SEER, 93, 3, JULY 2015 552 illustrate Lourié’s lasting belief in the transcendent power of melody; the opera, however, has never been performed, like so much of this composer’s work. Emerson addresses one of the more stable elements in Lourié’s confusing and conflicted belief systems, namely his friendship with the Neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain (1881–1973), which went far beyond his Catholicism, to a lasting relationship that not only stimulated discussion and even inspiration, but also flattered the composer, since the far better-known Maritain seemed to regard him as the model twentieth-century composer, referring to Lourié in the same breath as world-class greats (p. 202). A particular feature of this chapter is Emerson’s thoughtful commentary on earlier contributions to the book. Like her own analysis, this is both stimulating and informative. The epilogue is naturally downbeat, as Morrison describes the less than fulfilled end of Lourié’s life in America, particularly after the death of Koussevitsky in 1951, when, despite the kindness of Maritain with whom he lived in Princeton, he seemed to retreat into the world of a Petersburg dandy with little to live for but memories of a distant, mythologized past. Móricz and Morrison are to be congratulated on assembling such a distinguished and enthusiastic team of authors who between them have done much to bring to life a neglected but fascinatingly enigmatic figure. It is to be hoped that some of Lourié’s works may yet be brought into the public domain through recordings. This first-class book should attract a wide audience, including those interested in the Silver Age of Russian culture, in the cultural, intellectual and spiritual life of emigrants in Berlin, Paris and America, and above all those drawn to the byways of twentieth-century Russian music. London Arnold McMillin Helbig, Adriana. Hip Hop Ukraine: Music, Race, and African Migration. Ethnomusicology Multimedia. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 2014. xix + 233 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $25.00 (paperback). In her book, Hip Hop Ukraine, Adriana Helbig suggests that despite clear links between American and Ukrainian hip hop, what emerges is a picture of communities pulling from two different wells of experience and insight, reacting to divergent conditions and histories. Hip hop is, therefore, localized, encompassing unique sets of groups and circumstances. The African immigrant community in Ukraine is part of a mobile society, which includes many Ukrainians who have moved to the United States, and a growing class REVIEWS 553 awareness of Ukrainians migrating across Europe. If hip hop develops out of the circumstances of individual communities, it therefore has its own stamp in Ukraine, which by the nature of its localization, deviates from its American origins. The various hip hop traditions are linked by attention to disadvantages and, in the local context, to oppression. In Ukraine the idea of multiculturalism intrudes, as does also the way in which the music expresses claims of belonging, citizenship, nationhood and equality. A major theme in Hip Hop Ukraine shows, in part, how American hip hop has been used to re-inscribe oppression. The story reads as follows: Ukraine, until recently, struggled economically. During the 1990s, many left for a better life in the USA and across Europe. As the Ukrainian economy began to improve, many returned home. In these times of transition, youth turned to ways of exploring their identities and conditions, often connecting to other parts of the world via the internet. In this way ‘direct’ linkages developed internationally, but with a black emphasis. The music gained momentum as capitalism began to plant seeds in the country, concomitant with Ukraine’sturnfromacollectiveideologytoanincreasingfocusonindividualism. African immigrants became an important conduit for Ukrainians to develop their expertise in hip hop, both in learning from them and helping to market it. African faces were used to promote certain images of race and class and to authenticate the music. As Helbig notes, using black faces was hardly about tolerance but more about ‘decorative racism’, in which otherness is the effective result, and it was a pattern resisted by African hip hop in Ukraine. Commodification of black people is also revealed, Helbig suggests, in the performers’ ambiguous status once they leave the...
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Jan 1, 2024
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