Challenging what is widely regarded as the distinguishing feature of Russian music--its ineffable "Russianness"--Marina Frolova-Walker examines the history of Russian music from the premiere of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar in 1836 to the death of Stalin in 1953, the years in which musical nationalism was encouraged and endorsed by the Russian state and its Soviet successor. The author identifies and discusses two central myths that dominated Russian culture during this period--that art revealed the Russian soul, and that this nationalist artistic tradition was founded by Glinka and Pushkin. The author also offers a critical account of how the imperatives of nationalist thought affected individual composers. In this way Frolova-Walker provides a new perspective on the brilliant creativity, innovation, and eventual stagnation within the tradition of Russian nationalist music.

Challenging what is widely regarded as the distinguishing feature of Russian music--its ineffable "Russianness"--Marina Frolova-Walker examines the history of Russian music from the premiere of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar in 1836 to the death of Stalin in 1953, the years in which musical nationalism was encouraged and endorsed by the Russian state and its Soviet successor. The author identifies and discusses two central myths that dominated Russian culture during this period--that art revealed the Russian soul, and that this nationalist artistic tradition was founded by Glinka and Pushkin. The author also offers a critical account of how the imperatives of nationalist thought affected individual composers. In this way Frolova-Walker provides a new perspective on the brilliant creativity, innovation, and eventual stagnation within the tradition of Russian nationalist music.

This volume gathers 36 essays by one of the leading scholars in the study of Russian music. An extensive introduction lays out the main issues and a justification of Taruskin's approach, seen both in the light of his intellectual development and in that of the changing intellectual environment.

This thoughtful book describes the range of nationalist ideas that have taken root in Russia since 1856. Drawing on a wide range of archival documents and unparalleled interview material from the post-Soviet period, Tuminez analyzes two cases_Russian panslavism in 1856-1878 and great power nationalism in 1905-1914_when aggressive nationalist ideas clearly influenced Russian foreign policy and contributed to decisions to go to war. Yet not all forms of nationalism have been malevolent, and the author assesses competing nationalist ideologies in the post-Soviet period to clarify the conditions under which a particularly belligerent nationalism could flourish and influence Russian international behavior.

An innovative collection of essays applying a "new musicology" approach to the relationship between nationalist ideologies and the development of European music.

This new collection views Russian music through the Greek triad ofÊÒthe Good, the True, and the BeautifulÓ to investigateÊhow the idea of "nation" embeds itself in the public discourse about music and other arts with results at times invigorating, at times corrupting. In our divided, postÐCold War, and now postÐ9/11 world, Russian music, formerly a quiet corner on the margins of musicology, has become a site of noisy contention. Richard Taruskin assesses the political and cultural stakes that attach to it in the era of Pussy Riot and renewed international tensions, before turning to individual cases from the nineteenth century to the present. Much ofÊthe volume is devoted to the resolutely cosmopolitan but inveterately Russian Igor Stravinsky, one of the major forces in the music of the twentieth century and subject of particular interest to composers and music theorists all over the world. Taruskin here revisits him for the first time since the 1990s, when everything changed for Russia and its cultural products. Other essays are devoted to the cultural and social policies of the Soviet Union and their effect on the music produced there as those policies swung away from Communist internationalism to traditional Russian nationalism; to the musicians of the Russian postrevolutionary diaspora; andÊto the tension between the compelling artistic quality of works such as StravinskyÕs Sacre du Printemps or ProkofieffÕs Zdravitsa and the antihumanistic or totalitarian messages they convey. Russian Music at Home and Abroad addresses these concerns in a personal and critical way, characteristically demonstrating TaruskinÕs authority and ability toÊbring living history out of the shadows.

with an air of alterity--sensed, exploited, bemoaned, reveled in, traded on, and defended against both from within and from without." The author's goal is to explore this assumption of otherness in an all-encompassing work that re-creates the cultural contexts of the folksong anthologies of the 1700s, the operas, symphonies, and ballets of the 1800s, the modernist masterpieces of the 1900s, and the hugely fraught but ambiguous products of the Soviet period. Taruskin begins by showing how enlightened aristocrats, reactionary romantics, and the theorists and victims of totalitarianism have variously fashioned their vision of Russian society in musical terms. He then examines how Russia as a whole shaped its identity in contrast to an "East" during the age of its imperialist expansion, and in contrast to two different musical "Wests," Germany and Italy, during the formative years of its national consciousness.

