Stanislav Binički in the Great War: Preserving National Identity and Musical Links with the Homeland (original) (raw)
Diff erent social and political changes in Serbia during the 20 th century had impact on the musical creativity among other things. 1 This work deals with the infl uence of a wider social context on the presence of Byzantine music in the contemporary creative work in Serbia. 2 After World War II Serbia became a part of SFR Yugoslavia in which Orthodox Church was persecuted. On the other hand, polyphonic singing was introduced in Serbia at the end of the 19 th century. However, during the 20 th and at the beginning of 21 st century despite of everything Byzantine music has been an inspiration for a wide range of Serbian musical creators of various genres. This does not come as a surprise given the fact that the fi rst compositions of Serbian music were written by using Byzantine notes. Byzantine music inspired many classical music composers but it also lives in such genres as jazz and rock. The aim of this work is to fi nd out what exactly musical creators experience as Byzantine, which is being the inducement to their creativity.
The East and the West in the polemical context of the Serbian music between the two World Wars
Muzikologija, 2005
This article represents a fragment of the author's doctoral dissertation Serbian Music at the Crossroads of the East and the West? On the Dialogue between the Traditional and the Modern in Serbian Music between the Two World Wars (the review of the thesis see on www.newsound.org.yu, issue No 24). The thesis (mentor: prof. Dr Mirjana Veselinovic-Hofman) was defended at the Faculty of Music, Belgrade, on January 2004. A revised text of the dissertation is forthcoming, in an edition of the Institute of Musicology of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The article describes the creative orientation of composers Miloje Milojevic, Petar Konjovic and Josip Slavenski as the key figures of the epoch, indicates their choices of an Eastern or Western orientation, and explains the antagonism between the poetics of the "Europeans" and the representatives of avant-garde trends. The topicality of the East-West dichotomy in the critical consciousness of the protagonist of this p...
Biljana Milanović (Ed.), On the margins of the musicological canon : the Generation оf Composers Petar Stojanović, Petar Krstić аnd Stanislav Binički, 2019
Petar Krstić, one of the most versatile personalities among Yugoslav musicians in the interwar period (1918–1941), made significant efforts in solving their social and economic problems and, in parallel, for bringing artistic music closer to the wider public. His efforts reflected the influence of liberal ideas and the assumption that cultural development can be achieved not only through cultural production, but also through the creation of an appropriate network of institutions and legislation, the spreading of awareness in the public of the music profession and professional organisations, thorough work on music education of the masses etc. Krstić’s emancipatory tendencies came to fruition throughout the entire period of his activity in the musical life of Serbia and Yugoslavia. However, his achievements in the interwar period are of special importance. This was reflected both in the field of amateur music production and in the field of the professional organising of musicians and artists, as well as in the legislative regulation of different spheres of cultural and musical production. In the context of musical amateurism, his work on the foundation of orchestral ensembles during the 1920s and the tendency to present artistic music to a wider audience was of great significance. Although information on this segment of Krstić’s activities is scarce, a few sources and reviews suggest that he understood the problems faced by the majority of the musically non-educated audiences in dealing with more complex musical content and that he sought to bridge ‘a cultural gap’ by choosing the proper repertoire. With his flexible approach to the masses he stood out among his contemporaries. It was also characteristic of his activities in the music and artistic associations. In this respect, Krstić’s undertakings in the Association of Musicians in the Kingdom of SCS / Yugoslavia, of which he was President and Honorary President for many years, deserve attention. His aversion to any kind of parochialism – national, cultural, professional and personal – was reflected in his views on the relationship between educated and illiterate musicians, on the settlement of the headquarters of the Association of Musicians, and, finally, organisational unity. The struggle for the advancement of not only the position of musicians but also of general musical conditions led by Krstić was also carried out through his work on introducing and improving legislation in the fields of artistic and radio production, protection of intellectual property, and the reforming of musical education as a member of numerous committees of the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Bearing in mind the range of Krstić’s activities, we pointed to the pioneering importance of his initiatives in interwar Yugoslavia concerning musicians as a social group and the diverse aspects of musical life. The results we present come from an investigation of the Legacy of Petar Krstić (Archives of the Musicological Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts), certain fonds of the Archives of Yugoslavia and the Historical Archive of Belgrade, as well as the interwar Yugoslav press and periodicals.
