Boris Asafiev in 1948

ABSTRACT

The venerable founder of Soviet musicology Boris Asafiev aroused widespread dismay by his actions in 1948 after the promulgation of a Central Committee resolution condemning the USSR’s leading composers: he not only acquiesced in his appointment as chairman of the Composers’ Union, but agreed to give a keynote address endorsing the resolution at its first national congress. His admirers have claimed that he must have been coerced into collaboration and that his address did not reflect his real views. The present essay re-examines the circumstances, arguing that the evidence of Asafiev’s willing complicity is overwhelming. A close analysis of his keynote address reveals its contents to be wholly consistent with views that he had regularly expressed throughout his career, as one of the principal progenitors of an anti-modernist, ethnic nationalist and xenophobic strain in Soviet writing on music that was given forceful expression in the 1948 resolution.

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the staff in the reading rooms of the Central State Archive for Literature and Art in St Petersburg, and of the Russian State Archive for Literature and Art, the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture and the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History in Moscow. My visits to these archives were made possible by financial support from the Wellcome Trust and from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Durham University. Séamas de Barra kindly read this article in draft and made valuable suggestions for improvement. The system of transliteration adopted in the text of this article follows that employed in Grove Music Online, <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com>. Some customary exceptions are made: the suffix -ский is rendered as -sky in masculine surnames such as ‘Stravinsky’; and familiar Romanized versions of Russian names have been retained (‘Asafiev’ rather than ‘Asaf′yev’). When Russian-language sources are cited in the notes, however, the Grove Music Online system has been adhered to strictly. Translations from Russian throughout this article are my own.

Notes

1 A comprehensive critical study of the campaigns of 1948 and 1949 drawing on the substantial quantity of relevant documentation available since glasnost has yet to be written. To date, Yekaterina Vlasova’s 1948 god v sovetskoy muzïke (The Year 1948 in Soviet Music; Moscow: Klassika XXI, 2010) is the most wide-ranging account. Of post-Soviet writings in English, see particularly Kiril Tomoff, Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939–1953 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 91–214; Patrick Zuk, ‘Nikolay Myaskovsky and the Events of 1948’, Music and Letters, 1 (2012), 61–85; Levon Hakobian, Music of the Soviet Era, 1917–1991, 2nd edn (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016), 171–94; and Olga Manulkina, ‘“Foreign” versus “Russian” in Soviet and Post-Soviet Musicology and Music Education’, Russian Music since 1917: Reappraisal and Rediscovery, ed. Patrick Zuk and Marina Frolova-Walker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 221–43.

2 Daniėl′ Zhitomirsky, ‘Na puti k istoricheskoy pravde’ (‘On the Path to Historical Truth’), Muzïkal ′naya zhizn′ (Musical Life), 1988, issue 13, pp. 3–5 (p. 4).

3 Alexander Werth, Musical Uproar in Moscow (London: Turnstile Press, 1949), 96–8.

4 Andrey Olkhovsky, Music under the Soviets: The Agony of an Art (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955), 81–3.

5 Yelena Orlova, B. V. Asaf′yev: Put′ issledovatelya i publitsista (B. V. Asafiev: The Path of a Researcher and Journalist; Leningrad: Izdatel′stvo ‘Muzïka’, 1964), 392.

6 Boris Yarustovsky, ‘O Borise Vladimiroviche’ (‘About Boris Vladimirovich’), Vospominaniya o B. V. Asaf ′yeve (Reminiscences of B. V. Asafiev), ed. Andrey Kryukov (Leningrad: Izdatel′stvo ‘Muzïka’, 1974), 294–7 (pp. 296–7).

7 Vera Vasina-Grossman, ‘Professiya – istorik’ (‘Profession: Historian’), Muzïkal′naya zhizn′, 1988, issue 16, p. 8, and ‘Boris Asaf′yev: Posledniye godï’ (‘Boris Asafiev: The Final Years’), Muzïkal′naya zhizn′, 1989, issue 7, pp. 12–13.

8 Elina Viljanen, The Problem of the Modern and Tradition: Early Soviet Musical Culture and the Musicological Theory of Boris Asafiev (1884 –1949) (Helsinki: Acta semiotica fennica, 2016), xix, n. 17.

9 The authorship of Asafiev’s keynote address has previously been discussed by Meri Herrala in her book The Struggle for Control of Soviet Music from 1932 to 1948: Socialist Realism vs. Western Formalism (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 2012), 296–303. The analysis presented here diverges markedly from Herrala’s and draws on sources not consulted by her.

