Abstract
This research has a survey-analytical nature and uses the theoretical method of comparative historical analysis of texts. Through the selection and analysis of key works and archival documents, the conceptual basis for the sociology of music of the USSR during the 1920s is determined to form an academic project, developed in the frame of the record of state cultural policy. The transformation of the institutionalized academic domain music in a decade is described. The tasks involved in the sociology of music with the aim of state order for the formation of a proletarian music culture are reconstructed. It has been established that music was delegated the function of structuring daily occurrences, motivating labor activity, promoting cultural education, and supporting an aspiration to solidary, collective action based on the emotional acceptance of the ideological postulates of the time. The research also focuses on the transformation of the crucial characteristics of the central ideologists of the “proletarian culture” from the utopian romanticism directed toward the achievement of class solidarity to the distortion of basic humanistic ideals in favor of fixing the developed hierarchies of power.
Highlights
Critical epochs in social development involve a fundamental review of cultural foundations, which includes the figurative language of art and the ways in which it interacts with the masses
The task of complete reorganization of Russian society based on socialist principles, instigated by the October revolution of 1917, made the authorities turn to art and socio-humanitarian knowledge as tools to exercise and advance their political agenda
The origin, development, and decline of the Soviet sociology of music in a short span during the 1920s demonstrates the results of the forced intervention of the government in a scientific sphere, when the reformation of institutions and formulation of research tasks are imposed on the academic community without considering the basic principles of scientific logic, in spite of the internal dynamics involved in the development of different disciplines and the lack of attention to the specifics of the studied subject
Summary
Critical epochs in social development involve a fundamental review of cultural foundations, which includes the figurative language of art and the ways in which it interacts with the masses. The violent destruction of boundaries between the academic tradition and emerging mass culture through actions of the administrative machinery were aimed at the formation of a new kind of individual and achievement of class solidarity. All these trends led to the deconstruction of the traditional repertoires of art existence, determining the specific condition of blurring the boundaries between the sciences, arts, cultural policies, and the social realities of the USSR. Considered in this light, an essential artistic practice, which influences a large number of people, is music. The focus will be on, as stated earlier, the transformation of the central perspectives of the “proletarian culture” ideologists from a utopian romanticism, aimed at the achievement of class solidarity, to the complete distortion of basic humanistic ideals favored toward fixing the existing power hierarchies
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