“Musical Rossica” as a Musicological Term

Abstract

During the course of centuries in the music of composers from outside of Russia one
can discern an entire category of works dedicated to Russia. The experience of certain spheres
of knowledge – book studies, source studies, archival studies, map studies, collecting, history,
literary studies, art studies, cinema studies – has stipulated the possibility of applying the concept
of “Rossica,” well-known in scholarly use, to this segment of artistic expression. The article offers
and substantiates the concept of “musical Rossica” as a sphere of musical creativity, demonstrating
a vision of Russia (or, in the narrow sense, of Russianness) through the prism of other cultures.
Considering the importance of mental-culturological distancing of the Russian from the
non-Russian, it becomes a legitimate position to add to the musical Rossica the compositional
legacy of Russian émigrés connected with their former homeland. A differentiation of the concept
(“German musical Rossica,” “romance-song Rossica,” “folk music Rossica,” etc.) is accepted.
The concept of “musical Rossica” discloses a number of possibilities: to attract attention to
the lesser-known marginal field of the outstanding masters’ heritage (Georges Bizet, Charles
Gounod, Gaetano Donizetti, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Franz Schubert); to bring into the
scholarly domain artefacts previously cast aside onto the periphery of the historical process; to find
meaning not only with separate works, but with a serious artistic tendency; to indicate a problem
field which would be productive for musicology. “Musical Rossica” makes it possible to build
a more complete picture of the musical field outside of Russia, to form an objective evaluation
of the significance of Russian music as a part of the world music process, to overestimate the
role of the literary heritage of Russia (through its numerous musical interpretations) in foreign
culture, and, thereby, to make a feasible contribution to the formation of the self-consciousness
of Russians, as well as an objective international image of Russia.

Keywords: musical Rossica, Rossica, Russian theme, Chanson russe, Danse russe, À la Russe,
programmatic characters, Russian literature