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The Birth of the Soviet Romance from the Spirit of Russian Modernism
- Slavonic and East European Review
- Modern Humanities Research Association
- Volume 97, Number 1, January 2019
- pp. 110-135
- 10.5699/slaveasteurorev2.97.1.0110
- Article
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Abstract:
Histories of the Russian art-song (or romance) written during the Soviet period tend to inscribe a crude break between the pre- and post-revolutionary eras. The reasons for this are obvious enough; Soviet dislike of modernism meant that the period 1890–1930 had to be treated with particular care, lest accusations of formalism be raised. More broadly, a tendency to focus on the careers of leading émigré composers — Nikolai Metner, Sergei Rakhmaninov, Igor' Stravinskii — has constructed a narrative which sees 1917 as a terminal point in the development of the Russian romance tradition. However, this historiographical paradigm does considerable violence to the history of Russian art-song within the Soviet Union. This article surveys the work of leading song composers who were active from the 1910s well into the Soviet period — Anatolii Aleksandrov, Mikhail Gnesin, Nikolai Miaskovskii — using their works to establish a new and more sensitive periodization of Russian song. As well as tracing the evolution of their song-writing careers, this article will also explore the relationship between early Soviet song and Russian poetry, examining changing patterns of reception over the revolutionary divide.