Edmunds Neil. Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle

London: Routledge, 2009. — 260 p. — ISBN10: 9780415546201; ISBN13: 978-0415546201 — (Basee/Routledge Series on Russian and East European Studies. Book 9)This book investigates the place of music in Soviet society during the eras of Lenin and Stalin. It examines the different strategies adopted by composers and musicians in their attempts to carve out careers in a rapidly evolving society, discusses the role of music in Soviet society and people's lives, and shows how political ideology proved an inspiration as well as an inhibition. It explores how music and politics interacted in the lives of two of the twentieth century's greatest composers - Shostakovich and Prokofiev - and also in the lives of less well-known composers. In addition it considers the specialist composers of early Soviet musical propaganda, amateur music making, and musical life in the non-Russian republics. The book will appeal to specialists in Soviet music history, those with an interest in twentieth century music in general, and also to students of the history, culture and politics of the Soviet Union.Notes on contributorsA note on transliterationIntroduction. Neil EdmundsMusic in the socialist state. Anna Ferenc
The ways of Russian popular music to 1953. Richard Stites
Declared dead, but only provisionally: Shostakovich, Soviet music-hall and Uslovno ubityi. Gerard Mcburney
From the factory to the flat: thirty years of the Song of the Counterplan. John Riley
Prokofiev’s Le Pas d’Acier: how the steel was tempered. Lesley-Anne Sayers and Simon Morrison
‘Lenin is always with us’: Soviet musical propaganda and its composers during the 1920s. Neil Edmunds
Amateurs and enthusiasts: folk music and the Soviet state on stage in the 1930s. Robin Lapasha
National identity, cultural policy and the Soviet Folk Ensemble in Armenia. Andy Nercessian
Going beyond the border: national cultural policy and the development of musical life in Soviet Karelia, 1920–1940. Pekka Suutari
A nation on stage: music and the 1936 Festival of Kazak Arts. Michael Rouland
Uzeyir Hajibeyov and his role in the development of musical life in Azerbaidzhan. Matthew O’Brien