Re/Defining the Imaginary Museum of National Music

Re/Defining the Imaginary Museum of National Music The Case of Serbia Tatjana Markovic´ Studying history is always dialogue, and to study the history of a small nation involves not only a dialogue between the historian and his sources but also between the historian and ‘canonic’ convictions. The only method of extending the boundaries of national history is to make this dialogue more uncompromising and inquiring – instead of breaking it up.1 The concept of the hybrid Serbian national identity was a model for constructing the canon of national music historiography since the late 19th century. The main criterion used by the Serbian historians for the inclusion of composers and musicians into the music/ological “national museum” was their ethnic origin, Orthodox religion, and fluency in the Serbian language, as opposite to the twentieth-century Croatian and Slovenian models where all musicians living and working on the territory of the country – regardless of their origin – were considered “national” composers. Therefore, many foreign – especially Czech or Hungarian composers in Serbia proper who fluently spoke the Serbian language – were never fully accepted as “national” composers in historical surveys. The canon was established by Stevan Mokranjac (1856-1914) and then confirmed by Petar Konjović (1883-1970) and his contemporaries. Later on it was profoundly developed and confirmed by Stana Đurić-Klajn (1908-1986) and Roksanda Pejović (b. 1929). Pejović’s studies are methodologically formulated mainly as positivistic presentations of the important historical facts frequently examined for the first time, while Đurić-Klajn’s writings were based on her interdisciplinary research, extensive archival work, and cultural contextualization. 1. Contextualization: Constructing national identity The main signifier of Serbian hybrid national identity/-ies in the 19th century was the division of its space between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire. Deep political, social as well as religious and cultural differences between the two Empires greatly impacted the profile of Serbian culture and the consequence of this duality re- mained characteristic until nowadays. Its main characteristic was the contrast between 1 Matti Huttunen, “The ‘canon’ of music history and the music of a small nation”, in: Urve Lippus (ed.), Music history writing and national culture, Tallinn 1995, p. 28. Musicologica Austriaca 28 (2009) 34 Tatjana Markovic´ the peasant, rural culture of the “guardians of the national roots”2 in the former Ottoman province, and the bourgeois culture of the Serbian citizens living in the Habsburg Monar- chy. The concept of national identity was a model for defining the imaginary museum of national music, which was firstly suggested by Stevan Mokranjac (1856-1914), later established by Petar Konjović (1883-1970) and his contemporaries, and profoundly developed and confirmed by Stana Đurić-Klajn (1908-1986) and Roksanda Pejović (b. 1929), the two main Serbian music historiographers in the 20th century. For that reason, the imaginary museum of Serbian music will be examined in the first place through the writings by Đurić- Klajn, the author of the first Serbian history of music, as well as those of Pejović. Constructing Serbian national (music) identity was in the 19th century a process of developing strategies to unify the dispersed Serbian people. In that process early cultural and music institutions established mainly in Vienna and Pest,3 attempting to preserve Orthodox religion,4 played a significant role, fostering vernacular language,5 and creating “authentic” national music instead of adopting the inappropriate music of “foreign” character. 2.The canon of Serbian music historiography and non-Serbian musicians In the canon of Serbian music historiography the term “Serbian music” covers works composed within Serbia, by both Serbian and foreign (mainly Czech) musicians who used the Serbian language, as well as music composed outside of the country by ethnically Serbian musicians. In that way, the main criterion for being included into the “national 2 Cf. Keely Stauter-Halsted, The nation in the village. The genesis of peasant national identity in Austrian Poland 1848-1914, Ithaca-London 2004. 3 Due to the continuous uprisings and liberation wars against the Ottoman administration, urban cultural life was established in Serbia from outside of the country by the Serbian intellectuals in the diaspora. Therefore, the main centre of the Serbian culture was Vienna, where the first institutions and media were founded. Cf. Tatjana Marković, “Strategies of networking Viennese culture”, in: Tatjana Marković, Vesna Mikić (eds.), Music networking, Belgrade 2005, pp. 48-58. 