Kiril Tomoff in his text mentions the “Kul’tura i zhizn’” articles. According to Tomoff, these articles considered certain cosmopolitan authors of music textbooks betrayers, because the authors devalued classical Russian music criticism and underestimated the accomplishments of nineteenth-century Russian composers. For instance, Tomoff writes that the soviet officials disliked that the authors’ work held that Russian compositions were derivative of earlier achievements in Western European music rather than innovative in their use of socialist realism. Soviet officials accused the cosmopolitans of being prone to Western ideas about progressive music, and of having “espoused music theories that strove for “general human” relevance rather than rooting their evaluations in a specific national (Russian) heritage” (p. 214). This seems to be in tension with the policy of the Soviet arts institutions towards the music of Central Asian Republics, which included the harmonization of local folk music in a “progressive” Westernized manner, the insistence on the production and performance of advanced Western genres, the establishment of European-style musical institutions, etc. I’m curious how the Soviet powers understood the boundary between Westernization which was supposed to be good/social realistic/soviet on the one hand and cosmopolitan westernization which was considered formalistic/bourgeois on the other.
One answer to this question might involve the fact that for Soviet officials, the construction of musical culture in Central Asian republics based on classical musical traditions meant using specifically Russian classical musical traditions. Perhaps for this reason, Westernization was considered appropriate, as it had a socialist content and only applied to Russian traditional musical elements. Still, given Stalin’s famous formula that art should be “National in form and socialist in content”, the intervention of the Soviet government in the tradition of the Eastern musical form itself seems to be too forced. I’m curious if the Soviet government could have ever tried to keep the Central Asian republics’ traditional musical form (even though they considered it “backward”) and fill it with Socialist content only. (For instance, could they have chosen for musical pieces not history or epic episode, but modern plot, as in the case of the opera based on the story of building of a hydro-electric power plant, which Marina Frolova-Walker mentions?) In other words, was it ever possible to avoid this “separate path” music conflict by letting some “backward” elements of Uzbek music (such as monophony) to remain but paying more attention to the content or to the context in which this music was performed?
Both of your questions, on the extent to which Westernisation was acceptable, touch on a wider conflation of “Western”, “all-Union”, and “Russian” cultural norms.
One part of it was a real Soviet tendency to lump together Western institutions (conservatories, etc.) and Russian styles (the Russian nationalist school of composition, etc.) in the name of development, a process that Tomoff covers in detail. For example, we see all-Union institutions like the all-Union Composers’ Union sent “musical consultants” to the republics as agents of modernisation.
But there’s a haziness in Tomoff’s analysis as well: he talks of the Soviet centre’s “Europeanizing” agenda (Tomoff, p213), but then refers to the Russian musical tradition of orientalism (Tomoff, p217) – which I interpret as the deliberate cultivation of an identity in opposition to the “West” construed more broadly. Frolova-Walker’s earlier journal article touches on this process as well. Frolova-Walker here, on the other hand, avoids characterising Soviet norms; instead speaking more bluntly of “Soviet cultural empire”. (Frolova-Walker, p163) This bluntness does reflect the ambiguity going on here.
This helps us answer your first question, about the bounds of “acceptable” Westernisation. Perhaps Soviet power didn’t quite understand what this boundary between “cosmopolitan” and “developed” was – and with this charge of “anticosmopolitanism”, Soviet power was trying to negotiate, with extreme violence, what aspects of Western culture in the Russian musical tradition was acceptable, and what not so .
(Finally, I can’t help but think Kirghizia’s “nul points” in the Stalin awards rankings is a Eurovision reference. Take that as far as you want to.)
I was interested specifically in the periodization of Tomoff’s piece. The discussion of the politics within the composer’s union was, I think, one of the most detailed and well-researched parts of the paper. Tomoff claims fairly directly that “The choice presented the Uzbek leadership was whether to replace Ashrafi with other representatives of the Russifying older generation or with the younger proponents of the Uzbek separate path…The promotion of the young generation of traditionally minded Uzbek composers seems to have coincided with the beginning of the anticosmopolitanism campaign” (232). This change-over-time model is one way in which I see westernization and anti-cosmopolitanism making sense together in this article.
I was also struck by the issue of Westernization in Soviet music, which seemed to be considered legitimate and the correct way to do things despite the Soviet Union’s general suspicion of all things Western. The last reading talked about how some composers tried to make music that was neither Western nor related to the folk musics of the area and more or less failed because it is nearly impossible to come up with something totally new and not have it exist in relation to something else. Because of this, the Soviet Union seemed to have accepted Western music tropes, and the Walker article shows how that beared out and was justified under Soviet principles of progress.
“I’m curious how the Soviet powers understood the boundary between Westernization which was supposed to be good/social realistic/soviet on the one hand and cosmopolitan westernization which was considered formalistic/bourgeois on the other. ”
“Both formalism and cosmopolitanism had been or
became shorthand for unacceptable musical styles and techniques derived from or developed in the avant-garde of Western Europe and the United States, but the musical content that eventually filled these typical terms of cultural attack was always mutable, determined by often contested interpretation, and highly dependent on the music professionals themselves
for definition.” (213)
This was my intuition as to the answer: that it was nearly arbitrary, or else a matter of fine detail in the musical style that we as readers, especially if not well-versed in music, could not answer. It is apparent at least that performances could rely on subtext without having to be explicitly socialist to still convey the ideology. As our Stalin Prize reading points out, who received special attention from the administration was often politically motivated, as opposed to being motivated by considerations of merit. So I don’t think, but I also don’t know, that there was a boundary that wasn’t ultimately arbitrary or based on something fleeting.
