Soviet musicology and the ‘nationalities question’: the case of latvia

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKeywords: Latviamusicologynationalities policySoviet UnionJāzeps Vītols Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Martin Boiko, Joachim Braun and Silvio dos Santos for their invaluable comments on earlier versions of this article; the staff of the Misiņš Library (Riga) and the Library of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music for their kind assistance with primary source materials; and both Emory College and the University of South Carolina Research Foundation for financial support of this project. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this essay are his own. Notes Notes 1 Though there has recently been intense interest in the general topic of Latvian historiography of the Soviet and post-Soviet years (for example, Buholcs 2003 Buholcs, J. 2003. 1940. gadā notikušās valsts iekārtas pārveides Latvijā vēstures interpretācijas maiņa (1988–1989). Domino, 1: 195–215. [Google Scholar]; Ivanovs 2003a Ivanovs, A. 2003a. Latvijas PSR historiogrāfija (konceptuāls pārskats). Latvijas Vēsture, 51(52): 75–83. 69–77 [Google Scholar], 2003b, 2004; Strods 2003 Strods, H. 2003. “‘Baltijas valstu okupācija: ieskats terminoloģijā, periodizācijā, izpētē’”. In in Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti 9: Padomju okupācijas režims Baltijā 1944–1959. gadā: politika un tās sekas, Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds. [Google Scholar]), there exists no post-Soviet literature on Latvian music historiography specifically. The only published consideration of the subject remains Joachim Braun's ‘Some Preliminary Considerations on the Present State of Baltic Musicology’, first published over a quarter of a century ago (Braun 1982 Braun, J. 1982. Some Preliminary Considerations on the Present State of Baltic Musicology. Journal of Baltic Studies, 13(1): 40–52. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; reprinted in Braun 2002 Braun, J. 2002. Raksti: Mūzika Latvijā, Edited by: Boiko, M. Riga: Musica Baltica. [Google Scholar], pp. 238–55). 2 What changed between 1918 and 1989 with respect to Soviet nationalities policy was, primarily, the degree to which the leadership at various times emphasized the sliyanie (merging) or the sblizhenie (drawing together) of the Soviet peoples as the immediate goal of their efforts, and the degree to which it granted autonomy to local leaderships with regard to economic and cultural planning. These vacillations in policy and rhetoric are usefully summarized in Smith (1990b Smith, G. 1990b. ‘Nationalities Policy from Lenin to Gorbachev’ Edited by: Smith, G. (1990a) [Google Scholar]). 3 The canonical text that provided the model upon which minority histories were fashioned was, from 1938 through to the mid-1950s, the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik): A Short Course (Istoriya vsesoyuznoi kommunisticheskoi partii [bol'shevikov]: kratky kurs) (Moscow, Gos.uchebno-pedagog.izd-vo, 1938). On the Short Course, see Markwick (2001 Markwick, RD. 2001. Rewriting History in Soviet Russia: The Politics of Revisionist Historiography, 1956–1974, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 42–7). On its use in the framing of non-Russian histories, see Litvin (2001 Litvin, AL. 2001. Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia: A View from Within Keep, J. L. H. (ed., trans.) (Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], p. 124); Mazour (1971 Mazour, AG. 1971. The Writing of History in the Soviet Union, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 288–90); and Tillett (1969 Tillett, L. 1969. The Great Friendship: Soviet Historians on the Non-Russian Nationalities, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar], pp. 40–9). With respect to the situation in Latvia specifically, see Ivanovs (2003a Ivanovs, A. 2003a. Latvijas PSR historiogrāfija (konceptuāls pārskats). Latvijas Vēsture, 51(52): 75–83. 69–77 [Google Scholar], 2003b Ivanovs, A. 2003b. “‘Vēstures zinātne kā padomju politikas instruments: historiogrāfijas konceptuālais līmenis’”. In Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti 9: Padomju okupācijas režīms Baltijā 1944–1959. gadā: politika un tās sekas, Edited by: Caune, A, Feldmanis, I and Kļaviņa, D. Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds. (2003) [Google Scholar]). 