10 Levon Atovm′yan, ‘Vospominaniya’ (‘Reminiscences’), Ryadom s velikami: Atovm′yan i yego vremya (At the Side of the Great: Atovm′yan and his Times), ed. Nelli Kravets (Moscow: Rossiyskiy universitet teatral′nogo iskusstva, 2012), 189–294 (p. 283).

11 Pavel Serebryakov, ‘Drug muzïkantov’ (‘A Friend of Musicians’), Vospominaniya o B. V. Asaf ′yeve, ed. Kryukov, 105–13 (p. 109).

12 Yelena Orlova and Andrey Kryukov, Akademik Boris Vladimirovich Asaf ′yev: Monografiya (The Academician Boris Asafiev: A Monograph; Leningrad: Sovetskiy kompozitor, 1984), 260–1.

13 Tamara Livanova, ‘Vospominaniya’ (‘Reminiscences’), Glinka Museum of Musical Culture, Moscow (hereafter VMOMK), f. 194, yed. khr. 1754a, ll. 475–6, 506.

14 Russian State Archive for Literature and Art, Moscow (hereafter RGALI), f. 2658, op. 1, yed. khr. 951, ll. 61–2.

15 See, for example, his open letter ‘Pis′mo v redaktsiyu’ (‘Letter to the Editor’), Rabochiy i teatr (Worker and Theatre), 12 (1932), 20, in which he excused himself on health grounds from participating in a public forum to discuss the future development of Soviet composition. It is important to emphasize that Asafiev would almost certainly have declined to deliver his keynote address in person at the Composers’ Union congress even if he had been well enough to do so: he was an ineffectual orator and disliked speaking in public. See Margarita Rittikh, ‘B. Asaf′yev i nauchnïye sessii klinskogo Doma-muzeya’ (‘B. Asafiev and the Scholarly Colloquia of the Klin House-Museum’), Vospominaniya o B. V. Asaf ′yeve, ed. Kryukov, 254–68 (p. 267), and Orlova and Kryukov, Akademik Boris Vladimirovich Asaf ′yev: Monografiya, 126, n. 2.

16 RGALI, f. 2658, op. 1, yed. khr. 951, ll. 52, 55, 55ob, 60.

17 RGALI, f. 2658, op. 1, yed. khr. 460. The text of the letter is reproduced in Vlasova, 1948 god v sovetskoy muzïke, 326. It is not known whether Zhdanov ever received this communication. Zhdanov’s speeches were published in the stenographic transcript of the proceedings, Soveshchaniye deyateley sovetskoy muzïki v TsK VKP(b) (Conference of Soviet Musicians in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik); Moscow: Izdatel′stvo ‘Pravda’, 1948), 5–10 and 132–48.

18 Yarustovsky, ‘O Borise Vladimiroviche’, 296–7. For the articles ‘Composers, Make Haste!’ and ‘The Crisis of Personal Creativity’, see n. 42 below. ‘The Composer and Reality’ was written in 1943 but only published after Asafiev’s death: ‘Kompozitor i deystvitel′nost’, Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï (The Academician B. V. Asafiev: Selected Works), ed. Dmitriy Kabalevsky et al., 5 vols. (Moscow: Izdatel′stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1952–7), v, 48–50.

19 Boris Asafiev, ‘Tridtsat′ let sovetskoy muzïki i zadachi sovetskikh kompozitorov’, Pervïy vsesoyuznïy s″ezd sovetskikh kompozitorov 1948: Stenograficheskiy otchyot (First All-Union Congress of Soviet Composers 1948: Stenographic Report), ed. Viktor Gorodinsky et al. (Moscow: Izdaniye Soyuza sovetskikh kompozitorov SSSR, 1948), 7–23.

