Scholarly and Academic-Methodological Activities of the Gnesins’ State Musical Pedagogical Institute and the Political Events of the Second Half of the 1940s

Abstract

The focus of the article is the history of the Gnesins’ Institute examined within the framework of the political events of the second half of the 1940s. The new institute was established during the difficult wartime period (1944) and after a few years turned out to be at the epicenter of the scholarly and cultural politics of the Soviet Union leading a struggle against “cosmopolitanism.” It was primarily the scholarly-methodological conception of the institute that became the target of criticism. Since the discipline of music acquired a high social status by the beginning of the researched period, musicologists were considered to be one of the most influential professional groups. The author of the article analyzes a number of archival documents, in particular, the transcript of the Open Session of the Artistic Council of the Institute, which took place on March 9 and 10, 1949. According to the present source, critical attacks were levied against the scholarly works and textbooks of Tamara Livanova, Valentin Ferman, Victor Berkov, Valntina Konen, Anatoly Butskoy, and Mikhail Pekelis. Analysis of the hystorical materials shows that the administration of this academic institution attempted to deflect the blow from the institute, while the faculty tried to counteract the Communist Party apparatus. Notwithstanding the demands of the leaders of the party organization of the institute, the researchers working in institute did not have their academic degrees taken away from them, nor were the condemned textbooks subjected to prohibition. At the same time, all the musicologists subjected to the “purge” were forced to leave Moscow. Having been dispersed throughout the entire country, they became the founders of regional academic schools.

Keywords: Gnesins’ State Musical-Pedagogical Institute, history of Russian music scholarship and education, struggle against cosmopolitanism, ideological campaigns of the late 1940s, Valentina Konen, Tamara Livanova, Mikhail Pekelis