Music and Russian Identity in War and Revolution, 1914–22

Music and Russian Identity in War and Revolution, 1914–22 Rebecca Mitchell In January 1915 the weekly Moscow journal Muzyka unveiled a new cover logo: an unsheathed sword whose upright hilt formed the shape of a Christian cross and whose blade was framed by a musical lyre. This single image provided a visual encapsulation of three interlocking themes that dominated Russian- language discourse in the early months of the Great War: music, battle, and the spiritual mission of Holy Russia.1 (See fig. 47 in gallery of illustrations following page 178.) Immediately after the outbreak of war in 1914, Muzyka’s editor, Vladimir V. Derzhanovskii, asserted that music was to play an active role in the conflict. How, he asked, were his readers (as Russian musicians) to “react to these great events experienced by the motherland” and “fulfill their duty” to society? How would they defend “Russian national culture”? While some might be called to “exchange their lyre for a sword,” Derzhanovskii intimated that the vast majority faced the difficult mission of redoubling their important cultural work amid total war.2 The problem of Russian musical identity in the context of a multiethnic empire was to play a central role in defining just what that mission was to be. While the role of nationalism in Russian music has long been a topic of study, the relationship between Russian national (russkii) and imperial (ros- siiskii) identity, particularly in the midst of war and revolution, deserves closer consideration.3 With the outbreak of war, loyalty to one’s ethnic background, one’s country of citizenship, or to a universal, shared culture of humanity emerged as an urgent problem for musicians, music critics, and audiences.4 1 The original logo employed by Muzyka at the journal’s inception in 1910 was a lyre; in 1914 this was altered to Russian folk instruments. The martial symbol of lyre-and- sword appeared after the outbreak of war. 2 V. V. Derzhanovskii, “V buriu, vo grozu,” Muzyka, no. 192 (26 July 1914): 453–55, here 454; “Ot redaktora,” Muzyka, no. 194 (25 October 1914): 480. 3 For a recent scholarly assessment of Russian nationalism in music, see Marina Frolova-Walker, Russian Music and Nationalism: From Glinka to Stalin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). 4 On the overlapping categories of “nationalism” and “patriotism” in France during the Great War, see Carlo Caballero, “Patriotism or Nationalism? Fauré and the Great Russian Culture in War and Revolution, 1914–22, Book 2: Political Culture, Identities, Mentali- ties, and Memory. Murray Frame, Boris Kolonitskii, Steven G. Marks, and Melissa K. Stockdale, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2014, 221–43. 222 REBEccA MITCHELL Though the question of Russian national and imperial identity had long been an unresolved issue in the musical world, it was only in 1914 that the question took on pressing political significance. Similarly, the larger context of these wartime developments framed developing national musical styles in the early Soviet period. Recent historical scholarship on musical life has generally used the 1917 revolutions as either a starting- or an end-point, without granting particular attention to the ways in which the experience of war and revolution impacted music’s symbolic and practical status.5 Although it has been argued that pro- fessional musicians showed little engagement with or interest in the war effort, analysis of Russian music periodicals of the time tells a different story.6 In the first months of combat, the war was a common theme for discussion, and many musicians of various stripes (composers, performers, critics) actively sought to carve out a role for themselves in defending the motherland. These attempts at self-definition ushered in a darker development in musical life: the politicization of musical creativity shattered the multiethnic musical community that had begun to take root in the final years of the Russian Empire, replacing it with an exclusionary nationalist discourse focused on Russian (and Pan-Slav) ethnic identity. This nationalist politicization of music left a legacy that haunted Soviet-era interpretations of music and continues to influ- ence music to the present day. Through close analysis of textual discourse between 1905 and 1922, this chapter uncovers the ways in which both the concept and the practice of music were shaped by the experiences of the Great War and revolutions of 1917. At least initially, the war provided an opportunity for musicians to define their role and function as part of a larger, unified community in a time of conflict. While the idea that music had political implications was by no means new (as the forced resignation of Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1905 demonstrated), it was only with the lifting of censorship after 1905 that music’s political meaning could be openly War,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 52, 3 (Autumn 1999): 593–625. 