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

Asaf’ev certainly cooperated with the new government to some extent from the early
days of the Revolution and gave provably his support to the new government and for
some of the new changes that took place. 168 However, he was also under some serious
attacks of RAPP. After a decade since the attacks, Daniel’ Žitormirskij (1906–), a
teacher of the history of music at the Moscow Conservatory wrote a positive article
about Asaf’ev. It was published in the official music journal Sovetskaja Muzyka.
According to Olkhovsky this article was inspired by Party circles and it started a
persistent campaign for the purpose of drawing Asaf’ev into the role of ideological
leader of Soviet music. 169 Many features speak for Olkhovsky’s assumption. The
building of Asaf’ev’s character towards ‘big’ Soviet musicologist parallel to Stasov
continued long time after his death. His writings on visual arts were not published until
1966 and the introduction article placed him next to the big figures of Stasov, Rimskij-
Korsakov, Glazunov and Ljadov, and made even a comparison between Stasov’s
Isskustvo XIX veka (Art of the 19 th Century) and Asaf’ev’s writings. 170
It is difficult to estimate whether his influence was mitigating or strengthening towards
the path that led to the monolithic cultural policy. His influence was surely positive on
the general field of musicology if one counts pure facts from his Soviet biography: the
mouth and development of his musical aesthetical and musical theoretical work,
bringing forth new music on the 1920s and speaking on the behalf of young composers
as well as preserving the old tradition inherited from Stasov. A positive feature was also
his eagerness as a musical educator and his, if not reformative, but productive path as a
composer. His youth writings, as well as his appeals to Lunačargskij indicate how hard
he tried to oppose the narrow-minded cultural policy and how much the attacks towards
him frightened him at the end of 1920s, when he finally decided to cease his writing for
a long period.
168 Lunačarskij preferred to create voluntary cooperation ties to the arts intelligentsia. On 1.12.1917
Pravda published his appeal for all the artists to fulfil their civic duties and report to the Winter Palace
office of the People’s Commissar of the Public Enlightenment. Among those who followed was the
composer Ščepačev, critic Karatygin and the composer-writer Boris Asaf’ev. (Schwartz 1983, p. 13.)
169 Olkhovsky 1955, p. 82.
170 See the foreword by Mark Etkind in Asaf’ev: Mysli i Dumy 1966, pp. 4, 10.
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