A Challenge to a Soviet Musicologist: Remember the Infamous Events of 1948/1949

Abstract

The infamous resolution of 1948, denouncing formalism in music, was widely considered as a serious blow to outstanding composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian, and others. Far less attention was paid to the destinies of musicologists who also suffered during the second wave of official denunciation in 
1949. In fact, musicologists were severely criticized both as the pioneers of formalism and as cosmopolitans (i.e., Jews). The author shows that the spirit of 1948/1949 negatively influenced not only the young and accomplished scholars of that generation, but affected the professional and public atmosphere for quite a long time, until Gorbachev’s “perestroika”. The personal destiny and career of the author, examined in the context of the 1970s, describes the dangers in her decision to research 20th century non-Russian music, and the complications stemming from her Jewish nationality. 
Thanks to the support and prolonged fight undertaken by her teachers and senior colleagues she was accepted to PhD studies and later to a research position at the Russian Art Research Institute, Moscow. Presumably her specialization in 20th century music, which was not very widespread in Israel as well as among new immigrants from the Soviet Union, was in fact the key that provided her with the opportunity to be included in the Hebrew University support program for new immigrants in 1995, and later to teach there at the Department of Musicology. 

This article is dedicated to the blessed memory of my senior colleagues in Moscow, whose courageous support paved for me the way to university teaching and research work.