Dialogues with the past : transforming political concepts as part of revolutionary discourse in the Soviet music politics of 1917–1930s

Abstract

This PhD dissertation examines changes in the Soviet music political discussions from the revolutions of 1917 until the 1930s. It focuses on the uses and transformations of political concepts in the Soviet discussions on music and culture. Political concepts created a shared discursive space among musicians, other cultural figures, and politicians, who negotiated and strove to construct a particular understanding of ‘revolutionary music,’ as demanded by the political changes after the 1917. The dissertation analyses histories and uses of such political concepts as freedom (svoboda), democracy (demokratiya), Europe (Yevropa), Russia (Rossiya), East (vostok), West (zapad), people (narod), bït and realism (realizm) in the context of Soviet discussions on music. The research data consists of central music journals published in the Soviet Union between 1917 and the 1930s, newspapers (Pravda, Izvestiya) and correspondence, and decisions of central politicians and political organs published in document collections. Theoretically and methodologically the work draws on the Bakhtinian understanding of the dialogical relationship between language and reality, as well as on conceptual history and discourse studies, both of which see language and central political concepts used in political discussions as constituting rather than merely reflecting political reality. Conceptual historical analysis of the Soviet music political discussion demonstrates how the understanding of ‘revolution in music’ was constructed in the intersection of new political demands on the one hand, and discourses and practices inherited from the Russian and European cultural history on the other. When the position of traditional practices and ideas of music in the new political demands were discussed, musicians and politicians alike strove to reconceptualize and reframe the traditions anew in order to adapt them to the ideas of revolution. Consequently, Soviet music politics is best described as adapting past traditions to a new political context by using and reformulating the meanings of central political concepts. Rather than being a direct continuation of or a decisive break from history, the process of bringing revolution into music was a creative transformation and adaptation of the political language into existing traditions – a process which in the dissertation has been conceptualized as “dialogues with the past.”