Erased Christianity: Distortions of Historical Memory in Brezhnev Era Ukraine

• In Event: Music and Memory II: Style and National Identity

Abstract

In the 1960s, forty years after the forced adoption of atheism, many Soviet citizens started rediscovering religion and spirituality as they searched for alternatives to the communist ideology and longed to reconnect to their cultural traditions. These explorations inspired literary, film, visual, and musical works addressing sacred topics. Until recently, scholars of religious revival in the late Soviet Union focused on Russia, overlooking local peculiarities across the USSR and the challenges faced by creative individuals, and composers in particular, in colonized republics. Access to sacred texts, scores, and recordings was restricted there even more than in Russia. Moreover, Ukrainian composers encountered more censorship and more severe criticism than their Russian colleagues, leading to creative crises or self-censorship. Therefore, Ukrainian composers were even more cautious about approaching religious topics than their Russian colleagues, especially because religious and artistic repressions in Ukraine persisted until the very end of the USSR.
This paper focuses on the ways soviet ideologues attempted to distort the historical memory of events related to the adoption of Christianity – a theme that was presented in several musical works composed in Ukraine in the 1960s-1980s. One of the examples that will be discussed is the oratorio I Narekosha Imya Kyiv (1980) by Lesia Dychko (b. 1939), in which the composer reflected her religious beliefs. While she referred to historical documents to reflect on the adoption of Christianity, her work was presented as a glorification of unity with Russia in the official press.

Author

• Oksana Nesterenko, Union College