Urednici / Editors: Gorana Doliner †, Stanislav Tuksar, Hrvoje Beban, Tatjana Čunko, 2022
Ovaj je svečani zbornik nastao u povodu 70. rođendana istaknute hrvatske muzikologinje dr. Sanje Majer-Bobetko, koja je najveći dio svojega radnog vijeka provela kao istraživačica na području historijske muzikologije u Odsjeku za povijest hrvatske glazbe HAZU. S. Majer-Bobetko je tijekom svoje plodne znanstveničke karijere ostvarila niz domaćih i međunarodnih kontakata s brojnim kolegama, što ovaj svečani zbornik profilom svojih radova zorno pokazuje. Niz od 36 autora u ovom zborniku, iz Hrvatske, Bosne i Hercegovine, Bugarske, Francuske, Irske, SAD-a i Slovenije, rado se odazvalo pozivu za suradnju u znak priznanja i poštovanja slavljeničine znanstvene djelatnosti, napisavši 33 priloga koji se ovdje objavljuju na hrvatskom, engleskom, njemačkom i francuskom jeziku. Sadržajno vrlo širok spektar obrađenih tema artikuliran je u šest tematskih cjelina vezanih uz glazbene izvore, obradu arhivske građe, historiografske analize, sinteze stilova, prikaze djelovanja pojedinih autora (skladatelja, istraživača) i/ili njihovih ostvarenja, u rasponu od srednjega vijeka do 21. stoljeća. Zbornik završava životopisom i bibliografijom slavljenice, uz uobičajeni popis imena. This collection of essays in honour of Dr Sanja Majer-Bobetko, the outstanding Croatian musicologist, is published on the occasion of her 70th birthday by the Croatian Musicological Society and the Department for History of Croatian Music of the Institute for History of Croatian literature, theatre and music of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Majer-Bobetko has developed a series of domestic and international contacts with numerous colleagues, which is reflected in the contents of this collection. Thirty-six authors from Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, France, Ireland, Slovenia and the USA enthusiastically responded to the invitation to participate and to pay homage to Dr Majer-Bobetko’s scholarly activity, writing the thirty-three essays published here in Croatian, English, French and German. A very rich spectrum of topics is articulated in six thematic units which cover musical sources, the elaboration of archival materials, historiographical analyses, syntheses of styles, and the presentation of activities by individual composers and researchers, and/or their achievements covering a wide historical range from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. The collection ends with the biography and bibliography of the volume’s dedicatee, and the usual list of names.
Balkans as a cultural symbol in the Serbian music of the first half of the twentieth century
Muzikologija, 2008
The focus on the internalization of Western images in the Balkans has special significance in researching Serbian art. The functioning of Balkanism as it overlapped and intersected with Orientalism is indicated in the text by an examination of the cases of Petar Konjović, Miloje Milojević and Josip Slavenski, the three significant composers working in Serbia during the first half of the twentieth century. Their modernistic projects present different metaphors of the Balkans. Nevertheless each of them is marked by desire to change the Balkan image into a 'positive' one and thus stands as a special voice for Serbian and regional placing in European competition for musical spaces.
Music During the Great War in Slovenia
Musicological Annual, 2017
The contribution is a survey of music as a social practice on the territory of today’s Slovenia during the Great War. It addresses the Slovenian music culture during the Great War from three complementary perspectives. Firstly, it gives a glimpse of the musical practice in Ljubljana, where, beside the entertaining music practice, subscription concerts were offered as well. The second section, the most elaborated one, focuses on the Slovenian music production connected to the Great War in two respects: on the music for (and about) it, as well as on the musical practice based on the events of the period that is considered, by many, to be odious. It offers a taste of the musical culture in Slovenia during the Great War and of the repertories of music pertaining to soldiery, concentrating on one in-depth analytical fragment of the song Tam na karpatskoj gori (Prošnja umirajočega junaka). Thirdly, the last section is devoted to the reception of the music connected to the Great War in Slo...