Just to be clear: Totally didn’t copy nor did I rip-off your comment, Dagan. Should have refreshed before posting mine…lol.
I think part of the complexity with the boundary is that it was formed partially by the Soviet anticosmopolitan campaign and partially by the europeanizing methods employed by Soviet powers through their use of musical institutions, for example. Specifically, I think that the boundary established by europeanization was fairly well delineated, whereas the boundary established by the anticosmopolitan campaign was a lot more fragile in structure and ultimately incompatible with the goals of the Soviets powers. As a result, I feel like the boundaries were at least not intended to be arbitrary, even if they were in practice.
“I’m curious how the Soviet powers understood the boundary between Westernization which was supposed to be good/social realistic/soviet on the one hand and cosmopolitan westernization which was considered formalistic/bourgeois on the other.”
If we recall Tomoff at the very beginning on page 213, just before discussing the “Kul’tura i zhizn’” articles, then I think we receive a fairly solid idea of how complex a relationship the Soviet powers had with this boundary that you identify: “Both formalism and cosmopolitanism had been or became shorthand for unacceptable musical styles and techniques derived from or developed in the avantgarde of Western Europe and the United States, but the musical content that eventually filled these typical terms of cultural attack was always mutable, determined by often contested interpretation, and highly dependent on the music professionals themselves for definition.” That is to say, I think that the Soviet powers greatly struggled to reconcile this boundary, as their methods here for establishing said boundary (as mentioned by Tomoff throughout the article) were often contradictory and largely unsuccessful.
Your last question reminded me of a passage in the Frolova-Walker chapter where she discusses the meaning of “nationalist in form, socialist in content” and suggests the that the meaning of ‘socialist content’ seems “obscure here, but it was understood to mean an embrace of Western institutions and styles, or modern technology, as appropriate” (172). This suggests it might not be possible to keep the elements of monophony. Additionally, the end goal was to create a unified Soviet culture, so while the musical elements, like monophony, might be more compelling to an Uzbek audience, they might not have been seen as something that could be popular in all of the different republics.
“I’m curious if the Soviet government could have ever tried to keep the Central Asian republics’ traditional musical form (even though they considered it “backward”) and fill it with Socialist content only.”
While I personally think this idea has merit for what Soviet officials were trying to accomplish, I think they would have rejected this as antithetical of the agenda of Russification, which I don’t think we can separate from talking about how these musical cultures developed. In Tomoff’s article, I was struck by his description of a performance of an opera “with Soviet themes” met with cries of “down with Russian opera.” (229) As much as indigenization was crucial to the “national in form” half of the slogan, I think Russification was considered equally important by officials to creating “nationality” and thus inherent.
I think the distinction between westernization and cosmopolitanism mainly has to do with time. Both essentially share the same values, but “good” westernization occurred before the War, and “bad” cosmopolitanism occurred after the war. The reason why such a shift occurred I am not sure.
I was also interested in the issue of Westernization in that the Soviet seemed to see two versions of Westernization, one Soviet and one Bourgeois (although this may be an oversimplification). The distinction was fairly unclear to me, it seemed that the difference between them was the element of “realism” (which seems rather nebulous when talking abut music) and as you pointed out in the quote from page 214, the “‘general human’ relevance rather than rooting their evaluations in a specific national (Russian) heritage” (Tomoff, 214). This seemed odd as the Russian heritage they looked to, that of the 19th century, was not only bourgeois but aristocratic (Tomoff, 217). The “general human” relevance that the Soviets labeled as “formalist” or “cosmopolitan” seems to speak to the internationalism which the Soviets emphasized, whereas the emphasis on Russian classical music would seem to be a case of national chauvinism. It seems to me that at the end of the day the difference between good westernization and bad westernization was mostly dependent about how Stalin felt about the music, especially when we consider that after Stalin’s death the shash makam was rehabilitated as healthy Uzbek folklore (Tomoff, 240).
While reading the Kiril Tomoff piece, I kept thinking of this balance that you mention in your questions – balancing nationalism with Socialist content. I often was brought back to this question: when does nationalism become too nationalist? I think, for the Soviet Officials, the nationalism became too nationalist when it began to contradict the socialist form. The form cannot contradict the content. In this piece, we see that in some cases, the form cannot be separated from the content (a history of feudalism in this example). This quote demonstrates that: “Though this music was touted as folk music by the Uzbeks, cultural administrators in Moscow argued that it (and especially the opera librettos to which it was frequently composed) glorified Central Asia’s “feudal past.” The Uzbek “separate path” was seen as a dangerously divisive deviation from the standard “development of musical culture based on classical traditions.” (pg 222)
Here, the form itself contradicts socialism because it represents feudalism. It is interesting to see this case where the traditional form crosses the line into content. I think that the Soviet officials not only regarded this style as “backwards” (as in not modern) but also felt that what it represented was something that opposed socialism. I think these are two separate reasons as to why this “separate path” could not be crossed, because it entailed too many contradictions to the “nationalist in form and socialist in content” maxim.