Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe

190 Pages·2011·3.853 MB·English

by  Maria Cizmic

Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe
Maria Cizmic
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734603.001.0001
Published: 2011 Online ISBN: 9780199918546 Print ISBN: 9780199734603
FRONT MATTER
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Performing pain : music and trauma in Eastern Europe / Maria Cizmic.
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Includes bibliographical references and index. ed
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ISBN 978-0-19-973460-3 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-19-983283-5 (companion website) 1. Music h
—Europe, Eastern—20th century—History and criticism. 2. Music—Political aspects—Europe, ttps
Eastern—History—20th century. 3. Psychic trauma in music—Europe, Eastern. I. Title. ://ac
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Publication of this book was supported by the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of o
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the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment 0
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Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe
Maria Cizmic
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734603.001.0001
Published: 2011 Online ISBN: 9780199918546 Print ISBN: 9780199734603
FRONT MATTER
Acknowledgments  D
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The writing of this book was supported by a series of grants from the University of South Florida. The em
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Creative Scholarship Grant, the New Researcher Grant, and the Humanities Institute Grant supplied funding .o
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for writing and revising portions of the manuscript; the Faculty Research and Development Grant o�set .c
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some of the cost of copyright permission fees. Beyond this much appreciated �nancial support, I have found m
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a community of supportive, intellectually engaged, and frequently wry colleagues at USF, all of whom o
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in�uenced the writing of this book either by o�ering sage professional advice, reading drafts, or talking 2
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through ideas with me. I would like to thank everyone associated with the Humanities and Cultural Studies 9
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Department past and present, Ruth Banes, Daniel Belgrad, Priscilla Brewer, Annette Cozzi, James D’Emilio, a
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Scott Ferguson, Silvio Gaggi, Niki Kantzios, Adriana Novoa, Patrick O’Neil, Mario Ortiz, Amy Rust, Elaine ter/1
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Smith, and Naomi Yavneh. The writing group organized by Tova Cooper and Michael Clune in USF’s English 1
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Department supplied a crucial sounding board and helped me develop a writing style accessible to scholars 1
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in areas other than music; thank you to everyone who participated in the group. Maribeth Clark (at New 6 b
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College), Zoë Lang, and Jill Brasky also read portions of this manuscript and kept me grounded in the U
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concerns of a musicological audience. Kees Boterbloem graciously read early drafts and advised me from his ive
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wealth of knowledge as a Russian historian. I also want to extend a sincere thank you to all the students who ity
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took my Representing Trauma course; all of our conversations regarding the ethical and aesthetic concerns f C
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regarding representations of su�ering contributed to my own thoughts as expressed in this book. m
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As a graduate student at UCLA’s Musicology Department, I was lucky to be part of a wellspring of e
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intellectual creativity and camaraderie that continues to in�uence my work. Always ready with a crucial e
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reading suggestion and a humorous quip, Mitchell Morris deserves my heartfelt gratitude for guiding me n
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through my dissertation and for continuing to bestow his ever-wise advice. A profound thank you also goes A
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to Susan McClary, who continued to generously o�er her time, advice, and support as I navigated the book- g
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writing process. Robert Fink’s experimental music seminar provided the initial seed that, these many years t 2
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later, has grown into this book, and Elisabeth Le Guin’s presence on my dissertation committee kept me 2
intellectually grounded, particularly concerning music as a physically performed art. All the musicology
p. viii faculty at UCLA contributed to an environment that fostered intellectual adventurousness along with the
highest of academic standards. This book also bears the mark of my fellow graduate students at UCLA; they
read the earliest drafts of my dissertation, talked with me regarding my �rst encounters with trauma
theory, created a supportive and stimulating intellectual environment, and continue to extend their
friendship in years since. Thank you to Kate Bartel, Dale Chapman, Martin Daughtry, Chuck Garrett, Gordon
Haramaki, Eric Leidal, Barbara Moroncini, Louis Niebur, Glenn Pillsbury, Erica Sheinberg, Cecilia Sun,
Stephanie Vander Wel, and Jacqueline Warwick.
