Chapter 30 - Stravinsky Reception in the USSR

Summary

On the eve of Stravinsky’s return to his homeland in September 1962, Boris Schwarz published an article in the Musical Quarterly, ‘Stravinsky in Soviet Russian Criticism’, in which he accurately sums up the three periods of Soviet Stravinsky reception prior to that moment: ‘Soviet evaluations of Stravinsky range from wholehearted approval in the 1920s through cautious reappraisal in the 1930s to rigid rejection in the 1940s and 1950s’.¹ As the USSR found its footing in the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet cultural authorities were constantly changing their understanding of what constituted good art, or what constituted art at all for that matter. This changing landscape made the reception of Stravinsky, who by the 1930s cut a large figure on the worldwide music scene, increasingly difficult for Soviet cultural authorities, hence Schwarz’s accurate depiction of the demise of Stravinsky’s reputation in the USSR up until his 1962 visit. But there are interesting exceptions to this tripartite division concerning, for example, early negative and later positive Soviet views of Stravinsky which underscore the complexity of Soviet Stravinsky reception.