20 Untitled fragment, RGALI, f. 2658, op. 1, yed. khr. 427, ll. 6–6ob; Asafiev, ‘Tridtsat′ let sovetskoy muzïki’, 22.

21 Boris Asafiev, ‘Poterya melodii’, Voprosï filosofii, 1 (1948), 144–9.

22 Serebryakov, ‘Drug muzïkantov’, 108–9.

23 Compare ‘Tridtsat′ let sovetskoy muzïki’, pp. 10–13 and 21, with ‘Poterya melodii’, pp. 145–7 and 148.

24 One of the key sentences in the resolution reads: ‘Characteristic signs of [formalist] music are the negation of the fundamental principles of classical music; the propagation of atonality, dissonance and discord as a supposed manifestation of “progress” and “innovation” in the development of musical forms; abjuration of such vital bases of a musical composition as melody; a preoccupation with confused, neurasthenic [sound] combinations that transform music into cacophony, into a chaotic agglomerate of sounds.’ ‘Postanovleniye Politburo TsK VKP(b) ob opere “Velikaya druzhba” B. Muradeli, 10 fevralya 1948g.’ (‘Resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) on the Opera The Great Friendship by V. Muradeli, 10 February 1948’, Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaya intelligentsiya: Dokumentï TsK RKP(b), VChK-OGPU-NKVD o kul’turnoy politike 1917–1953 gg. (Power and the Artistic Intelligentsia: Documents of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) and the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Profiteering, and Corruption/All-Union State Political Directorate/People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs on Cultural Policy, 1917–1953), ed. Andrey Artizov and Oleg Naumov (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnïy fond ‘Demokratiya’, 1999), 631.

25 Boris Asafiev, ‘Klassicheskiye traditsii v razvitii sovetskoy muzïki’, O sovetskoy sotsialisticheskoy kul′ture (Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1948), 234–48.

26 Russell’s talk, ‘Culture and the State’, was broadcast on the European Service on 14 March 1948. I would like to thank Dr Kenneth Blackwell and Dr Arlene Duncan of the Bertrand Russell Research Centre at McMaster University, Canada, for their assistance in identifying the broadcast in question.

27 ‘Bibliografiya’, compiled by Tat′yana Dmitriyeva-Mey, Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 291–350.

28 ‘Plan stat′i o postanovlenii TsK VKP(b) ot 10 fevr. 1948 ob opere V. Muradeli, Velikaya druzhba’ (‘Plan of an Article on the Resolution of 10 February 1948 of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) on V. Muradel’s Opera The Great Friendship’), RGALI, f. 2658, op. 1, yed. khr. 425, ll. 26–8. The same folder contains drafts of ‘The Loss of Melody’ and an essay entitled ‘The Composer and the People’.

29 See, for example, entries 877 and 939 in ‘Bibliografiya’ (pp. 337, 342). Livanova, who was evidently familiar with Asafiev’s working methods, suggests that he may have dictated sections of his address to a scribe: Livanova, ‘Vospominaniya’, VMOMK, f. 194, yed. khr. 1754b, ll. 529.

30 Orlova, B. V. Asaf ′yev, 392.

31 ‘Za novuyu muzïkal’nuyu ėstetiku, za sotsialisticheskiy realizm’ (‘For a New Musical Aesthetic, for Socialist Realism’), Sovetskaya muzïka, 2 (1948), 12–22; ‘Doklad B. V. Asaf′yeva’ (‘B. V. Asafiev’s Address’), Sovetskoye iskusstvo, 24 April 1948. The latter is accurately described as a ‘précis’ of Asafiev’s speech, but reproduces a considerable portion of the original text verbatim.

32 Viljanen, The Problem of the Modern and Tradition, xix, n. 17.

33 Boris Asafiev, ‘Moy put′’, Sovetskaya muzïka, 8 (1934), 47–50 (p. 48).

34 Asafiev, ‘Klassicheskiye traditsii’, 239–43; ‘Tridtsat′ let’, 13–17.

35 Livanova similarly noted that the tone of the essay’s central section seemed out of keeping with the remainder, and conjectured that it had been written by others: ‘Vospominaniya’, VMOMK, f. 194, yed. khr. 1754b, ll. 529.

36 ‘Russian Music’, Manchester Guardian, 12 February 1948.

37 In an autobiographical résumé compiled in the late 1920s, Asafiev claimed to read and understand English ‘fluently’ (svobodno), as well as French, German, Italian and Spanish: see Materialï k biografii B. Asaf ′yeva (Materials for a Biography of B. Asafiev), ed. Andrey Kryukov (Leningrad: Muzïka, 1981), 29. Asafiev never set foot in an English-speaking country and I have not come across any evidence to corroborate his claim to be proficient in the language.

38 Unsigned editorial, ‘Against Formalism in Music’, VOKS Bulletin, 54 (1948), 10–11. I would like to thank Dr Kevin Bartig for his assistance in tracing this reference.

