Week 1 Lecture 1 Context and Russian Music up to 1918.

Neo - Stalinism and the Pussy Riot Scandal. The disparate elements of the Russian

identity

The event

Russian Indentity

�  Looking East – Slavophile.

•  Looking West - Francophile

•  European Russia: Peter the Great wanted to emulate Europe & make Russia great.

•  St Petersburg was that capital of European Russia.

•  Moscow capital of Slavic 0ld Russia

St Petersburg/Moscow

•  Traditionalist/Slavic Russia- capital was Moscow.

•  Traditionalists thought that Russia emulating Europe was wrong- proud of rural and orthodox traditions – Church etc

The split identity

Before 18th century

Empire Building �  Of Peter the Great.

�  Then Catherine.

�  Also terrible intrigue and cruelity of Tsars.

�  Boyars – old Moscovite nobles – suppressed by Peter.

�  Civil Code – developed by Peter – all nobles had to be part of it. Service to the State.

�  Tsars – semi-religious status. God-like to serfs.

�  Nobles owned the peasants in their villages – estates judged by how may serfs they owned. Nobles could make them free.

Napoleon and Russia 1812-13

•  War with France- created great sense nationalism. Read Tolsoy’s War and Peace.

•  Nationalism - of peasant soldiers impressed young officers – increased respect for peasants. They expected and did die for the state.

•  This meant that those officers pushed for social change – Decembrists. Generation of 1830s revolt.

•  Those reponsible for failed coup either executed or banished to Siberia (often with their wives). Estates taken from them and their status reduced.

•  Also more nationalism because war was against France.

•  Continual expansion of the Russia along the edges – the Balkans and to Mongolia

•  Led to Crimea War of 1852-6. France and Britain against Russia and Turkey. Ultimately Russia won – but at a high price. First War with photography.

1812

The War

Tsars �  NINETEENTH CENTURY TSARS - Russia was brought

into direct contact with the West when Napoleon invaded in 1812. Alexander I successfully resisted the attack, but at great cost to the empire. Western thought also influenced Russian intellectuals who saw no room for western political institutions to grow under the tsars' absolutism. Their frustration erupted in the Decembrist Revolt of 1825, which was crushed ruthlessly by Nicholas I. By mid-century the Russian defeat in the Crimean War (1856) convinced many of the tsar's critics that Russian ways were indeed backward and in need of major reform. Nineteenth century tsars reacted to their demands by sending the secret police to investigate and by exiling or executing the dissenters. But in 1860s did free serfs.

•  Conflict between the desire for social change and the need for Russia to stay stable politically.

•  Social change – Western influence. Russian government and leaders traditionally v. authoritarian. Okrana.

•  Need for a strong government due to geography and the diverse social makeup of the country.

•  Call to end serfdom – it is eventually done in 1861 – parrallel with end of slavery in US – 1864.

19th-century delema

19th Century Russia �  Of all the 19th century tsars, the only one who seriously

sponsored reform was Alexander II. However, even though he freed Russia's serfs (1861) and set up regional zemstvas (assemblies), the increasingly angry intelligensia did not think his actions went far enough. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by his critics, and his son Alexander III reacted by undoing the reforms and intensifying the efforts of the secret police.

�  Alexander followed by the inept Nicholas II – dominated by wife and Rasputin. Put down revolt of 19105 - reliant on secret police and Siberian Labour Camps. Assassinated by Bolshovics after Revolution of 1917.

Alexander 1 (1777-1825)

Nicholas 1 (1825-55)

Alexander II (1855-81)

Alexander III (1881-94)

Nicholas II (1894-18)

Russian Music Pre-1812

�  Dominanted by Italian and French music and musicians.

�  Nobles often had their own orchestras of serf musicians.

�  European styles (especially French) were wanted.

�  Beginnings of awareness of Regional Folk music and collectors.

�  No conservatoires or teaching of music. Musicians trained abroad or brought in.

Glinka (1804-57) �  First Russian-born composer of note. Of noble birth. Almost an amateur

– he had a post in the civil service. Did not need to compose.

�  Had some lessons from Field – but heard little European music at an early age.

�  C.1830 travelled in Italy – wanted to do what Donitzetti and Bellini had done for Italian music.

�  A Life for the Tzar. His major opera. Wrote all sorts of music – especially vocal. The foundation stone of Russian Music.

�  Liked by the Tzar – he was given help to write to opera and choral music. Patriotic and Italianate.

The Mighty Five �  Created 1867 by Vladimir Staszov

�  Working around 1850-75.

�  Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Cui.

�  Most like Glinka were amateur of the noble class. Some had other professions e.g. military, civil servants, doctors.

�  Absence of preconceptions of blind faith, Interested in Slavic Russia (orientalism), preference for programmatic music, quest for national character.

Cosmopolitans

�  Anton Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff.

�  All used folk song – but in an elegant and romantic style – that was far from the primitism seen in some of the music of the mighty five.

Ballet Rousse

�  Sergie Diagalev first took his troupe of Russian dancers to Paris in 1905.

�  Caused a sensation.

�  Erotic and exotic – orientalism for the European market.

�  Boloshoi theatre in Moscow – Mariyinsky in St Petersburg

�  Home of Russian Ballet – all modern classical ballet is from the Russian interpretation of French tradition.

Russian Opera

�  Developed hugely in the second part of the 19th century. Russian nobility loved opera and ballet.

�  Interpretations of Russian History the major theme – from Eugene Onegin (Tchaidkovsky), Boris Godunov (Mussorsky 1868-72), Valuka the Smith.

�  But little international recognition or understanding.

�  Russian ballet however does become mainstream in Europe by the end of the 19th-century.

Death of Boris

Conservatoires �  Russia was late to develop of conservatoire system. Both

Moscow and St Petersburg had them.

�  Many nobles still had their own orchestras and could afford to have the trained by musicians from abroad. Even private opera houses.

�  After 1860 however Russians developed a fierce approach – developing prodigys with systematic strict teaching.

�  Standards became extremely high and only the best were selected.

�  A system that continued both before and after the revolution.

The generation who started before 1914 – and who went

into exile �  Stravinsky – left 1914 (returned briefly in 1966)

�  Scriabin – died 1915

�  Prokovief – left 1918 (but returned in 1933)

�  Rachmaninoff- left 1917

Those that stayed

�  Glazunov

�  Steinberg

�  Myakovsky

�  Gliere

�  Conservatoires survived – but only just and were difficult places during the great war and the civil war that followed. Starved of money and people.

The War �  A disaster for Russia.

�  Germans did well for the most part on the eastern front.

�  Won on the Eastern front in 1917 – Russian collapsed and the Tsars abdicated. Seen to have lost the war. Soon eliminated with his family.

�  The sealed train – reputedly witnessed by the 7 year old Shostakovich.

�  October rev – followed by Soviets being set up – moderate Socialists replaced by Lenin and the Bolsohics.

�  Helped by the West to destablise Russia.

�  Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1917) – followed by 6 year of civil war.

�  Lenin dies in 1924 – eventually replaced by Stalin by 1926.

Watch Dr Zhivago – ‘the personal life is dead in Russia