4 In 1825 the Serbian Orthodox Church reached the status of a state institution, and the constitutions from 1869, 1888 and 1901 confirmed that the state religion in Serbia is “Eastern-Orthodox”. The process included firstly Pan-Slavism and later Serbian nationalism. In this process, the very understanding of Serbianess was redefined. From an article about folk and church rites of Serbs from Herzegovina (“Srbi Hercegovcy muhamedanskog i pravoslavno-istočnog veroispovjedanija” [Serbs from Herzegovina of the Muslim and Orthodox-East religions]) published in the Serbian folk calendar Vojvođanin for 1854, it is obvious, for in- stance, that Serbs were included among national citizens who adopted Islam, but later that was abandoned in favour of the belief that only Serbs of Orthodox religion could be regarded as “true Serbs”. 5 The Old Slavic language was adapted to several branches, resulting with national redactions (Czech, Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Croatian) which were gradually detached from the vernacular national languages. The Serbian language was standardized by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in his Srpski rječnik (Serbian Dictionary), published in Vienna in 1818. This Serbian-German-Latin dictionary, containing 26.270 terms, presented an adapted version of Serbian grammar which took the literary language of the Štokavian dialect of epics, as well as a new writing system as a model. The grammar was adopted by Croatian intellectuals too, so that – according to the Viennese agreement from 1850 – Serbian and Croatian were recognised as one, unique language. This agreement was signed in March 28, 1850 in Vienna by the most distinguished Ser- bian and Croatian authors and philologists (Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, Dimitrija Demeter, Ivan Mažuranić, Vuk St. Karadžić, Vinko Pacel, Franjo Miklošić, Stefan Pejaković, Đura Daničić). The Case of Serbia 35 museum” was the ethnic origin, Orthodox religion, and the Serbian language, as opposite to the 20th century Croatian and Slovenian models where all musicians living and working on the territory of the country – regardless where they came from – were considered as “national” composers. For that reason, with a few exceptions, only composers of Serbian origin were chosen to be representatives of Serbian national music.6 Over the years numerous Czech composers worked in Serbia proper, and in order to keep their jobs they were obliged to adopt the Orthodox religion and be fluent in the Serbian language. Although they con- tributed to the advancement of professional musical life in the country, they were never fully accepted as “national” composers. Instead, the historians of Serbian music always mentioned them as a group of “foreign musicians” working in Serbia. A similar case represents the Slovenian composer Davorin Jenko (1835-1914), who lived in Serbian cities and worked in Serbian music institutions almost for his entire life.7 Jenko’s patriotic compositions and stage music were the most popular repertoire of numerous Serbian choral societies8 and of the National Theatre in Belgrade, and his contributions to Serbian music were mainly evaluated in a positive way, especially by Robert Tollinger (1859-1911, a Czech musician active in Serbian cities like Velika Kikinda and Šabac) and Petar Konjović (1883-1970). In the editorial to the initial issue of the first Serbian professional music journal Gudalo, Tollinger claimed that: “[what] Kornelije [Stanković] initiated, Jenko continued in a very professional, skilful, and happy way, and we can today only say – let us be grateful to him for establishing a new, but firm foun- dation of Serbian music”.9 While the practice of isolating and excluding the work of musicians of foreign origin could be understood from the point of view of nineteenth-century national ideology and the desire to establish a network of dispersed people, it has certainly been unacceptable within Serbian music historiography since World War II. The composers chosen as representatives of Serbian music after World War II and in the post-Yugoslav period were in the writings of the younger generation partly redefined and extended due to the fact 6 Actually, the attitude concurs with the original concept of the – later redefined – Croatian canon of national music historiography established by Franz Xaver Koch alias Franjo Ksaver Kuhač, who pointed out: “the characteristic achievements of a nation are not the result of education, but rather of its nature, blood, and ethnicity. Studies can only improve inherited talents, but cannot bestow certain ability upon an individual or even less an entire nation”. (Franjo Ksaver Kuhač, “Historijski uvod za Ilirske glazbenike” [Historical introduction to Illyrian musicians], in: Lovro Županović (ed.), Ilirski glazbenici: Prilozi za poviest hrvatskoga preporoda [Illyrian

Load more