Lithuanian Musicology in Historical Context: 1945 to the Present

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeKeywords: Lithuanian musicologyLithuanian musiceducationcontemporary historythe Soviet periodpolitical contextideologyresistancenational independence Acknowledgements The author is very grateful to musicologists A. Ambrazas, J. Bruveris and R. Goštautienė for their valuable comments on this article; and to musicologists V. Landsbergis, R. Naktinytė, V. Gerulaitis and J. Antanavičius, and composers A. Martinaitis and B. Kutavičius, for sharing their reminiscences. Thanks also to Aušra Simanavičiūtė for translating from the Lithuanian, with support from the Musicological Section of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union and the Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre (www.mic.lt). Notes Notes 1 The Lithuanian State Conservatory was founded in 1949 by joining the Kaunas Conservatory (established in 1933) and the Vilnius Conservatory (established in 1944). In 1992 it was renamed the Lithuanian Academy of Music; in 2004 it became the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. The original faculty of the Lithuanian State Conservatory included the composers Antanas Račiūnas, Jonas Bendorius, Konstantinas Galkauskas, Jonas Nabažas, Zigmas Aleksandravičius, and Povilas Tamuliūnas, and the musicologists Juozas Gaudrimas, Jadvyga Čiurlionytė and Konstantin Tchernetsov. 2 Only a single book-length musicological study was published during the inter-war years, Juozas Strolia's Trumpa muzikos istorija (A Short History of Music 1936). 3 In 1945, the Union's composers were Jadvyga Čiurlionytė and Zinaida Feoktisova-Kumpienė. Juozas Gaudrimas was admitted in 1954. These three were joined by Stasys Yla, Vytautas Karpavičius, Vytautas Venckus and Julius Špigelglazas in 1960. 4 It was not until 1955, the 80th anniversary of Čiurlionis’ birth, that musicologists were permitted to mention his name in their work. The composer Julius Juzeliūnas and the musicologists Juozas Gaudrimas and Jadvyga Čiurlionytė were the first to write about him (Gaudrimas in the Lithuanian press, Čiurlionytė in the Russian press). 5 The discussions are documented in the secret ‘Report of the Minister of State Security of the LSSR, Pyotr Kapralov, on Statements Made by Lithuanian Intellectuals Regarding the Destruction of the Nation's Spiritual Life’ (1950; in Bagušauskas & Streikus 2005 Bagušauskas, JR and Streikus, A. 2005. Lietuvos kultūra sovietinės ideologijos nelaisvėje 1940–1990 (dokumentų rinkinys), Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimų centras. [Google Scholar], pp. 136–45; the passages cited are taken from this source). 6 For this work, Ambrazas and Venckus received the State Award in 1979. 7 Work on an earlier monograph on Juozas Naujalis by Narbutienė was halted around 1960 by the Ministry of Education, which apparently disapproved of the Narbutienė's treatment of Naujalis’ activities as an organist. It was not until 1989 that this study was published (Narbutienė 1989 Narbutienė, O. 1989. Juozas Naujalis, Kaunas: Šviesa. [Google Scholar]). 8 From 1958 onward, control over printed material in Lithuanian received by mail from abroad was entrusted to the Glavlit of the Lithuanian SSR. In 1961 a list of institutions that could use confiscated material with ‘anti-Soviet contents’ was compiled (see Bagušauskas & Streikus 2005 Bagušauskas, JR and Streikus, A. 2005. Lietuvos kultūra sovietinės ideologijos nelaisvėje 1940–1990 (dokumentų rinkinys), Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimų centras. [Google Scholar], pp. 266, 286). 9 In a meeting of this circle held in 1963, Landsbergis was reputed to have been ‘talking about contemporary trends of modernist music in the West, illustrating his speech with tape recordings; excerpts from dodecaphonic music were performed’ (quotation from a KGB report of 1965, in Bagušauskas & Streikus 2005 Bagušauskas, JR and Streikus, A. 2005. Lietuvos kultūra sovietinės ideologijos nelaisvėje 1940–1990 (dokumentų rinkinys), Vilnius: Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimų centras. [Google Scholar], p. 343). 10 In this book, Landsbergis referred to the composer's archive, which had been brought from St. Petersburg to Kaunas, where it was secretly held after the Revolution. (In 1967, Landsbergis had published an article based upon some of this material in Muzika ir teatras.) When publication of the book was stopped, the author divided its contents into three parts and published the first–a Sasnauskas bibliography–as a teaching aid for schools in 1978. In 1980 the publishing house, having failed to find a way to justify the advance paid for the book, was compelled to publish the biographical part as well; in this matter, Landsbergis was also helped by intercession from the head of the Culture Department of the Central Committee. (Some ‘ideologically unacceptable’ facts were removed from the biography, and the image of a cross that appeared in a photograph of a prayer book owned by the composer's mother was retouched.) The third part of Landsbergis’ book, including the composer's own writings, was not published until 2002 (Landsbergis 1967 Landsbergis, V. 1967. Česlovo Sasnausko gyvenimo ir veiklos bruožai. Muzika ir teatras, 4: 91–9. [Google Scholar], 1978, 1980, 2002). 11 Bruveris, interview with the author, April 2006, Vilnius. 12 Kutavičius, interview with the author, April 2006, Vilnius.