Several people had a direct hand in assisting with certain aspects of this book. Back in 2008, a lovely
conversation with Denis Kozlov between sessions at Princeton University’s “Pain of Words” conference
prompted me to �nally watch Repentance. I want to thank Luke Howard for reading very early drafts of my
work on Górecki a very long time ago and for always answering my questions with kindness. A sincere thank
you goes to Valentina Aleksa, who helped me make my way through a mound of Russian-language sources
and along the way o�ered many cups of tea, patience, and friendship. Kazimierz Robak tracked down and
translated several Polish language sources, for which I am deeply grateful. And Andrew Schrader lent me his
Finale expertise to create several of the musical examples readers �nd in this book. I want to express my
gratitude to Suzanne Ryan at Oxford University Press for believing in this project, for guiding me through
the book-writing and publishing process thoughtfully, and for always responding to my copious queries D
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quickly and with friendly humor. Madelyn Sutton, Caelyn Cobb, Norman Hirschy, and Erica Woods Tucker at n
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OUP also deserve acknowledgment for �elding a steady stream of e-mails as I puzzled through questions d
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regarding everything from the publishing process to copyright permissions. Several people came to my fro
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assistance as I worked on obtaining copyright permissions: Alexander Demko at Art�ra, Eva Belavsky at the h
Maya Polsky Gallery, and Anya Mackessy formerly of the Regina Gallery in London. I would also like to ttp
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extend my gratitude to Igor Tiulpanov and Semen Faibisovich for granting permission to reproduce their ://a
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artwork; and to Nikita Sherstiuk and Mikhail Sidur for granting permission to reproduce artwork by their de
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respective fathers. I also wish to thank the anonymous readers who reviewed this manuscript. At each stage ic
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of this process their careful and thorough responses pushed me to improve the manuscript signi�cantly. p
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Writing (and rewriting) a book constitutes a kind of marathon, one that would be di�cult to complete /b
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without the support of family and friends. I want to thank everyone who lent me an understanding ear and k
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words of encouragement. Most important, I want to thank my parents, Ines and Stipe, and my brother Nick 0
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for always providing emotional support and love. And the most heartfelt of thank yous to Andrew Berish for /c
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always being willing to read, think, talk, exchange ideas, and for all the countless ways his support has p
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contributed to my being able to write this book. The �nal stages of book production saw the arrival of r/1
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Anthony Mirko, whose smiling presence provides us all with immeasurable joy. 3
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Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe
Maria Cizmic
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734603.001.0001
Published: 2011 Online ISBN: 9780199918546 Print ISBN: 9780199734603
FRONT MATTER
A Note on Transliteration and Translation  D
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This book uses the Library of Congress system of transliteration for Russian words and names. I follow this .o
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system throughout, with occasional exceptions when conventional English spellings of words (like glasnost .c
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rather than glasnost’) and names (like Ustvolskaya rather than Ustvol’skaia) exist. In the text of this book, I m
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use the common English spellings for several names, including Alfred Schnittke, Galina Ustvolskaya, and o
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Alexander Ivashkin. But, in Russian language sources about or by these people referenced in the notes and 2
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bibliography, I transliterate their names according to the Library of Congress system. I have also 9
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transliterated the Russian character ë as e. All translations from Russian are my own. Translations from a
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Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe
Maria Cizmic
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734603.001.0001
Published: 2011 Online ISBN: 9780199918546 Print ISBN: 9780199734603
FRONT MATTER
About the Companion Website  D
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encouraged to take full advantage of it. Aural excerpts of music discussed in this book will be available on o
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the website for at least �ve years following publication. Reading and listening, used together, will expand /1
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the reader’s experience and will encourage the reader to critically engage the ideas presented in Performing 3
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p. xii Access the site with username Music1 and password Book5983. r/1
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Performing Pain: Music and Trauma in Eastern Europe
Maria Cizmic
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199734603.001.0001
Published: 2011 Online ISBN: 9780199918546 Print ISBN: 9780199734603
CHAPTER
Introduction Musical Ways of Bearing Witness  D
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Abstract de
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This chapter provides an overview of the book’s main areas of concern. It discusses 1970s and 80s East .ou
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European and Russian culture, highlighting important themes: historical and cultural memory, local .c
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and international memory, su�ering, truth, realism, morality, and spirituality. The compositional /b
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circles at this time dealt with these themes musically, often in ways that seem to invoke k
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postmodernism through quotation, fragmentation, and stasis. Cultural and musical concerns 20
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regarding memory frequently engaged past traumas, such as Stalinism and WWII; hence, this chapter /c
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o�ers an overview of theories regarding trauma, testimony, and grief from psychology, sociology, and p