39 Grigoriy Shneyerson, ‘Asaf′yev v VOKSe’ (‘Asafiev in VOKS’), Vospominaniya o B. V. Asaf ′yeve, ed. Kryukov, 286–94.

40 RGALI, f. 2658, op. 1, yed. khr. 427.

41 Stasov made Asafiev’s acquaintance in 1904 and was sufficiently impressed with his abilities to adopt him as a protégé: the young man frequently visited the venerable critic at home until Stasov’s death in October 1906. See Boris Asafiev, ‘O sebe’ (‘About Myself’), Vospominaniya o B. V. Asaf ′yeve, ed. Kryukov, 317–508 (pp. 379–419, passim).

42 ‘Krizis lichnogo tvorchestva’, Sovremennaya muzïka (Modern Music), 1924, issue 4, pp. 99–106; ‘Kompozitorï, pospeshite!’, ibid., issue 6, pp. 146 –9.

43 For a discussion, see Marina Frolova-Walker and Jonathan Walker, Music and Soviet Power, 1917–1932 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012), 102–3 and 122–5.

44 See, for example, Boris Asafiev, ‘Simfoniya Oktyabrya’ (‘October Symphony’), Sovetskoye iskusstvo, 4 November 1932.

45 Boris Asafiev, ‘Istoricheskiy god’ (‘A Historic Year’), Sovetskaya muzïka, 3 (1933), 106–8.

46 ‘Zhdanovshchina’ can be translated roughly as ‘the Zhdanov era’, and refers to the period immediately following the Second World War when the senior Communist Party official Andrey Zhdanov conducted at Stalin’s behest an aggressive campaign to counter Western cultural influences which drastically curtailed artistic and intellectual freedoms.

47 The resolution ‘O zhurnalakh Zvezda i Leningrad’ was published in Pravda on 21 August 1946. See Boris Asafiev, ‘Puti razvitiya sovetskoy muzïki’ (‘The Paths of Development of Soviet Music’), Ocherki sovetskogo muzïkal′nogo tvorchestva (Sketches of Soviet Musical Creativity), ed. Asafiev (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoye muzïkal′noye izdatel′stvo, 1947), 5–19; repr. in Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 51–62.

48 ‘Vazhneyshiye zadachi’ (‘Tasks of High Importance’), Sovetskoye iskusstvo, 20 December 1947.

49 See Werth, Musical Uproar, 25–7.

50 Boris Asafiev, ‘Muzïka dlya millionov’, Sovetskoye iskusstvo, 20 December 1947.

51 Ibid.

52 Shepilov’s report, entitled ‘O nedostatkakh v razvitii sovetskoy muzïki’ (‘On Shortcomings in the Development of Soviet Music’), is preserved in the Russian State Archive for Social and Political History (Moscow), f. 17, op. 125, yed. khr. 636, ll. 103–12. The text is reproduced in an unpaginated appendix to Tikhon Khrennikov, Tak eto bïlo: Tikhon Khrennikov o vremeni i o sebe (That’s How It Was: Tikhon Khrennikov on Himself and his Times), ed. Valentina Rubtsova (Moscow: Muzïka, 1994). For a discussion of its contents, see Zuk, ‘Nikolay Myaskovsky and the Events of 1948’, 71–3.

53 In addition to publishing the transcripts of the January forum and the April congress, the Composers’ Union also brought out a book entitled The Paths of Development of Soviet Music, which critiqued undesirable tendencies and offered guidance on how composers were to approach the tasks of writing for particular genres: Puti razvitiya sovetskoy muzïki, ed. Aleksandr Shaverdyan (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoye muzïkal′noye izdatel′stvo, 1948).

54 Yekaterina Vlasova, ‘Perepiska B. V. Asaf ′yeva i N. Ya. Myaskovskogo (1906 –1945) v svete problem sovremennogo istoricheskogo muzïkoznaniya’ (‘The Correspondence of B. V. Asafiev and N. Ya. Myaskovsky (1906–1945) in the Light of Problems of Historical Musicology’), Yuzhno-Rossiyskiy muzïkal′nïy al′manakh (The Southern Russian Musical Almanac), 4 (2016), 29–34.

55 As one notable primer explained, Socialist Realism required artists ‘to express by means of art the fundamental interests of the Soviet people and to address art directly to the masses’. Ivan Smol′yaninov, Sostialisticheskiy realizm – tvorcheskiy metod sovetskogo iskusstva (Socialist Realism: The Creative Method of Soviet Art ; Leningrad: Vsesoyuznoye obshchestvo po rasprostraneniyu politicheskikh i nauchnïkh znaniy, 1954), 37.

