Rubinstein v Russia

A book with the title 'Russian Music and Nationalism' is always going to be ambitious; a book with that title and only 400-odd pages is always going to leave some things out. Marina Frolova-Walker's book of that name, however, makes a notable emission which I could not leave unmentioned.

Of course, Frolova-Walker's exploration of the music of Glinka and the Kuchka is fascinating and extremely well-researched, but there is a plain ignorance of Jews throughout. Not only is there no index entry for 'Jews' - as might be expected given the millions-strong population in Russia during the nineteenth century - or 'Jewish (folk) music' - as might be expected given the strong influence on generations of non-Jewish Russian composers - but there is a clear avoidance of Jewish matters when dealing with Jewish composers.

In a rare passage on Anton Rubinstein, a successful performer and composer from Podolia in the Pale of Settlement, Frolova-Walker writes:

'For the Kuchkists such a situation [lack of European recognition] was all the more disturbing since Anton Rubinstein's operas were regularly produced on European stages – Rubinstein was of course third-rate and not authentically Russian in their eyes' (pp.46-47)

This statement is irritating in two ways. Firstly, it is overly-concise, positing the symptoms of anti-semitism without explicitly diagnosing it. Of course criticism of Rubinstein's success in the opera house would be linked to his 'internationalism', his appeal to the masses, and his ability to imitate popular styles: this was the same criticism levelled at Giacomo Meyebeer and countless other Jewish composers. Secondly, the phrasing is ambiguous: is Frolova-Walker writing off Rubinstein as 'third-rate', and 'not authentically Russian in their eyes', or are both the terms linked to the Kuchkists' opinions?

The result is a brushing-off of antisemitism and the Jewish experience of Imperial Russia - an overwhelmingly negative one - as trivial; the book thus falls far short of its titular promise.


Bibliography:
Frolova-Walker, M. (2007). Russian music and nationalism : From Glinka to Stalin. New Haven, Conn. ; London: Yale University Press.


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