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literary and cultural studies. Constructivist scholars in each of these �elds point to the ways in which r/1
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people respond to violence and loss by considering the signi�cance of such events. In terms of the 3
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compositions discussed in this book, music participates in the process of debating the cultural 9
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meanings of past traumas. b
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Keywords: memory, su�ering, truth, postmodernism, trauma, testimony, grief, Eastern Europe rsity
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Subject: Musicology and Music History, European Music f C
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In the 1984 Georgian �lm Repentance, one of the central characters, Keti Barateli, arrives in a court of law er o
conspicuously dressed in a white suit and a sweeping white hat to justify an act of grave robbery. Her self- n 1
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defense unfolds in an allegorical tale with striking parallels to the 1930s Stalinist terror. In this legal setting, A
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Keti bears witness to the chaos and pain of her childhood and to the arrest and execution of her parents and u
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their friends. Repentance dramatizes Keti’s story, and viewers watch (as the courtroom contingent listens t 2
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to) a narrative that chronicles her family’s reactions to their malevolent, tyrannical mayor—a stand-in for 2
Stalin and an amalgam of several historic, dictatorial �gures. In two scenes, moviegoing audiences watch
Keti and her mother reel in response to the loss of their father and a close friend; in both scenes, audiences
hear plaintive fragments from Tabula Rasa, a composition by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. Tabula Rasa’s
sorrowful a�ect, borne out by a slowly, repetitively cycling string orchestra, functions as an element of
Keti’s testimonial act and consequently bears witness to the historical traumas of the Stalinist era.
Tabula Rasa’s role in Repentance is not unique. Films, memorials, and ceremonies devoted to both personal
and collective su�ering frequently involve music and any number of compositions found their genesis as a
response to traumatic events. Keti’s act of personal, historical, and even musical witnessing brings to light
the central concerns and questions of this book. How do musical works bear witness to traumatic events?
Can they metaphorically perform the psychological e�ects of trauma, loss, and recovery? How might they
comment upon the nature of memory and time? How do they participate in public conversations regarding
su�ering, remembrance, and mourning? Can musical works shape the meaning of a testimonial act? And
how do listeners respond—can music create a point of entry into an empathetic response to another’s pain
or do the dangers of aestheticizing su�ering lurk nearby?
Historical Memory in Late Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe
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The four case studies that comprise this book focus upon musical compositions from Eastern Europe and d
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Russia during the 1970s and ’80s. This is a time and place in which concerns about traumatic events from fro
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the recent past circulated in social discourse and found expression in literature, �lm, art, journalism, h
historiography, and in music as well. Khrushchev’s 1956 “secret speech” famously and publicly ttps
acknowledged the violence that occurred during Stalin’s rule, inspiring some to become increasingly ://a
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interested in past events that had been left out of o�cial historical narratives. A series of thaws and freezes de
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in political and cultural spheres ensued in the wake of Khrushchev’s speech. Moments of openness, ic
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iconically represented by the publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, p
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alternated with retrenchment, notably with Brezhnev’s insistence upon heroic depictions of Stalin. m
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Throughout these waves, a concern for history and memory persisted within portions of the intelligentsia. o
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With glasnost and perestroika in the mid-1980s, this focus upon the Soviet past—the 1930s purges, the /1
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gulags, collectivization, dekulakization, and the continued infractions against human rights under 3
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Khrushchev and Brezhnev—entered into mainstream, public forums as journalists, historians, writers, and h
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artists responded to a need to �ll historical blank spots. Historian Catherine Merridale argues that the Soviet te
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government had been careful to control the meanings of past, traumatic events—variously ignoring them, 6
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falsifying records, or transforming them into narratives of heroic triumph. Glasnost saw past atrocities 4
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come to light as people engaged in an “active process” to reconstitute and reframe collective memory.1 This 910
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late twentieth-century focus upon memory and the meanings of history repeatedly called up a network of y
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interrelated concerns: traumatic history; cultural history; truth, realism, and representation; ethics and iv
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conscience; and spirituality and religion. These concepts frequently arose in tandem with one another, as rs
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well as in varying combinations, as people re�ected upon the meanings of recent East European history. o
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The Second World War and the Stalinist era frequently �gured as signi�cant events in public consciousness b
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at this time and across Eastern Europe. WWII served as an important focal point in the Soviet Union g
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throughout the twentieth century—the government approved a tapestry of triumphalist representations s
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touting their victory over fascism; in a very di�erent vein, some artists and poets who were former veterans, r o
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like Vadim Sidur, focused their creative energies on capturing the inglorious su�ering of soldiers. And even 9