A rare look at the life and music of renowned Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov During his lifetime, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) was a composer whose work had great influence not only in his native Russia but also internationally. While he remains well-known in Russia—where many of his fifteen operas and various orchestral pieces are still in the standard repertoire—very little of his work is performed in the West today beyond Scheherezade and arrangements of The Flight of the Bumblebee. In Western writings, he appears mainly in the context of the Mighty Handful, a group of five Russian composers to which he belonged at the outset of his career. Rimsky-Korsakov and His World finally gives the composer center stage and due attention. In this collection, Rimsky-Korsakov’s major operas, The Snow Maiden, Mozart and Salieri, and The Golden Cockerel, receive multifaceted exploration and are carefully contextualized within the wider Russian culture of the era. The discussion of these operas is accompanied and enriched by the composer’s letters to Nadezhda Zabela, the distinguished soprano for whom he wrote several leading roles. Other essays look at more general aspects of Rimsky-Korsakov’s work and examine his far-reaching legacy as a professor of composition and orchestration, including his impact on his most famous pupil Igor Stravinsky. The contributors are Lidia Ader, Leon Botstein, Emily Frey, Marina Frolova-Walker, Adalyat Issiyeva, Simon Morrison, Anna Nisnevich, Olga Panteleeva, and Yaroslav Timofeev. The Bard Music Festival Bard Music Festival 2018 Rimsky-Korsakov and His World Bard College August 10–12 and August 17–19, 2018

Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 brought East - West relations to a low. But, by selling the annexation in starkly nationalist terms to grassroots nationalists, Putin's popularity reached record heights. This volume examines the interactions and tensions between state and societal nationalisms before and after the annexation.