56 Boris Asafiev, ‘Zatish′ye’ (‘A Fallow Spell’), Zhizn′ iskusstva, 28 December 1918.

57 Boris Asafiev, ‘Voprosï muzïkal′noy sovremennosti’, Krasnaya gazeta, 20 and 26 November, 10 and 18 December 1924.

58 Igor′ Glebov (Boris Asafiev), ‘Krizis muzïki (nabroski nablyudatelya leningradskoy muzïkal′noy deystvitel′nosti)’ (‘The Crisis of Music (Vignettes by an Observer of the Conditions of Musical Life in Leningrad)’), Muzïkal′naya kul′tura, 2 (1924), 99–120.

59 Glebov (Asafiev), ‘Krizis muzïki’, 106.

60 ‘B. V. Asaf′yev’ (unsigned obituary), Pravda (Truth), 29 January 1949.

61 Asafiev, ‘Kompozitorï, pospeshite!’, 146.

62 Asafiev, ‘Krizis lichnogo tvorchestva’, 105–6.

63 Myaskovsky to Asafiev, 5 December 1924, quoted in Ol′ga Lamm, Stranitsï tvorcheskoy biografii Myaskovskogo (Pages from Myaskovsky’s Creative Biography; Moscow: Sovetskiy kompozitor, 1989), 166.

64 Asafiev to Myaskovsky, 8 December 1924, ibid., 167.

65 Soveshchaniye deyateley sovetskoy muzïki v TsK VKP(b), 143.

66 Ibid.

67 Asafiev, ‘Krizis lichnogo tvorchestva’, 101; ‘Kompozitorï, pospeshite!’, 149.

68 Myaskovsky to Prokofiev, 12–16 January 1924, S. S. Prokof ′yev i N. Ya. Myaskovskiy: Perepiska (S. S. Prokofiev and N. Ya. Myaskovsky: Correspondence), ed. Miral′da Kozlova and Nina Yatsenko (Moscow: Izdatel′stvo Sovetskiy kompozitor, 1977), 184.

69 David Fanning, ‘The Symphony in the Soviet Union (1917–91)’, A Companion to the Symphony, ed. Robert Layton (London: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 292–326 (pp. 318–19). I have excluded Avraamov’s Symphony of Factory Sirens (Gudovskaya simfoniya) from this figure, since it is not a symphony in the customary understanding of the term.

70 Asafiev to Vaulin, 13 September 1925, VMOMK, f. 171, yed. khr. 144, l. 27.

71 Ol′ga Lamm, ‘Pavel Aleksandrovich Lamm: Opït biografii’ (‘Pavel Aleksandrovich Lamm: A Biographical Sketch’), VMOMK, f. 192, yed. khr. 361, l. 272.

72 Asafiev to Derzhanovsky, 28 January 1925, VMOMK, f. 3, yed. khr. 772, ll. 1–1ob.

73 Asafiev, ‘Simfoniya Oktabrya’.

74 Tikhon Khrennikov, ‘Doklad general′nogo sekretarya Soyuza sovetskikh kompozitorov T. Khrennikova: “Tridtsat′ let sovetskoy muzïki i zadachi sovetskikh kompozitorov”’ (‘Lecture by the General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers Tikhon Khrennikov: “Thirty Years of Soviet Music and the Tasks of Soviet Composers”’), Pervïy vsesoyuznïy s″ezd sovetskikh kompozitorov, ed. Gorodinsky et al., 24–60 (p. 45).

75 Boris Asafiev, ‘Russkaya muzïka, yeyo psikhologicheskiye osnovï, formï voploshcheniya i osnovnïye momentï razvitiya’ (‘Russian Music: Its Psychological Bases, Forms of Embodiment, and the Main Junctures in its Development’), Central State Archive for Literature and Art, St Petersburg, f. 337, op. 8, d. 2, l. 2.

76 Boris Asafiev, P. I. Chaykovskiy: Yego zhizn′ i tvorchestva (P. I. Tchaikovsky: His Life and Work; Moscow: Mïsl′, 1922), 52–3.

77 Boris Asafiev, Russkaya muzïka ot nachala XIX stoletiya (Moscow and Leningrad: Akademiya, 1930), 104.

78 Asafiev, ‘Poterya melodii’, 148–9.

79 Asafiev to Nikolay Kashkin, undated letter, quoted in Orlova, B. V. Asaf ′yev, 49.

80 For a discussion of the evolution of this concept in Asafiev’s writings, see Yelena Orlova, Intonatsionnaya teoriya Asaf ′yeva kak ucheniye o spetsifike muzïkal′nogo mïshleniya: Istoriya, stanovleniye, sushchnost′ (Asafiev’s Intonational Theory as a Teaching Concerning the Specificity of Musical Thinking: History, Evolution, Essence; Moscow: Muzïka, 1984), 161–73.