4 It should be noted that the historiographical transformations described here were accompanied by radical structural reforms at the Latvian Conservatory and the University of Latvia. These included the dismissal and deportation of scholars employed during the inter-war years, administrative restructuring (the founding of chairs in Marxism–Leninism and Communist Party History), and the importing and promotion of Russian and ethnic Latvian scholars trained and formerly residing in the Soviet Union (Ivanovs 2003a Ivanovs, A. 2003a. Latvijas PSR historiogrāfija (konceptuāls pārskats). Latvijas Vēsture, 51(52): 75–83. 69–77 [Google Scholar], pp. 78–9; Stradiņš 2004 Stradiņš, J. 2004. “‘Totalitāro okupācijas režīmu represijas pret Latvijas zinātni un akadēmiskajām aprindām (1940–1945)’”. In Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti 13: Totalitārie okupācijas režīmi Latvijā 1940–1964 gadā, Edited by: Caune, A, Feldmanis, I, Strods, H and Šneidere, I. Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds. (2004) [Google Scholar]; Bērziņa 2006 Bērziņa, V. 2006. Daudz baltu dieniņu. Jēkaba Graubiņa dzīvesstāsts, Riga: Atēna. [Google Scholar], pp. 210–17; Boiko 2008 Boiko, M. 2008. Muzikoloģija/Mūzikas Zinātne: A Critical History of Latvian Musicology’, Karnes, K. C. (trans.). Journal of Baltic Studies, 39(3): 325–40. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 5 As Ivanovs has recently shown, this historiographical strategy had roots in Russian imperial historiography, one line of which argued that ancient ties between ethnic Russians and Latvians ‘justified Latvia's annexation to imperial Russia’ (Ivanovs 2003b Ivanovs, A. 2003b. “‘Vēstures zinātne kā padomju politikas instruments: historiogrāfijas konceptuālais līmenis’”. In Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti 9: Padomju okupācijas režīms Baltijā 1944–1959. gadā: politika un tās sekas, Edited by: Caune, A, Feldmanis, I and Kļaviņa, D. Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds. (2003) [Google Scholar], pp. 64–5). It should also be noted that to demonstrate the ‘internationalism’ of Latvian music (in the parlance of Khachaturian and other Party officials) typically meant, in practice, to demonstrate its indebtedness to Russian historical models. In this respect, the musicological discourse in Latvia reflected broader currents of Soviet thinking about the nationalities question–with Russia regarded as the ‘first among equals’ in the Soviet ‘family of nations’–that prevailed in the Soviet cultural discourse from the late 1930s through to the late 1950s (see Martin 2001 Martin, T. 2001. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 451–5). 6 Niedre, who studied history and economics at the University of Latvia, served as secretary of the Union of Soviet Latvian Writers in 1941–1943. Pelše, a folklorist, was director of the Ethnography and Folklore Section of the Latvian Academy of Sciences from 1946 to 1955. Sudrabkalns, a poet, authored numerous propagandistic works and held a series of prominent Party appointments in the post-war years (Stašulāne & Rožkalne 2003 Stašulāne, I and Rožkalne, A. 2003. Latviešu rakstniecība biogrāfijās, ., 2d ed, Riga: Zinātne. [Google Scholar], pp. 423–4, 440, 569–70). 7 The text of all entries on cultural topics in the volume is credited to the literary historian Emma Andersone. The volume's preface, however, indicates the participation of Jēkabs Vītoliņš in its compilation. Given that Andersone had no training or record of publication on music-related topics and the fact that Vītoliņš is the only musicologist whose name appears on the list of contributing scholars, it seems likely that Vītoliņš was responsible for supplying–or at least suggesting–much of the volume's musical content (Latvijas PSR Vēsture ii, 1955, pp. 3–4; Stašulāne & Rožkalne 2003, p. 28). 8 On the essential stability of historical scholarship in Latvia from the 1950s through to the mid-1980s and its continued dependence upon Short Course paradigms, see Ivanovs (2003a Ivanovs, A. 2003a. Latvijas PSR historiogrāfija (konceptuāls pārskats). Latvijas Vēsture, 51(52): 75–83. 