(Musykalny fond SSSR) The Music Fund of the USSR was created in 1939 as part of the Union of Composers, as a means to help finance composers’ and musicologists’ needs, from folklore expeditions, vacations in ‘creative rest homes’ to professional expenses such as copying scores and providing commissions and material aid.
Muzgiz
(Gosudartvennoye Muzykal’noye Izdatel’stvo) State Music Publishers, founded in 1930, taking over from the musical sector of the State publishers.
Narkomfin
(Harodni Kommisariat Finansov) People’s Commissariat for Finance. Dom Narkomfina refers to a constructivist building in Moscow erected between 1928 and 1930, designed for ‘communal living’.
NEP
(Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika) New Economic Policy, 1921–8. A partially free market economy allowing private enterprise so that the country could get back on the rails economically after the civil war.
NKVD
(Narodniy Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del) People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, established in 1917, amongst whose responsibilities was overseeing prisons and labour camps. In 1934 it took over the secret police role from the GPU, while in 1946 it became the Ministry for Internal Affairs.
Oberiu
(Ob’edineniye Real’nogo Iskusstva) Unification of Real Art. A Leningrad ‘absurdist’ group created in 1926 by writers Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky and Nikolai Zabolotsky. Its first public meeting took place in January 1928. The group stopped functioning in the early 1930s.
Oberiut/i
Member/s of the Oberiu group.
OGPU (also GPU)
(<Obedinyonnoye> Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskpye Upravleniye) State Political Directorate. Organisation responsible for internal security between 1923 and 1934, replacing the Cheka.
POMPOLIT
(Pomoshch Politicheskim Zaklyuchyonnym) Help to Political Prisoners. An offshoot of the Political Red Cross founded in 1922 by Yekaterina Peshkova and Mikhail Vinaver. Closed in 1937.
RAPM (also VAPM and APM)
(<Vse-> Rossiskaya Assotsiyatsiya Proletarskikh Muzykantov) Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. Founded in 1923, active in late 1920s and disbanded in 1932.
SEKSOT
(Sekretni sotrudnik) Secret collaborator. An informer. A term invented by the Soviet security organs, that was used more widely only in the derogatory sense.
TASS
(Telegrafnoye Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union.
TseKUBU
(Tsentralnaya Kommissiya po Ulucheniyu Byta Uchyonykh) Central Commission for the Betterment of Scientists’ Life. An organisation which existed between 1922 and 1937.
VKhuTEMAS
(Vyshchiye Khudozhestvenniye Tekhnicheskiye Masterskiye) Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops. Founded immediately after the Revolution for free study of the Arts, open to all initially without need to take an entry examination.
VOKS
(Vsesoyuznoye Obshchestvo Kulturnoi Svyazi s Zagranitsei) All-Union Society for Links with Abroad. Created in 1925 to promote cultural exchange with other countries.
VRK
(Vsesoyuznyj Radio Orkestr) All-Union Radio orchestra, 1930–52. It then became known as BSO (see above).
VTO
(Vserossisjoye Teatralnoye Obshchestvo) All Russian Theatrical Society initially founded in 1877. In Soviet times it existed between 1932 and 1992 as the Union of Theatre Workers. The VTO Soviet Opera Ensemble was founded by Ivan Kozlovsky in 1938.
TRANSLITERATION
Transliteration from Cyrillic and the Romanization of Russian into the various European languages is a minefield. The possibilities are numerous in English alone, not to speak of the different systems used in such languages as French, German and Italian.
I have chosen to use a composite system, which attempts to make things look and read as simply as possible for the general reader. Therefore I do not adhere to any one particular system such as Grove or Library of Congress, which are most commonly used in scholarly publications.
• I leave the already familiar, if incorrect, spellings of composers’ names. Hence Tchaikovsky (instead of Chaikovsky), Taneyev (instead of Taneev), Scriabin (instead of Skryabin), Prokofiev (instead of Prokof’ev or Prokof’yev), Asafiev (instead of Asaf’ev or Asaf’yev). Also for the philosopher Losev (instead of Losyev), and the politician Khrushchev instead of Khrushchyov.
• For the common endings of male given names in ий (i and short i or ï) I simply use the letter ‘i’. Hence Dmitri, Yuri, Georgi, Vasili and so on.
• Conversely for the same endings for surnames I use the accepted spelling of ‘y’. Hence Gorky, Florensky, Lossky, Ossovsky and so on.
• The Russians differentiate between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ E/e. For names beginning with the soft ‘e’ I use ‘Ye’. Hence Yevgeni, Yelena, Yekaterina, Yevtushenko, Yefimov, Yershov and so forth.
• I also use the ‘ye’ in the middle of the patronymic. Hence Dmitriyevich, Sergeyevich.
• The Russian names Aleksandr and Aleksei are written with an ‘x’ to conform with Western spellings: Alexander and Alexei.
• Zh is like the G in the French name Georges. A difficult name like ‘Skrzhinskaya’ hence has four (not five) consecutive consonants, so it can be pronounced without too much difficulty.
• The Russian ‘x’ is usually transliterated as ‘kh’, with the same sound as ‘ch’ in Scottish ‘loch’. Hence Khlebnikov, Khrushchev.
• The Russian hard ‘i’ (ы), pronounced at the back of the throat, is represented by a ‘y’, rather than the more scholarly and correct ‘ï’. A normal ‘i’ is used for the soft and open Russian ‘i’ sound (more like an English ‘ee’ in ‘meek’ or ‘leek’).
INTRODUCTION
[Art] continues that which God initiated, with the aim to increase not those things made by Man’s hands, but God’s eternal creations.
Berdyaev, The Meaning of the Creative Act1
Playing with fire – con fuoco – these words characterize the life and interpretative style of the great Russian pianist Maria Veniaminovna Yudina. Risk-taking was inherent to her, not for its own sake, but as a result of her unshakeable artistic and moral convictions in the face of external circumstances of extreme difficulty. Her actions reflected her belief that human creativity stems from the divine, as epitomized in the words of the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev quoted above.
Coming from an educated, agnostic Jewish family living in a small town in the Pale of Settlement, Yudina’s move to St Petersburg/Petrograd in her early teens saw her pursuing her studies within the heady artistic milieu of Russia’s most culturally advanced city. It was against the background of Revolution and social change that she took her place amongst the country’s foremost musicians and humanist thinkers.
Yudina was much more than an outstandingly gifted musician and concert pianist. Mikhail Bakhtin, one of Russia’s foremost philosophers, whose circle she joined aged eighteen, recognized her abilities as a philosopher, and Boris Pasternak appreciated Yudina as one of his most discerning readers. Father Pavel Florensky, Russia’s great spiritual leader and polymath, befriended her and pointed her towards submission of her rebellious spirit. Already at the age of seventeen she declared that she would dedicate her life to Music: ‘Art is my Vocation as a way to God.’
A convert to Orthodox Christianity at the age of nineteen, she saw her life as a service to others. Achieving Good was an imperative, and she fearlessly interceded for those friends and colleagues who were arrested and persecuted in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Orthodox Church was under assault and the intelligentsia under threat of extermination. She travelled to the ‘Gulag’ camps, took messages to and from incarcerated priests, sent parcels and money to ‘the unfortunate’, to use Dostoevsky’s term.