Power Structures, Culture Policy, and Traditional Music in Soviet Central Asia

Abstract

the other former Soviet Central Asian republics. For the most part, I use previously unknown archival material not published in scholarly works, Communist Party documents, private correspondence, and several postMedieval manuscripts on music from Bukhara. I want to call your attention to the following points. First, the creation of the key factors and mechanisms of culture policy in the 1920s and 1930s. Second, the struggle to create a musical legacy during the early years of the Soviet republics. These issues will be considered in relation to the current standing of regional musical cultures in Central Asia. Soviet culture policy with respect to traditional music was identical for all the Central Asian republics. process of creating culture policy was completed by the mid-1930s after the cessation of a brief period of open polemics between different cultural forces. main problem in culture policy was the relation of traditional music and the music of contemporary European-style composers. State cultural leadership announced that the principal priority in the development of musical culture was to be the assimilation of so-called European professional music. In general, this priority was preserved right down to the beginning of the 1990s, when the Soviet Union collapsed. We should know that the 1920s was an important period in the development of Soviet culture policy in Central Asia. That very complex period contained many different points of view, different approaches and sources of the subsequent development of culture policy. One can see that there were at least three tendencies in culture policy concerning traditional music. First, a tendency for State institutionalization of culture. Second, a tendency to cleanse old culture of its ideological and class-inimical consciousness and the adaptation of so-called musical heritage to the new ideological system. Third, a tendency towards the national demarcation of musical traditions. first two tendencies are well known. foundation of the numerous music clubs, schools, people's conservatories, and so on, lead to democratization and the broadening of musical culture. pre-Revolutionary professional guild of musicians, artists, acrobats, and others which was known as mehtarlik was transformed into the Professional Union of Art Workers (so-called RABIS) under the name San'ati Nafisa. By 1928, its membership reached 284 persons in Tashkent (Gavrilov's information). State institutions appeared in the sphere of traditional music. These included The School of Oriental Music (Shark Musiqa Maqtabi) in