Music and Memory II: Style and National Identity

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel explores the intersections of music, performance, and national identity in the Soviet and post-Soviet space, focusing on how artists navigated ideological constraints, engaged with historical memory, and redefined cultural traditions. Examining three distinct yet interconnected themes—Ukrainian religion-inspired music under Soviet repression, the Turkmen bardic traditions, and the adaptation of Gogol’s Taras Bulba in Ukrainian opera—this panel investigates the complex relationship between artistic expression, state power, and national identity. First, Oksana Nesterenko focuses on the ways Soviet ideologues attempted to distort the historical memory of events related to the adoption of Christianity in Ukraine in the 1960s-1980s. Next, Mohammad Geldi Geldi Nejad explores how these categories bear a complex relationship between tribal affiliation and geography. Finally, Kathleen Manukyan addresses Taras Bulba’s significance for Ukrainian national identity, Gogol’s and Lysenko’s varying creative missions as writer and musician, and their contrasting relationships with the imperial authorities and one another.

Sub Unit

• Arts II: Music, Theater, Performance Studies

Chair

• Harlow Loomis Robinson, Northeastern U

Papers

• Erased Christianity: Distortions of Historical Memory in Brezhnev Era Ukraine - Oksana Nesterenko, Union College

• Bardic Lineages: Rethinking the Classification of Turkmen Bardic Styles in Soviet and Post-Soviet Turkmenistan - Mohammad Geldi Geldi Nejad, Brown U

• Epic as Device: National and Temporal Identities in Gogol’s and Lysenko’s 'Taras Bulba' - Kathleen Manukyan, U of Pittsburgh

Discussant

• Kiril Tomoff, UC Riverside