Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:14:23.172Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Late-Stalinist ideological campaigns and the rupture of jazz: ‘jazz-talk’ in the Soviet Estonian cultural newspaper Sirp ja Vasar1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2014

Heli Reimann
Heli Reimann*
Affiliation:
Wismari 10-4, Tallinn 10136, Estonia E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper on Soviet Estonian jazz explores the dynamics of the processes which temporarily extinguished jazz from the public arena during late-Stalinism. This microhistory inflected study draws on the conception of ‘rupture’ through a close reading of the way jazz was constructed in the official narratives of the Estonian cultural newspaper Sirp ja Vasar. Jazz in Estonia experienced no rupture during the first postwar years, but then the three successive Stalinist campaigns, each with gradually decreasing tolerance towards jazz, led finally to the temporary public disappearance of the music in 1950. The strategies enforced in the late 1940s, such as anti-jazz orchestra reform, dance reforms that banned the foxtrot and the other modern dances, and the eradication of the word jazz from public discourse, all served to silence the ‘formalistic’ musical form by framing it with negative connotations and by shaping the taste of the masses according to Soviet ideological paradigms.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , October 2014 , pp. 509 - 529
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1.

This paper is a part of my doctoral project on Soviet Estonia jazz at the University of Helsinki supported by the Finnish Doctoral Program for Music Research.

