Muzică, ideologie și propagandă în fanfarele militare ale Armatei Populare din România stalinistă

Abstract

Iosif Chișinevschi’s (1905–1963) proclamation in Bucharest, in the autumn of 1947, of the Zhdanovist thesis according to which “great culture, worthy art cannot exist […] unless it is based on progressive ideology”, instituted socialist realism as the only method of artistic production and expression, one which also had to be adopted, without exception, by those dealing with art and culture in the Army. In the new political regime, perhaps more than ever, military music was called to – or, better yet, summoned to – assent to the Party’s desire that it join in the patriotic and civic education of the soldiers of the newly founded People’s Army. As such, orchestras and ensembles of all types were founded in the country’s defence institutions, based on the model of the famous Red Army Ensemble, Alexander Alexandrov; soviet repertoires were appropriated and adapted and the Army, either restructured and adapted, or simply founded new structures that were meant to create the official framework for the production and promotion of military songs and repertoires conforming to the aesthetic norms imposed by the Moscow regime.

The present study investigates the mechanisms by which the new repertoires promoted by the military brass bands of the People’s Army became instruments of manipulation and struggle in the service of state power, as well as the aesthetic and compositional norms that took shape with these musical works during the Stalinist period in Romania.