What caused the emergence of nationalist movements in many post-communist states? What role did communist regimes play in fostering these movements? Why have some been more successful than others? To address these questions, Yitzhak Brudny traces the Russian nationalist movement from its origins within the Russian intellectual elite of the 1950s to its institutionalization in electoral alliances, parliamentary factions, and political movements of the early 1990s. Brudny argues that the rise of the Russian nationalist movement was a combined result of the reinvention of Russian national identity by a group of intellectuals, and the Communist Party's active support of this reinvention in order to gain greater political legitimacy. The author meticulously reconstructs the development of the Russian nationalist thought from Khrushchev to Yeltsin, as well as the nature of the Communist Party response to Russian nationalist ideas. Through analysis of major Russian literary, political, and historical writings, the recently-published memoirs of the Russian nationalist intellectuals and Communist Party officials, and documents discovered in the Communist Party archives, Brudny sheds new light on social, intellectual, and political origins of Russian nationalism, and emphasizes the importance of ideas in explaining the fate of the Russian nationalist movement during late communist and early post-communist periods. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments 1. Russian Nationalists in Soviet Politics 2. The Emergence of Politics by Culture, 1953-1964 3. The First Phase of Inclusionary Politics, 1965-1970 4. The Rise and Fall of Inclusionary Politics, 1971-1985 5. What Went Wrong with the Politics of Inclusion? 6. What Is Russia, and Where Should It Go? Political Debates, 1971-1985 7. The Zenith of Politics by Culture, 1985-1989 8. The Demise of Politics by Culture, 1989-1991 Epilogue: Russian Nationalism in Postcommunist Russia Notes Index Reviews of this book: Mr. Brudny provides a salient background to understanding one of the great phenomena of post-1945 history: how Russians arrive at their view of the West. --Ron Laurenzo, Washington Times Reviews of this book: Brudny is a good guide to the origins of what probably lies ahead. --Geoffrey A. Hosking, Times Literary Supplement Reviews of this book: If readers think that today's anti-Western, antimarket, antisemitic variety of Russian nationalism is simply the fallout from the country's current misery, they should think again. With care and intelligence, Brudny traces its lineage back to the Khrushchev years. What began among the so-called village prose writers as a lament for a rural past ravaged by Stalin's experimentation gradually accumulated further grievances: the devastation of Russian culture and monuments, the infiltration of 'corrupting' Western values, and ultimately under Gorbechev the 'criminal' destruction of Russian power. Much of the book concentrates on how Khrushchev and Brezhnev tried--but ultimately failed--to harness this discontent for their own purposes. --Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs Reviews of this book: Brudny's survey of relations between Russian nationalism and the Soviet state provides an in-depth insight into one of the most complicated aspects of the Soviet multi-national state. --Taras Kuzio, International Affairs Reviews of this book: A thought-provoking book. --Virginia Quarterly Reviews of this book: Brudny shows that Russian cultural nationalism was a powerful force in the post-Stalin years, with ultimate political consequences. In meticulous detail Brudny sets out the various strains of Russian nationalism and points to the regime's encouragement of a certain kind of nationalism as a means of bolstering legitimacy through the 'politics of inclusion'...This volume is a significant contribution to the literature. --R. J. Mitchell, Choice Reviews of this book: In Reinventing Russia, situated at the intersection of culture (specifically the literature of the village prose movement) and politics, Brudny has managed admirably to draw out the wider implications of his inquiry and provided an extremely useful set of orientation points in the current, seemingly so chaotic, political debate in Russia. --Hans J. Rindisbacher, European Legacy Reviews of this book: Brudny's book paints a fascinating picture. It delineates a rich Soviet culture and society, one that is much more varied than has been previously depicted by most Western researchers. The overriding importance of the book derives from its argument that the post-Stalinist cultural debate in the Soviet Union is what created the infrastructure for the seemingly odd alliance between communist ideology and the nationalist intelligentsia--today's 'red-brown' alliance. It's a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of the nationalist idea...[Reinventing Russia provides] an enthralling overview of a historic development that has been neglected by most Western researchers...His book proves once more that anyone who seeks to understand developments in Eastern Europe cannot do so by merely analyzing the economic policy of the political maneuvers of the governing elite. --Shlomo Avineri, Ha'aretz Book Review Yitzhak Brudny offers us a most persuasive attempt to explain the intricate, often puzzling relation between Soviet political and cultural bureaucracy and the rise of Russian nationalism in the post-Stalin era. His analysis of Russian nationalist ideology and its role in the corrosion of the official Soviet dogmas is uniquely insightful and provocative. Students of Soviet and post-Soviet affairs will find in Brudny's splendidly researched book an indispensable instrument to grasp the meaning of the still perplexing developments that led to the breakdown of the Leninist state. In the growing body of literature dealing with nationalism and national identity, this one stands out as boldly innovative, theoretically challenging, and culturally sophisticated. --Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland, College Park, author of Fantasies of Salvation Yitzhak Brudny has produced an impressive and scholarly account of the divisions within the Russian political and cultural elite during the last four decades of the Soviet Union's existence. His book is important both for the fresh light it throws on that period and as essential context for interpreting the debates on nationhood and statehood which rage in Russia today. --Archie Brown, University of Oxford Reinventing Russia provides us with a vivid portrayal of the politics behind the rise of Russian nationalism in post-Stalinist Russia. It is a finely detailed study of not only the relationship of political authority to the spread of nationalist ideas, but also reciprocally of the role played by these ideas in shaping the political. --Mark Beissinger, University of Wisconsin-Madison Rival nationalists literally shook the Soviet Union apart. The very structure of the Soviet state encouraged all major ethnic groups--including the Russians--to view battles over resources in terms of ethnic and national conflict. Brudny, in this important study, explores precisely how rival nationalist claims emerged during the years following Stalin's death, and why they proved to be simultaneously so robust and pernicious. --Blair Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center