consequence, temporarily renouncing reality
for dream, cognition for intuition.” For the second generation, “symbols had the
capacity to transform reality, to make the familiar unfamiliar (a notion later adopted by
the Russian Formalists), and to have a narcotic impact on the psyche.” 25 The idea of
transforming the reality made the second generation of Symbolists closer to Realists’
utilitarian purposes. They saw art as a means to influence on reality. Thus “decadence”
is somehow a legitimate appellation for the first generation because they didn’t care of
the social or political functions of art but wanted to turn their back to the the old ideals.
At the beginning of the 1910s Symbolism was yet divided yet two different branches
Acmeism and Futurism, who wanted to clean the Symbolist texts from foreign
philosophies, mysticism, aesthetism and individuality. They considered themselves as
the topmost avant-gardists wanting to clean the poetry from the unclear thematic
elements so that the words would again speak for themselves. 26 Cubo-Futurists
developed transrational language where “word as such” was considered a phonetic
entity possessing its own ontology. This language was rich in sound and devoid of
conventional meaning. It was organized by phonetic analogy and rhythm rather than by
grammar and syntax. Typical of the era, it emphasized the reader’s role in the process of
grasping the message intuitively in a mental process. 27
24 Steinberg 1982, pp. 34–35.
25 Morrison 2002, p. 4.
26 Pesonen & Suni 2001, p. 9.
27 Lawton 1988, p. 13.
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