“A Singing Peasant”: An Historical Look at National Identity in Russian Music

Abstract

On 19 August 1991, Russian tanks moved into the center of Moscow. International telephone connections failed, and, during the three days that followed, Russians living abroad were glued to their transistors, trying to glean any snippet of information coming out of Moscow. But there was no news. The leaders of the coup made a so- called “Declaration of the Soviet Leadership” on state radio and television, after which only music was broadcast.2 The repertoire may have been forgotten by some during the perestroika years, but was firmly installed in the memory of those who had grown up in Stalin’s era. There were choral songs in the pseudo-folk style developed by Vladimir Zakharov for the Pyatnitsky Choir (or, to give it its full name, Gosudarstvenny Russky narodny khor imeni Pyatnitskogo—“The Russian State Folk Choir Named after M.E. Pyatnitsky”). Never broadcast during the post-Brezhnev years, they were shaken free of mothballs and, in all probability, were intended to guarantee the survival of the Central Radio’s decision makers, should the leaders of the coup ever come to political power. Many tapes had been banned and destroyed by Moscow Radio, especially those recorded by émigré musicians like Cyril Kondrashin or Maxim Shostakovich, but not these. Somebody had made sure that they were carefully preserved, and they awaited their hour, of being taken out from under the wraps. In fact, the music broadcast was a clear indication of the fear felt by the radio officials, and their readiness to capitulate before the coup—which had, in fact, been anticipated by many from the late 1980s on, and which, perhaps, had a chance of succeeding.