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

Figure 1.
OFFICIAL SOURCE
MYTOLOGY
IDEOLOGY
Represents stability in a
changing reality
– Marxist philosophy
– Marxist interpretative
literature such as the works of
Lenin, Gorkij, Lunačasrkij
etc.
– Critical realism of 19th
century
– Revolutionary literature
FORM
Romanticism
Folkmusic
Nationalism
Universalism
Realism
UNOFFICIAL/OBJECTIVE WESTERN
SOURCES
Western tradition
Adoptions:
–German national romanticism
– Pan-European classical tradition, such as
Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Schumann,
Liszt etc.
Opposed:
–Western modernism,
i.e. formalism
– Bourgeois elitism
– Capitalistic popular culture and music
–Individual centred thinking and
subjective artistic experience.
artistic
society;
public,
SOCIALIST
REALISM IN
MUSIC –
SYNTHESIS
CONTENT
’Partiynost’
– Partymindness,
approved by the Party
’Ideynost’
– Ideologically
orthodox
’Narodnost’
–Peopleness,
close to the people’s
life
’ponjatnost’
– Intelligible,
easily accessible for
the broad masses
’Real’nost’
– Positive realism,
positive utopian
view of progressing
society,
– Truthful picture of
people’s everyday
life
Uniformity
‘Collectivity’
UNOFFICIAL/OBJECTIVE RUSSIAN
SOURCES
The legacy of the Tsar period
Adoptions:
– Russian national romanticism and 19th
century realism, such as Glinka, ”The Mighty
Five” etc.
Opposed:
– Myths of artist’s extreme individuality
– The ‘elitism’ of the Tsar period
The legacy of modernists
– Utopian thinking
– Rhetoric
– Various artistic means
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OFFICIAL SOURCE
EMPIRISM PRACTICE
Represents changing,
progressing reality – ”mistakes
need to be mended”
‘Partymindness’
– Gorki: ”We have the kind of
romanticism, which underlies the
myth, and is most beneficial in its
promoting a revolutionary attitude
toward reality, an attitude that in
practise refashions the world.”
– Folk music is familiar to the
broad masses and thus easily
accessible for them.
– Soviet Union is still in a
temporal state and only in its way
to the bright future. One of the
features of temporal nature is
formal nationalism. However,
nationalism within content is a
threat to socialism and to the
universal Marxist ideology, i.e. to
the estate where all the nations
loose their essence.
– ’Zhisnetvorzestvo’ i.e. art is
interrelated with reality. Art
influences on life and life
influences on art. Positive realism
advances the society and marks
out the brighter future. Naturalism
(social criticism) is one of the
symptoms of capitalism. Social
criticism is no longer needed
when the full socialism is in
operation.