5 Recent monographs dealing with musical life in this period include James Loeffler, The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010); Amy Nelson, Music for the Revolution: Musicians and Power in Early Soviet Russia (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004); Lynn Sargeant, Harmony and Discord: Music and the Transformation of Russian Cultural Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 6 Richard Stites, “Days and Nights in Wartime Russia: Cultural Life, 1914–1917,” in European Culture in the Great War: The Arts, Entertainment, and Propaganda, 1914–1918, ed. Aviel Roshwald and Stites (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 8–31, here 14. Contemporary periodicals consulted for this chapter include Golos Moskvy, Iuzhnyi muzykalńyi vestnik, Moskovskii ezhenedelńik, Muzyka, Muzykalńyi sovremennik, Novoe zveno, Rampa i zhizn´, Russkaia muzykalńaia gazeta, Russkaia mysl´, and Russkie vedomosti. MUSIC AND RUSSIAN IDENTITY IN WAR AND REVOLUTION 223 debated in the public press.7 For this reason, 1914 served as an important moment for open discussion defining music’s purpose and delineating how musicians might be actively involved in contemporary social and political life. At the same time, however, the politicization of music along national lines alienated and ultimately excluded those individuals and groups not deemed part of “Russian” musical heritage. As Soviet musical institutions took root after 1917, they tended to follow nationalist assumptions introduced in the late imperial period. Two fundamental concepts framed this discussion: musical metaphysics and musical patriotism. In the aftermath of the 1905 Revolution, Russian musicians and commentators commonly envisioned music as a unifying force, capable of transcending cultural, social, and political divisions that seemed to increasingly divide the Russian Empire. Music took on a tutelary role as a potential means of counteracting the divisive forces of the modern age and reuniting society. In my research, I refer to this symbolic interpretation as musical metaphysics.8 The basis of this world view, together with contemporary attempts at its implementation, is given detailed attention in section 1. In the second section, I explore the ways in which the concept of musical metaphysics became enmeshed with attempts to define musical patriotism. With the outbreak of war in 1914, musical society by and large embraced the exuberant outpouring of patriotism that dominated all Russian society. Patriotic sentiment could feasibly be construed musically in various ways: in lyrics, compositional style, loyalty of the composer or musician to the Russian state, or by ethnic background. It was the last of these that gained sway in Russia in 1914. Russia, it was argued, faced spiritual as well as physical battle against its “Prussian” enemy, and music was conceived as a crucial weapon. The unifying goal of musical metaphysics, when interlocked with the debate over musical patriotism gave rise to an exclusivist narrative in which it was commonly assumed that only ethnically “pure” Russian music could advance the wartime effort. As an image of “pure” Russian music was embraced, music became symbolically linked with the fate of Russia itself. Because of this collapsing of Russian music and the Russian nation, musical discourse took an increasingly dark turn as Russian losses in the war began to mount, the focus of section 3. The fate of Russia found expression not just in physical numbers of dead 7 On the resolution by the Russian Music Society (RMO) to dismiss Rimskii-Korsakov (19 March 1905), together with the larger political implications of this event, see Lynn Sargeant, “Kashchei the Immortal: Liberal Politics, Cultural Memory, and the Rimsky- Korsakov Scandal of 1905,” Russian Review 64, 1 (January 2004): 22–43. 8 Rebecca Mitchell, “Nietzsche’s Orphans: Music and the Search for Unity in Revolu- tionary Russia, 1905–1921” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011); Mitchell, “In Search of Orpheus: Music and Irrationality in Late Imperial Russia: 1905–1917,” in Irratsionalńoe v russkoi istorii, ed. Julia Mannherz (Moscow: Germanskii istoricheskii institut v Moskve, forthcoming). 224 REBEccA MITCHELL and wounded but in the symbolic loss of Russian musical creativity itself, embodied perhaps most poignantly in the death of Aleksandr Skriabin in 1915. In this phase, the silencing of musical creativity and the dark mood expressed in many musical compositions from the time

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