Ru
EnMironenko E.
Russian music culture in Romanian Bessarabia
The article is devoted to forgotten and little-known pages of Russian music culture history connected with its development on the territory of Moldova throughout the 1918–1940s. In music history this period hasn’t yet been fully examined due to geopolitical transformations that keep shaking this small beautiful country up to the present time. In 1918 there was a geopolitical repartition that resulted in the consolidation of Bessarabia with its centre in Chisinau (the region had previously been part of the Russian Empire) and Romania. Ever since, social, economic and cultural relations with Russia have been broken off. This article explores a further development of Russian music culture in a difficult environment of Romanian Bessarabia. This involves the preservation of the achievements in professional music art from before 1918 in Russian Bessarabia. Among those are the establishment of a Russian Musical Society branch in Chisinau; the foundation of the first music college by its first director V. Rebikov under the aegis of the Russian Musical Society; the performing and touring activity of outstanding musicians from major centres of Russia and Europe. The author underlines the significance of the performing activity provided by musicians who immigrated from Russia after the Revolution but continued to contribute to the Russian music culture development. The author also traces further history of the famous Chisinau music college as well as gives characteristics of bright and charismatic personalities such as V. Karamilov (a vocalist and director of the college), I. Bazilevsky (a pianist), V. Bulichev (a choir conductor and organiser of the musicalsocial life in Chisinau).
The article is based on materials from the National Archives of the Republic of Moldova which were unavailable throughout some decades of the Soviet period.
Key words
Russian music culture, Bessarabia, Romania, professional music education, concert performing practise, outstanding musicians.
For citation
Mironenko E. Russian music culture in Romanian Bessarabia // South-Russian musical anthology. 2020. N 1. Pp. С 20–26.
