Music and speech content of the Radio magazine (1935)

Abstract

The presented article continues a series of author's investigations devoted to the annual analysis of book prints and periodicals, which were published in Ukraine at different times. The problem of development of music radio broadcasting in the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (USSR) is raised in the work. Based on the annual notebook of the all-Ukrainian scientific and technical magazine "Radio" for 1935, the author examines its music and speech content and concludes that despite the curtailment of the Ukrainization campaign, the magazine remained a platform for discussing the problems of national and cultural construction in Ukraine. At that time, the magazine's reporters raised questions about music and speech quotas on the radio network, demanded an increase in the percentage of Ukrainian folk songs, Ukrainian classical music heritage, and works by Ukrainian Soviet composers. It is clear that this process was controlled and managed by the ruling Bolshevik Party and state authorities. At the same time, the articulation of these issues made it possible to preserve the positions of the political course on indigenization (Ukrainization) declared in 1923. The obvious dominance of folk traditions in the musical creativity of the composers of the USSR, in particular, the symphonies and operas of Levko Revutsky and Borys Lyatoshynsky, prompted the Stalinist authorities to organize a field trip of specialists in recording on gramophone records in Ukraine. The latter carried out unprecedented work at that time, ensuring the preservation of more than 100 works of Ukrainian musical art, namely, folk songs, dances, symphonies, opera arias and more. During the competitive selection, not only the best performing styles were revealed, but also previously unknown bands from the most remote corners of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Radio Committee was actively involved in the popularization of Ukrainian musical content, under the auspices of which a large symphony orchestra, an orchestra of folk instruments, an ensemble of bandura players, numerous musical radio theaters, etc. worked.