I’m taking a 20th century music history course right now, and the professor is a strongly anticommunist progressive. Before he even started he claimed Stalin was unequivocally the worst person of the 20th century, if not all time. One of the most suspicious parts was when he told us about Prokofiev’s statement against the capitalist world made upon his return to the USSR in 1936. He claimed that this was clearly forced out of him, despite having just told us how he had squandered 20 years trying and failing to find work abroad (one of the only things he did was a commission by a fruit company for a fruit-opera?). Additionally my teacher conceded that there is no record of Prokofiev’s personal views from this time.
Then the is the whole Soviet Realism/Formalism thing. My teacher said these terms were intentionally ill-defined so that musicians/artists could be censored, imprisoned, or killed at the whim of Stalin. Again, I feel skeptical about how cartoonishly evil this description is.
So what is the history of music and art in the Soviet Union minus the Western propaganda? Is there a book or other resource I could use to learn about this?
I can’t answer your main question, but wrt other sources, I find Mark Edele’s The Soviet Union: A Short History to be decent at addressing all the large points surrounding the USSR. As you can guess from the title, Edele doesn’t go in depth with any topic in particular, but its value comes from the bibliography he lists at the end of every chapter. This book would be heavily supplemented by the prof, however. There is the occasional garbage about what he thinks “communism” and “socialism” are, so just ignore those babbles.
As for Socialist Realism, I don’t understand why your professor would say that: it’s very clearly defined as an aesthetic style of utopian optimism, where individuals undergo a process of refinement (the New Soviet Man/Woman). It can either be futurist, as one might find with the Flying City (Krutikov), or more traditional in character with beaming smiles, proletarian outfits, and a generally lighter colour palette; the latter is similar to the art published by the DPRK and the PRC. Films such as “Tanya” (1940), and “Aelita, Queen of Mars” (1923) exhibit these qualities. Of course, there is also the theme of nationalism/national unity, which is shown beautifully in “The Cranes are Flying” (1957).
Soviet Formalism is another thing entirely. My seminars basically focused on these topics alone, but I can’t for the life of me find all the pdfs. I think I just forgot to download them before the course modules expired.
Here is an .edu link which is great for finding primary sources. One of the brief essays under Socialist Realism was written by another Soviet scholar, and he does a better job at explaining what exactly it is/was.
I’m interested on the topic of so-called “Soviet Realism/Formalism” as well, but more than that, I know that Stalin wasn’t a dictator and that he couldn’t just have people killed as he was elected several times so that claim can be discounted.
Even so: check the art for yourself, especially the music: Glazunov and Prokofiev along with Shostakovich were arguably the best composers of the 20th century.
Regarding the Soviet Realism/Formalism, the professor presented it as sinister but at the same time he told us about how before it was introduced Constructivists kept creating unintelligible art and forcing it on workers and farmers or something. And Prokofiev and Shostakovich are two of my favorites! The narrative that Shostakovich struggled with heavy censorship is pervasive, but I noticed that the intro to our textbook alludes to alternative readings of history—I guess I’m looking for one of those.
Same! I’ve been looking for a while. Also, I suggest Ustvolskaya as well.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Hey, no problem. Honestly, I’m just learning about this stuff myself.