Boleslav L. Yavorsky’s Activities in Saratov: Following the Pages of the Archived Materials

Abstract

The article is focused on analysis of the Saratov period of the academic and pedagogical activities of outstanding Russian musicologist Boleslav Leopoldovich Yavorsky. Based on the study of the archival documents preserved at the Saratov L. V. Sobinov Conservatory, this article dwells upon the music theorist’s stay in Saratov in 1916 and during the years 1941–1942. Our study is centered around two episodes of the scholar’s life: the first time Yavorsky became acquainted with the Saratov Conservatory (1916), where he arrived in the role of the chairman of the final examinations, as well as his scholarly and pedagogical activities during the years of the evacuation of the Moscow Conservatory to Saratov (1941–1942). During the period of evacuation, the theorist worked meticulously and fruitfully: he organized the Bach seminar and realized the large-scale scholarly project “Creative Thinking of Russian Composers from Glinka to Scriabin.” Mention is made of the immense aid of Sergei Vladimirovich Protopopov, Yavorsky’s friend and student, who collected his manuscripts and prepared them for publication after the scholar’s death (November 1942). They constitute the bases for the study of the spheres of Yavorsky’s academic and pedagogical activities, as well as for the comparative analysis of the typeset texts from the Saratov archive, on the one hand, and Yavorsky’s published articles and memoirs about him, on the other hand. The article demonstrates that the documents preserved in Saratov possess their own specific features, and in some cases demonstrate a significant divergence from the published texts. The article also dwells on the topicality of Yavorsky’s scholarly works for contemporary musicology.

Keywords: Boleslav Yavorsky, Sergei Protopopov, library of Saratov Conservatory, Moscow Conservatory in Saratov, Bach seminar, “Creative Thinking of Russian Composers from Glinka to Scriabin”