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today the siege on Leningrad continues to hold an important place in Russian collective memory.2 Likewise, ug
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the 1970s and ’80s saw Polish intellectuals grappling with their communist legacy: at times, World War II st 2
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memorials covertly critiqued Soviet power; Andrzej Wajda’s 1976 �lm Man of Marble traces a young 2
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p. 5 woman’s �xation with the communist government’s manipulation of history as she searches for the
truth; and the late 1980s and early ’90s saw an intense debate regarding totalitarianism, complicity, and
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responsibility. Although these two events drew particular attention, the concern for traumatic history often
extended back previous to WWII and forward to include contemporary nuclear anxieties. Re�ecting upon
the 1917 revolution and ensuing civil war in Russia, Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (1956) examines the
e�ects of such radical turmoil on its central character. Milan Kundera’s early novels, The Joke (1967) and The
Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), each deal with historical memory in relation to Soviet in�uence on
Czechoslovakia. The Joke sees several characters re�ect upon their involvement with socialism in the wake
of the 1948 communist coup in Czechoslovakia; The Book of Laughter and Forgetting unfolds after the 1968
Soviet invasion, a time when the novel’s characters struggle to recall a past that breaks o� into fragments
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rather than submitting to chronological, sensible order. And later in the century, works by such artists as
Viacheslav Sysoev engage anxieties regarding modern warfare; Sysoev’s Adam & Eve (Life Is Wonderful)
(1982) depicts Adam and Eve frolicking in an idyllic scene that hovers over a storehouse �lled with bombs,
nuclear warheads, missiles, tanks, and ships, over which he has ironically printed the phrase “Life Is
Wonderful” (“No Zhizn’ Prekrasna”).
Much of Europe and the United States perceives the Second World War and the Holocaust as the primary
touchstones of historical and collective memory during the latter half of the twentieth century—a social
phenomenon that �nds a corollary in the prevalence of scholarship on the Holocaust in trauma studies.
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Consequently, certain tropes regarding trauma arise, at least in part, from considerations of WWII. Scholars w
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frequently understand some Holocaust survivors’ resistance to speak about their past, and the collective a
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silence regarding the concentration camps that immediately followed the war, in psychological terms. With d
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Freud’s theories regarding repression hovering nearby, such silences �nd explanation as typical mental and m
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emotional responses to trauma on both individual and social levels. Silence, as a psychological reaction to ttp
violence, functions as a frequent trope in trauma studies.5 Moving into a Soviet context, though, s://a
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demonstrates the ways in which a psychological, or even a psychoanalytic, account of silence—while a
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certainly relevant in some respects—can prove to be fairly apolitical. After Stalin’s death in 1953, a large m
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number of prisoners held in the Soviet labor camps were released. Both historians Orlando Figes and .ou
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Catherine Merridale observe that when these people returned home, many remained silent regarding their .co
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experiences due to fear of unwanted consequences—a prevalently negative bias against gulag prisoners /b
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could make it di�cult for those released to �nd housing and employment. Although Figes and Merridale k
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disagree regarding the relevance of psychoanalytic theories, both highlight the political nature of such 0
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p. 6 silences. Memories of traumatic events regularly circulate in relationship to politics and power. The /c
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broad fascination with the past during the 1970s and ’80s arose as a feature of this political landscape, often p
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responding to the kinds of falsi�cation and transformation of historical memory conducted by o�cial r/1
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government institutions. 3
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The concern for historical memory at times also included an interest in both local and international culture. 0
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One of the e�ects of totalitarianism for some people was a sense of being cut o� from regional cultural U
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practices as well as broader European and global artistic spheres. As Michael Beckerman has demonstrated, iv
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Kundera’s novel The Joke portrays the ambivalence surrounding folk culture in communist Czechoslovakia. ity
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On the one hand, the communist government appropriated folk music in order to draw upon its connection f C
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to “the people” in service of political ideology. At the same time, though, several characters in the novel m
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participate in folk rituals in order to maintain a bond to their regional identities in contradistinction to both rid
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German and Soviet in�uences. One of the central characters in Repentance, Sandro Barateli, tries to hold on u
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to his Georgian cultural history by defending the neighborhood sixth-century church. In an argument with r o
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his town’s dictatorial mayor, Sandro connects his local ethnic heritage to a broader context of European 1
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cultural history. And even in Glass Harmonica (1968), a short animated �lm directed by Andrei A
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Khrzhanovskii, a magical musical instrument battles a menacing evil �gure by playing a motive based on J. us
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S. Bach’s name (composed by Alfred Schnittke) while conjuring examples of past European visual art. As the 0
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four case studies of this book unfold, we will see how references to both local and international cultural
history participate in aesthetic re�ections upon memory and su�ering.
