Unpleasant Memories: Jasep Vitols during the First Years of the Soviet Power

Abstract

The article examines the relationship of Jazep Vitols, composer and professor at the Petrograd Conservatory, with the Soviet regime during the first years of its existence in Russia and Latvia. The circumstances of his departure from revolutionary Petrograd in August 1918, which the composer believed to be a temporary absence, are described in detail. At the same time, he allowed himself to get involved in the project of creating a private “Latvian Opera” in Riga. Under this pretext, many Latvian musicians and artists were given the opportunity to leave Soviet Russia, and Vitols also took advantage of this possibility. The composer had no personal conflicts with the Soviet regime, but neither he did sympathize with it. He remained a man of conservative views and did not want to change his usual bourgeois lifestyle. The hardships and inconveniences that arose during the revolution, such as hunger and cold, he perceived as unbearable and associated them with the new government, be it in Petrograd or in Riga. In turn, the Soviet government, represented by the governments of Soviet Russia and Soviet Latvia (January — May 1919), did not see any obstacles to cooperation with the composer in the field of musical education. The Bolshevik government of Soviet Latvia offered him to start organizing a higher music school in Riga (a Conservatory) and, according to some reports, the composer accepted the offer and even proceeded to take organizational measures. However, subsequently, publicly and in his memoirs, he denied the moment of cooperation with the Soviet regime.