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Music education
“East-West” in the Music Education in Azerbaijan: Soviet era (part 2)
Author:
City
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Baku
Country :
Azerbaijan
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We’ve entered the most powerful yet controversial “Russian-Soviet” zone of the music instruction in Azerbaijan. It would be anti-historical and in many senses unfair to ignore a positive impact of Russian factor in establishing music education in Azerbaijan. Studying music turned into a necessary part and even a matter of prestige in raising children in the country. Scarcely any family can be found in Azerbaijan nowadays at least one member of which had not studied music during the Soviet era. Those who missed this opportunity in their childhood could later join the People’s Conservatory that re-opened in 1962, now under an umbrella of the Azerbaijan State Conservatory. It was a public institution where faculty members and students of the conservatory executed teaching functions, and classes were conducted in the conservatory’s building during night hours and on Sunday. Another form of disseminating music knowledge in the society referred to public performances that all conservatory professors and students were required to give in non-music places, such as libraries and orphanages, military forces and cotton fields. Here is an excerpt from the article published in 1964 by one of those days students: “We are learning how to lecture before unprepared audience conveying sophisticated issues in the easiest and understandable way […] In one of the factory departments music of Glinka, Chopin and Tchaikovsky has been performed, these composers’ works have been discussed. […] The main problem refers to the availability of musical instruments: unfortunately, most of the factory departments (except two of them) do not have pianos. We have to talk to the Factory Committee, and then write to Moscow requesting for sending us at least five more pianos. If the conservatory receives new pianos, as expected, we can somehow manage passing old ones on to the factory, too.” 1 This paragraph reflects many realities of the Soviet epoch, such as the emphasis on Russian culture, importance of musical and cultural enlightening of population, huge centralization and appeal to Moscow as the salvation place, sufficient governmental supply provided to music and culture institutions. The most notorious thing, though, is a sense of great enthusiasm penetrating each and every line of this writing, which cannot be merely counted to efforts of the Soviet propaganda. It’s a matter of fact that before the 1970s, majority of average Soviet citizens still believed in communism and willingly participated in all ideologically grounded volunteering activities. In the 1970s the epoch of deep disappointment began. Enthusiasm dried up and we, students of the 1980s, already perceived this “obligatory volunteering” as bothersome, yet inevitable part of our life.
The most valuable feature of the Soviet model of education was its’ being totally funded by the state. Moreover, all students in colleges and conservatory got monthly stipend of approximately 30% of average wage in the country. As a result, all categories of population enjoyed unlimited access to music education. This is why nostalgic feelings of Farhad Badalbeyli who studied at the Azerbaijan conservatory and later joined classes of luminaries of Russian piano pedagogic Yakov Flier and Yakov Zak at the Moscow conservatory, are fully understandable: “The Soviet system gave me an opportunity to get high quality education free of charge; the education of such a high standard that if in the USA, it would have cost me hundreds thousands dollars!” 2
However, there was a serious cost to be paid: horrible distortions caused by the Soviet ideological doctrine and “poisoning” each and every aspect of music instruction, be it the general concept, curriculum, contents of courses, or methodological approaches. Neither nation of the Soviet East was allowed to forget about being “civilized” due to the fruitful influence of “great Russian culture.” A notion of an “elder brother” affected entire education system, first of all, language situation. All schools in Azerbaijan offered education in two languages: Azerbaijani and Russian. However, a real situation forced people to prefer Russian-language education. Study materials in Russian outnumbered those in Azerbaijani excelling them qualitatively as well. Besides, without good Russian skills one could never pursue successful career in the future. As such, number of Russian track students at all educational institutions in Azerbaijan constantly outnumbered that at the Azerbaijani track: proportion may vary depending on certain period, however, remaining at an approximate level of 60%-40%. As a result, since the 1960s, certain part of Azerbaijanis, particularly people in urban area began to lose their native language skills. A huge category of Russian speaking musicologists emerged that experienced difficulties when dealing with indigenous tradition. They may have failed to understand the lyrics of mugham or a folk song, or a composed piece based on Azerbaijani poetic source. Needless to exaggerate this aspect, though, because, distinctively from many Soviet republics, status of Azerbaijani language had never been reduced to a dangerous level of dying out, and most of Russian track students kept native language skills through employing it beyond study.
Extreme amount of classes on Russian music was included in curricula in all levels of music instruction thus distorting a whole notion of the music history. Musicologist Elkhan Babayev, who was the Vice-Rector on Study Affairs at the Baku Music Academy in 1992-2003, described the situation thus: “What was a concept of teaching music history in the Soviet epoch like? We had Russian music, placed separately and somehow confronted to Western music. Plus a bit of local (in our case Azerbaijani) tradition and music of other Soviet nations. As a result, our students never realized that Tchaikovsky, for instance, attended a premiere of Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Liszt had been to Russia and listened to Glinka’s works […] And in the Soviet textbooks which had been strongly politicized, links between Russian and West European music were shaded in, too.” 3 Since 1948, classes on “Russian Folk Music” and “History of Russian Music” had been established at the Azerbaijan’s main music school that lasted for two and three semesters respectively. “Russian Folk Music” required learning dozens of songs by heart with further study of the ways of their incorporating in the scores of Russian composers. I still regret about such a huge waste of the time, because I was never meant to become an expert on Russian music. “Music of the Soviet Nations” was also a part of curriculum providing us with an exposure to music traditions of all members of the “Soviet brotherhood.”
1. R. Agazade, “Prekrasnoe – v nas, riadom” (Perfecy is inside of us and beside) Molodej Azerbaijana, 15 May 1963.
2. Interview with Farhad Badalbeyli, in Aida Huseynova, “Altmishinjilarin nailiyyatlarini itirmak olmaz” (We should not lose accomplishments of the 1960s), Gobustan, no.1-2, 1998, 29.
3. Interview with Elkhan Babayev, in Aida Huseynova, “Vpolne v nashikh silah” (Completely in our competence) Shargi, no.2, 2002, 49.
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