The Birth of the Soviet Romance from the Spirit of Russian Modernism

Abstract

Histories of the Russian art-song (or romance) written during the Soviet period tend to inscribe a crude break between the pre- and post-revolutionary eras. The reasons for this are obvious enough; Soviet dislike of modernism meant that the period 1890–1930 had to be treated with particular care, lest accusations of formalism be raised. More broadly, a tendency to focus on the careers of leading émigré composers — Nikolai Metner, Sergei Rakhmaninov, Igor' Stravinskii — has constructed a narrative which sees 1917 as a terminal point in the development of the Russian romance tradition. However, this historiographical paradigm does considerable violence to the history of Russian art-song within the Soviet Union. This article surveys the work of leading song composers who were active from the 1910s well into the Soviet period — Anatolii Aleksandrov, Mikhail Gnesin, Nikolai Miaskovskii — using their works to establish a new and more sensitive periodization of Russian song. As well as tracing the evolution of their song-writing careers, this article will also explore the relationship between early Soviet song and Russian poetry, examining changing patterns of reception over the revolutionary divide.