References

Bal, M. 2009. ‘Working with concepts’, European Journal of English Studies, 13/1, pp. 13–23Google Scholar
Batachev, A. 1972. Sovetskii dzhaz (Moscow, Muzyka)Google Scholar
Belichenko, S. 2006. ‘Otechestvennyj dzhaz kak institut kultury’, Observatoriâ kultury, 3, pp. 47–53Google Scholar
Deveaux, S. 2005. ‘Core and boundaries’, The Source: Challenging Jazz Criticism, 2, pp. 15–30Google Scholar
Feiertag, V. 1981. ‘Dzhaz na estrade’, in Russkaja sovetskaja Estrada (Moscow, Isskustvo)Google Scholar
Feiertag, V. 1999. Dzhaz ot Leningrada do Peterburga (St Petersburg, KultInformPress)Google Scholar
Feiertag, V. 2010. Istoria dzhazovova ispolnitelstva v Rossii (St Petersburg, Skifija)Google Scholar
Feigin, L. 1985. Russian Jazz: New Identity (New York, Quartet Books)Google Scholar
Fornäs, J. 2002. ‘Swinging difference: reconstructed identities in the early Swedish Jazz Age’, in Jazz Planet, ed. Atkins, E.T. (Jackson, MS, University Press of Mississippi), pp. 207–24Google Scholar
Fürst, J. 2006. ‘Late Stalinist society: history, policies and people’, in Late Stalinist Russia: Society Between Reconstruction and Reinvention, ed. Fürst, J. (London, Routledge), pp. 4–36Google Scholar
Garrett, C.H. 2012. ‘The humor of jazz’, in Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music Heritage and its Boundaries, ed. Ake, D., Garrett, C. and Goldmark, D. (Berkley, CA, University of California Press), pp. 49–69Google Scholar
Gaut, G. 1991. ‘Soviet jazz: transforming American music’, in Jazz in Mind: Essays on the History and Meaning of Jazz, ed. Bruckner, R.T. and Weiland, S. (Detroit, MI, Wayne State University Press), pp. 60–82Google Scholar
Ginzburg, C. 1989. The Inquisitor as Anthropologist: Cues, Myths and the Historical Method (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press)Google Scholar
Gorjajeva, T. 2009. Polititcheskaja tsenzura v SSSR 1917–1991 (Moscow, Rosspen)Google Scholar
Hasselblatt, C. 2003. ‘The fairy tale of Socialism: how “socialist” was the “new” literature in Soviet Estonia’, in The Sovietization of the Baltic States, 1940–1956, ed. Mertelsmann, O. (Tartu, Kleio), pp. 227–36Google Scholar
Herrala, M. 2012. The Struggle for Control of Soviet Music from 1932 to 1948: Socialist Realism vs. Western Formalism (Lewiston, NY, Edwin Meller Press)Google Scholar
Hogan, E. 2010. ‘“Earthly, sensual, devilish”: Sex, “race” and jazz in post-independence Ireland’, Jazz Research Journal, 4/1, pp. 57–79Google Scholar
Howland, J. 2012. ‘Jazz with strings: between jazz and the Great American Songbook’, in Jazz/Not Jazz: The Music Heritage and its Boundaries, ed. Ake, D., Garrett, C. and Goldmark, D. (Berkley, CA, University of California Press), pp. 111–47Google Scholar
Johnson, B. 2002. ‘Naturalizing the exotic: the Australian Jazz Convention’, in Jazz Planet, ed. Atkins, E.T. (Jackson, MI, University Press of Mississippi), pp. 151–68Google Scholar
Konen, V. 1977. Puti amerikanskoi muzyki (Moscow, Sovetskii kompozitor)Google Scholar
Kreegipuu, T. 2007. ‘Eesti kultuurielu sovietiseerimine: nõukogude kultuuripoliitika eesmärgid ja institutsionaalne raamistik aastatel 1944–1954’, in Eesti NSV aastatel 1940–53: sovietiseerimise mehhanismid ja tagajärjed Nõukogude Liidu ja Ida-Euroopa arengute kontekstis, ed. Tannberg, T. (Tartu, Eesti ajalooarhiiv), pp. 352–88Google Scholar
Krull, H. 1996. Katkestuste kultuur (Tallinn, Vagabund)Google Scholar
Kuuli, O. 2005.Muutuvad parteitekstid (1946–1952), in Kohanevad tekstid, ed. Kalda, M. and Sarapik, V. (Tartu, Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum), pp. 259–70Google Scholar
Lauk, T. 2008. ‘Jazz eestis 1918–1945’, doctoral dissertation (Tallinn University)Google Scholar
Lõhmus, M. 2002. ‘Transformation of public text in totalitarian system: a socio-semiotic study of Soviet censorship practices in Estonian radio in the 1980s’, PhD thesis (Tartu University). http://www.hot.ee/loehmus/Kirja.pdf (accessed 5 March 2011)Google Scholar
Lücke, M. 2004. Jazz im Totalitarismus: eine komparative Analyse des politisch motivierten Umgangs mit dem Jazz während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus und des Stalinismus (Münster, LIT Verlag)Google Scholar
Lücke, M. 2010. ‘The postwar campaign against jazz in the USSR (1945–1953’, in Jazz Behind the Iron Curtain, ed. Pickhan, G. and Ritter, R. (Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang), pp. 83–98Google Scholar
Magnússon, S.G., and Szíjártó, I.M. 2013. What is Microhistory?: Theory and Practice (London and New York, Routledge)Google Scholar
Märka, V. 1998. ‘Kala hakkas mädanema südamest (Sotsialistlikust realismist ENSV kirjanduses 1945–1953)’, Vikerkaar, 10–11, pp. 81–111Google Scholar
Mertelsman, O. 2003. ‘Hariduse ja kulturi ekspansioon süsteemi stabiliseerijana Eesti 1940–1956’, Kultuur ja elu, 3, pp. 16–18Google Scholar
Minor, W. 1995. Unzipped Souls: A Jazz Journey Through the Soviet Union (Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press)Google Scholar
Novikova, I. 2003. ‘Black music, white freedom: Times and spaces of jazz countercultures in the USSR’, in Blackening Europe: The African American Presence, ed. Raphael-Hernandez, H. (New York, Routledge), pp. 73–84Google Scholar
Ojakäär, V. 2000. Vaibunud viiside kaja (Tallinn, Tallinna Raamatutrükikoda))Google Scholar
Ojakäär, V. 2003. Omad viisid võõras väes: 1940–1945 (Tallinn, Ilo)Google Scholar
Ojakäär, V. 2008. Sirp ja saksofon (Tallinn, Kirjastus Ilo)Google Scholar
Ojakäär, V. 2010. Oma laulu leidsime üles: 1950. aastatest tänapäevani (Tallinn, Kirjastus Ilo)Google Scholar
Pickhan, G. and Ritter, R. (eds) 2010. Jazz Behind the Iron Curtain (Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang)Google Scholar
Reimann, H. 2010a. ‘Lembit Saarsalu: “Music Saved Me”. The Study of Jazz Musician's Early Musical Development’, in Jazz Behind the Iron Curtain, ed. Pickhan, G. and Ritter, R. (Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang), pp. 165–82Google Scholar
Reimann, H. 2010b. ‘“Down with bebop – viva swing!” Swing Club and the meaning of jazz in late 1940s Estonia’, Jazz Research Journal, 4/2, pp. 95–122Google Scholar
Reimann, H. 2011. ‘Ideology and the cultural study of Soviet Estonian jazz’, in The Jazz Chameleon, ed. Mäkelä, Janne (Turku, Uniprint), pp. 23–35Google Scholar
Reimann, H. 2013. ‘Jazz research and the moments of change’, Etnomusikologian vuosikirja (Helsinki, Suomen Etnomusikologinen Seura), pp. 8–33Google Scholar
Sewell, W. Jr. 1996. ‘Historical events as transformations of structures: Inventing revolution at the Bastille’, Theory & Society, 25/6, pp. 841–81Google Scholar
Slonimsky, N. 1944. ‘Soviet music and musicians’, Slavonic and East European Review, 22, pp. 1–14Google Scholar
Starr, S.F. 1983. Red & Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union (New York, Limelight)Google Scholar
Stites, R. 1992. Russian Popular Culture: Entertainment and Society Since 1900 (New York, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Taruskin, R. 2000. Defining Russia Musically: Historical and Hermeneutical Essays (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press)Google Scholar
Tomoff, K. 2006. Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939–1953 (London, Cornell University Press)Google Scholar
Veskimägi, K. 1996. Nõukogude unelaadne elu: tsensuur Eesti NSV-s ja tema peremehed (Tallinn, Tallinna Raamatutrükikoda)Google Scholar
Ward, C. 1999. Stalin's Russia (London, Arnold)Google Scholar
Weitz, E.D. 2002. ‘Racial politics without the concept of race: reevaluating Soviet ethnic and national purges’, Slavic Review, 61/1, pp. 1–29Google Scholar
Whyton, T. 2011. ‘Introduction’, in Jazz, ed. Whyton, T. (London, Ashgate), pp. i–xxGoogle Scholar
Yurchak, A. 2006. Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press)Google Scholar
Zubkova, J. 2009. Baltimaad ja Kreml 1940–1953 (Tallinn, Varrak)Google Scholar