The factors that Merridale raises—the falsi�cation of records by the Soviet government and the
manipulation of the meanings of past traumas—were met in some quarters with an interest in truth and
realism. By the time of glasnost, the desire for historical veracity caused Tengiz Abuladze, Repentance’s
director, to describe his contemporary climate by stating in an interview: “We are supposed to be telling
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truth, truth, all the time truth.” In his intellectual history of the concepts of truth and conscience in
Russian culture, Philip Boobbyer argues that this �xation on veracity began in dissident circles in the wake
of Khrushchev’s secret speech, made its way into the intelligentsia, notably with Solzhenitsyn’s samizdat
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essay “Live Not by the Lie” (1974), and then entered the mainstream during glasnost. Anthropologist
Alexei Yurchak modi�es this historical narrative by noting that such a �xation on truth may have been more
typical of the generation that came of age in the 1960s (the shestidesiatniki). The 1970s and early ’80s saw a
younger generation ritualistically participate in o�cial practices while engaging in other sorts of activities
that were technically beyond authorized boundaries—hence they blurred the distinction between true and
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p. 7 not true, o�cial and uno�cial. The question of truth will raise its head again and again during the
course of this book, only to be met with a wide range of responses. Some writers, namely Solzhenitsyn and
Vaclav Havel, responded to a crisis of truth by calling for a relatively �rm notion of honesty in contrast to
mendacity and complicity.11 The desire to address neglected and falsi�ed elements of Soviet society also D
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prompted artists, such as Oskar Rabin, to paint in a realistic style that engaged taboo topics including poor n
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housing conditions and alcoholism. Other artists, though, addressed this concern by questioning the nature d
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of truth, reality, perception, and representation itself, giving rise to a more complex and ambivalent fro
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re�ection upon the ability to access an honest account of reality. Even Repentance, as preoccupied as it is h
with historical truth, often employs a surrealistic and fantastical style as part of its re�ection upon people’s ttp
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su�ering. ://a
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Such searching for and questioning of truth inevitably gives rise to ethical considerations. Boobbyer’s m
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intellectual history involves a broad survey of moral sensibilities during the Soviet era and characterizes the .ou
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late twentieth century as a time of moral restlessness. The Soviet government had long presented itself in .co
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ethical terms, but Boobbyer argues that during the last decades of Soviet rule the regime lost its moral /b
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legitimacy while an alternative moral and spiritual culture emerged based upon sincerity, truth telling, k
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integrity, and nonviolence. Many literary works, as well as �lms like AndreyTarkovsky’s Solaris and Stalker, 0
3
9
explored the ethical dimensions of Soviet life and contributed to a public discourse around the idea of /c
h
a
conscience. As the concern regarding morality entered the mainstream during glasnost, people used the p
te
idea of conscience to express their desire for a moral and spiritual renewal and to convey the ethical r/1
6
1
imperative to memorialize past violence. Religion and spirituality wind their way throughout these 3
4
1
discussions regarding morality. Boobbyer demonstrates the religious in�uence on the concepts of truth and 9
1
0
morality in Russia, and his description of spiritual rhetoric during the late twentieth century resonates with b
y
13 U
work by scholars who report a religious revival during this time. Boobbyer notes that religious rhetoric n
iv
was employed to discuss moral issues even by people who were not particularly �rm believers, pointing to ers
the existence of a universalized, ecumenical spirituality.14 ity o
f C
a
Boobbyer’s study focuses primarily on Soviet Russia, and as such provides an important touchstone for my m
b
case studies regarding Russian and even more broadly East European composers. His arguments, though, rid
g
e
serve to demonstrate that the concern for historical memory intertwines with considerations of truth, u
s
e
ethics, and religion even in a broader geographical sphere and in varying ways. Questions regarding how to r o
n
remember World War II in Poland very quickly run into religion at the same time that they encompass 1
9
complex arguments regarding the ethics of memory and representation. Memory, truth, ethics, and A
u
g
spirituality stand in relationship to one another when societies contemplate the meanings of traumatic us
t 2
events. 0
2
2