Publisher Description

This Element explores workers' song research, a dominant strand of music scholarship in the Eastern Bloc and one of the earliest to engage with musical practices beyond the domains of art music and peasant folklore. It traces the institutionalization of this field, the changing interests of its representatives, and the ways in which, from the 1960s onward, they built regional networks and established dialogue with actors of the Western folk revival. Through these networks and exchanges, the repertoires and key performers of the international folk scene gained visibility behind the Iron Curtain. Yet the 'folk revival' assumed an ambivalent character there, as communist governments and cultural institutions sought to appropriate and elevate it to a central position within the popular music sphere. The study focuses primarily on Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia, highlighting the role of local scholars in linking different musical traditions and in shaping state-sponsored folk scenes.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Music scholarship in transnational perspective; 3. Precursors; 4. State-supported workers' song research in the 1950s: Czechoslovakia and the GDR; 5. Workers' song research on the margins of academia: the case of Hungary; 6. International connections as catalysts; 7. The first international conference on workers' songs; 8. The liblice resolution and the institutionalization of workers' song research in Hungary; 9. The Bartók archives and activist scholarship in Hungary in the early 1960s; 10. Folk revival in the eastern bloc?; 11. Toward the party line; 12. 'Science of veterans, science of the youth': research activities in the 1970s; 13. Developments in the late 1970s and the 1980s; 14. Conclusion.

Promotional

A historical study of workers' song research and the 'folk revival' in the former Eastern Bloc.

Details