69–77 [Google Scholar], 2004 Ivanovs, A. 2004. “‘Latvijas sovetizācija 1944–1956. gadā Latvijas padomju historiografijā’”. In in Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti 13: Totalitārie okupācijas režīmi Latvijā 1940–1964 gadā, Riga: Latvijas vēstures institūta apgāds. [Google Scholar]). As recent studies by Markwick and Litvin make clear, the situation in Latvia paralleled that in much of the rest of the Union with respect to this issue; see Litvin (2001 Litvin, AL. 2001. Writing History in Twentieth-Century Russia: A View from Within Keep, J. L. H. (ed., trans.) (Basingstoke and New York, Palgrave)[Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 16–17, 21–2); and Markwick (2001 Markwick, RD. 2001. Rewriting History in Soviet Russia: The Politics of Revisionist Historiography, 1956–1974, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 46–7). 9 The principal source for the memoirs, upon which Vītoliņš based his edition, is a manuscript preserved in the Rare Book and Manuscript Section (Reto grāmatu un rokrakstu nodaļa) of the Misiņš Library (Riga), Kārlis Egle fond, item 159 (hereafter cited as Vītols n.d.). This manuscript contains 23 chapters or parts thereof as designated by the composer. An additional chapter is preserved, in manuscript, in the Vītols archive at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in Riga. A copy–apparently incomplete–of the Misiņš manuscript, made by the composer's wife Annija and presently in private collection, was published in Sweden in 1963 in an edition by Jānis Rudzītis (Vītols 1963 Vītols, J. 1963. Manas dzīves atmiņas. Ar papildinājumiem no Annijas Vītolas atmiņām Edited by: Rudzītis, J. (Uppsala, Daugava) [Google Scholar]; I have not been able to examine Annija Vītols’ copy of the manuscript). For a more detailed discussion of the sources, see Grāvītis’ introduction to Vītols (1988 Vītols, J. 1988. Manas dzīves atmiņas, Edited by: Grāvītis, O. Riga: Liesma. [Google Scholar]). Transcriptions from the memoirs cited in the present article are my own, taken from manuscript held in the Misiņš Library (Vītols n.d.). 10 The text as it appears in the manuscript is as follows (Vītols n.d., pp. 110–11): Mana demisīja palika gluži nepamanīta. Vienigi Arbeņins brīnījās: kamdēļ ejot? Visu citu prāti bīja saistīti pie Jaunā gada drūmiem politiskiem notikumiem: aizgāja vācu okupācijas armija, aizbrauca anglu kaŗa kuģi. Degošā operas nama drausmīgājā blāzmā, vara Latvijā pārgāja Stučkas rokās. Operas ⁁Teatŗa⁁ namam pa daļai vēl drupās kūpojot, turp parvietojām [illeg.] tur uzsāka Latvju opera savu nākamo posmu. Fēnikss cēlās no pelniem! Bet celais 18. novembra akts tomēr uz visiem laikiem saistīts pie teatra Kronvalda bulvārā. Nav mans uzdevums lieku reizi stāstīt par šo mūžigi neaizmirstamo dienu. Vai vēl piedzīvošu jaunu 18. novembri?–– Tēvzemē Aiz muguras bīju atstājis kalna galos pacēlušos muzikālu kultūru. Vēl lielinieku režīms nebīja paspējis to ārdīt; sauciens pēc proletkulta nopeitna atbalsta vēl atradis nebīja. Kad pemetu Peterpili, nebīju tais domās ka to vairs savu mūžu neredzēšu; mans atvaļinājums bīja norobežots uz pusgadu–saites[corr.] ar Pēterpils konservatoriju nebūt raisītas vēl nebīja. Bet gan ne acumirkļa nešaubījos. Jutu ka mana vieta [illeg.] ⁁tagad⁁ Latvijā. Gan iestājies lielinieku starprežims bīstami apdraudēja jaukās cerības, varēja saškobīt pārliecību par nākotni. Bet tikpat ļaunas bija arī direkti un indirekti no Pēterpils saņemtās ziņas: anarķija arī konservatorijā pastāvīgi pieaugot, bads topot nepanesams. Bīj man savu dragu žēl. 11 Grāvītis preserved, for instance, almost all of the cuts made to Vītols's text shown in the long passage just quoted in the present essay (Vītols 1988 Vītols, J. 1988. Manas dzīves atmiņas, Edited by: Grāvītis, O. Riga: Liesma. [Google Scholar], pp. 263–4; cf. Vītols 1962b Vītols, J. 1962b. Manas dzīves atmiņas. II. Nobeigums. Latviešu mūzika, 2: 139–77. Article ed. by Vītoliņš, J [Google Scholar], p. 169). The only lines that Grāvītis returned to this passage, in comparison with Vītoliņš’ 1962 edition, are ‘In the dreadful glow of the burning opera house, control of Latvia fell into Stučka's hands’; and ‘But now there is no doubt, even for an instant. I feel that my proper place now is in Latvia’. The other cuts made by Vītoliņš in this passage are preserved by Grāvītis in Vītols (1988 Vītols, J. 1988. Manas dzīves atmiņas, Edited by: Grāvītis, O. Riga: Liesma. [Google Scholar]). 12 This work should be substantially aided in the coming years by the recent publication of a large selection of the composer's letters in an edition by Uldis Siliņš (Vītols 2006 Vītols, J. 2006. Dziesmai vieni gala nava. Jāzeps Vītols savās un laikabiedru vēstulēs. 1918–1944, Edited by: Siliņš, U. Riga: Nordik. [Google Scholar]).