The aim of the article consists in the specification and evaluation of the impact, which Joseph Stalin’s linguistic article “Marxism and Problems of Linguistics” (1950) had on soviet musicology. This is carried out through the examination of some brief texts, written by soviet musicologists of the time (L. Danilevich, J. Kremlev etc.), in which they sought to find out to what extend Stalin’s conclusions on language (that it is not a class phenomenon, that it does not belong to the superstructure etc.) apply to the field of music as well. In this way, based on Stalin’s contribution to linguistics, a wide philosophical discussion takes place on the problem of the relation between language and music (if and to what extend music is a kind of language, if it belongs to the superstructure etc.), which proved to be extremely fruitful for the further development of marxist musicological thinking.
The Impact of Joseph Stalin’s Linguistic Article on Soviet Musicology.
Abstract