81 Asafiev, ‘O sebe’, 504.

82 Boris Asafiev, ‘Tretiy kontsert Sergeya Prokof′yeva’ (‘Sergey Prokofiev’s Third [Piano] Concerto’), Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 109–12 (pp. 110–12). The closing words of the last sentence (istochnik zhivoy vodï ) allude to the Russian Synodal Bible translation of the Book of Revelation, chapter 21, verse 6 (in the King James rendering: ‘I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely’). Translating Asafiev’s turgid prose presents considerable challenges: here and elsewhere, I have not sought to meliorate the syntactical and stylistic awkwardness of the original texts.

83 Ibid., 112.

84 Igor′ Glebov (Boris Asafiev), Kniga o Stravinskom (Leningrad: Triton, 1929), 387.

85 Ibid., 386.

86 Asafiev, ‘Istoricheskiy god’, 107. The three other versions of this text are (1) ‘K raskrepleniyu kompozitorskogo soznaniya’ (‘Towards the Liberation of Composers’ Consciousness’), Itogi pervoy godovshchinï postanovleniya TsVKP(b) o perestroyke literaturno-khudozhestvennïkh organizatsii (Results on the First Anniversary of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) on the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations), ed. V. Tobol′kevich (Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoye muzïkal′noye izdatel′stvo, 1933), 14–16; (2) ‘I radost′ i ėntuziazm’ (‘Both Joy and Enthusiasm’), Krasnaya gazeta (evening edition), 23 April 1933; and (3) ‘K raskrepleniyu kompozitorskogo soznaniya’ (‘Towards the Liberation of Composers’ Consciousness’), Rabochiy i teatr, 11 (1933), 11 (an abridged version of (1)).

87 Asafiev, ‘Moy put′’, 50.

88 Boris Asafiev, ‘Smeleye derzat′’ (‘Dare More Boldly’), Leningradskaya pravda, 9 January 1935.

89 Boris Asafiev, ‘Volnuyushchiye voprosï ’, Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 116–19 (p. 117; emphasis original). First published in Sovetskaya muzïka, 5 (1936), 24–7.

90 Ibid. (emphasis added).

91 Ibid., 119.

92 Asafiev’s outline summary of the project is reproduced in Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 330–1.

93 Boris Asafiev, ‘Sovetskaya muzïka i muzïkal′naya kul′tura (opït vïvedeniya osnovnïkh printsipov)’ (‘Soviet Music and Musical Culture: An Attempt to Deduce Fundamental Principles’), Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 25–38 (p. 34). Originally published in Sovetskaya muzïka, 5 (1946), 3–20.

94 Boris Asafiev, ‘Patrioticheskaya ideya v sovetskoy muzïke’, Akademik B. V. Asaf ′yev: Izbrannïye trudï, ed. Kabalevsky et al., v, 39–43 (p. 42). Originally published in Literatura i iskusstvo, 1 January 1943.

95 Asafiev, ‘Puti razvitiya sovetkoy muzïki’, 61–2.

96 Boris Schwarz, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1972; expanded edn, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1983), 125.

97 Ibid., 227.

98  Zhitomirsky, ‘Na puti k istoricheskoy pravde’, 4–5.

99  Ol′ga Lamm, ‘Vospominaniya (fragment: 1948–1951 godï)’ (‘Reminiscences (Fragment: 1948–51)’), Sergey Prokof ′yev: Vospominaniya, pis′ma, stat′i (Sergey Prokofiev: Reminiscences, Letters, Articles), ed. Marina Rakhmanova (Moscow: Izdatel′stvo ‘Deka-VS’, 2004), 227–73 (p. 242).

100 Ibid., 255.

101 Yevgeniy Golubev, Alogizmï (Alogisms), RGALI, f. 2798, op. 2, yed. khr. 23, ll. 31–2. For a discussion of Myaskovsky’s response to the resolution, see Zuk, ‘Nikolay Myaskovsky and the Events of 1948’.

102 For a discussion of recent scholarship with regard to this issue, see Patrick Zuk, ‘Soviet Music Studies Outside Russia: Glasnost′ and After’, Russian Music since 1917, ed. Zuk and Frolova-Walker, 51–74.