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

according to ‘The Mighty Five’-aesthetics 71 . The old and the new in the works of
RAPM’s musician strengthened the link between the19th Century tradition and socialist
realism. Edmunds’ article indicates also that many artists who were part of certain
specific after-revolutionary artistic movement or artistic-ideological organization and
even those composers, who emigrated to the West, spoke, acted and wrote
controversially. Sometimes they even participated to the activities of the rival
movement or organization. Different groups were actually in a very close contact with
each others. Edmunds also criticizes the scholars such as Boris Schwarz, Detlef Gojow
and Larry Sitsky, who favours the modern music project and claim that the musical
avant-garde were victims of RAPM. Instead of that, the real avant-gardists had close
relationship to the political authorities and they gave their support to the new regime
after the October Revolution. 72 (Asaf’ev was one of them.) Edmunds’ article shows how
hard it is to place an artist under one title. In my view it is more justifiable to say that
almost all the artistic declarations after the revolution included avant-gardist features.
They had many ideological connection points 73 , only their means differed from each
others.
Stalin’s terror was in many ways a tip of an iceberg. Socialist realist aesthetics and
rhetoric were already built, but it was sharpened and confirmed especially during the
Ždanovščhina 74 (1946–1948). Yet Stalin and his right hand on the field of culture,
Andrej Ždanov implemented operations 75 that made socialist realist cultural policy
somewhat arbitrary. Many Marxist texts were reinterpreted according to practical and
political needs. The aesthetical plurality and variety of interpretations were no longer
71
One of the most famous Russian composer and a member of well known musical circle the ”Mighty
Five” or “Mighty Handful” [“Balakirevskij Kružok”, “Mogučaja Kučka”] (1857–1862). The other
members of the circle were: Milij Balakriev (1836–1910), the leader of the group; Aleksandr Borodin
(1833–1887), Tsezar’ Kjui (1835–1918) and Modest Musorgskij (1839–1881).
72
Edmunds 2003, pp. 4–12.
73
Those points are indicated among others by Gutkin (1999).
74
In a words of Richard Stites “A great cultural pogrom [..] launched in the years 1946–1948”. Edmunds
(eds.) 2004, p. 29.
75
After the year 1934 the main authorities of socialist realism were Andrej Žhdanov and Maxim Gorgij.
The time after the Second World War has been called Ždanovščhina, because during that time Žhdanov
persecuted the artists systematically. In 1948 he condemned the opera The Great Friendship by Vano
Muradeli for its perverting of history. At the same time he launched the formalist accusations for
Majskovskij, Prokof’ev, Šostakovič, Hačaturjan, Shepalin and Popov. The composers were compelled to
perform public apologies and a promise to mend their ways: to compose in future music that was simpler
and more accessible for the wide masses.
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