Serbian Musical Theatre from the Mid–19th Century until World War II
Serbian & Greek Art Music: A Patch to Western Music History, edited by Katy Romanou. Intellect Books, University of Chicago Press, 2009
CHAPTER 1 of the book. SERBIAN & GREEK ART MUSIC is the first book in the English language to examine the assimilation and development of western art music in Serbia and Greece during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book is thematically concerned with music creation and education in these two neighbouring nations since they gained freedom from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century. The volume explores the efforts made by local musicians and their attempts to synchronize their musical environment with the West and achieve the inclusion of Serbian and Greek music in western music history. An aim that seemed coherent to overall progress and, at various historical stages, achievable, but has never yet been realized. Katy Romanou ‘patches up’ this failure with a breadth of research, at a time when interest in Balkan cultures is becoming increasingly popular among western researchers. Written by seven renowned musicologists, chapters offer fresh perspectives proves invaluable to scholars of Balkan studies and facilitate a more comprehensive perception of the area. The book stresses the interaction between music and politics, and shows how the music culture of the two countries has been affected by the political upheavals that divided and dislocated their populations with catastrophic force and high frequency, impeding cultural evolution.
Features of the Serbian Symphony in the First Half of the 20th Century
Serbian & Greek Art Music: A Patch to Western Music History, edited by Katy Romanou. Intellect Books, University of Chicago Press, 2009
CHAPTER 3 of the book. SERBIAN & GREEK ART MUSIC is the first book in the English language to examine the assimilation and development of western art music in Serbia and Greece during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book is thematically concerned with music creation and education in these two neighbouring nations since they gained freedom from the Ottomans in the nineteenth century. The volume explores the efforts made by local musicians and their attempts to synchronize their musical environment with the West and achieve the inclusion of Serbian and Greek music in western music history. An aim that seemed coherent to overall progress and, at various historical stages, achievable, but has never yet been realized. Katy Romanou ‘patches up’ this failure with a breadth of research, at a time when interest in Balkan cultures is becoming increasingly popular among western researchers. Written by seven renowned musicologists, chapters offer fresh perspectives proves invaluable to scholars of Balkan studies and facilitate a more comprehensive perception of the area. The book stresses the interaction between music and politics, and shows how the music culture of the two countries has been affected by the political upheavals that divided and dislocated their populations with catastrophic force and high frequency, impeding cultural evolution.
Contribution of Czech Musicians to the Serbian Music in the 19th Century
Musicological Annual
The main goal of this paper, devoted to the contribution of Czech Musicians to the Serbian Music in the 19th Century is to point out the facts which will contribute to the better understanding of the migration as an important cultural phenomenon. Particular attention will be paid to several musicians whose biographies and achievements are notable.
"Early Serbian popular songs outside of Serbia during the Great War"
Popular Song in the First World War: An International Perspective, Routledge, 1st Edition, ed. by John Mullen, 2019
What did popular song mean to people across the world during the First World War? For the first time, song repertoires and musical industries from countries on both sides in the Great War as well as from neutral countries are analysed in one exciting volume. Experts from around the world, and with very different approaches, bring to life the entertainment of a century ago, to show the role it played in the lives of our ancestors. The reader will meet the penniless lyricist, the theatre chain owner, the cross-dressing singer, fado composer, stage Scotsman or rhyming soldier, whether they come from Serbia, Britain, the USA, Germany, France, Portugal or elsewhere, in this fascinating exploration of showbiz before the generalization of the gramophone. Singing was a vector for patriotic support for the war, and sometimes for anti-war activism, but it was much more than that, and expressed and constructed debates, anxieties, social identities and changes in gender roles. This work, accompanied by many links to online recordings, will allow the reader to glimpse the complex role of popular song in people’s lives in a period of total war.
2020
During the course of my continuing research into the music of Serbia, it was drawn to my attention by my friend and colleague Professor Bogdan Djakovic that there were, in a certain choral archive in Belgrade, a number of adaptations of 16th-century Latin motets, with adaptations of the texts in Slavonic. Though intrigued, I was unable actually to pursue this enquiry until some years later, and should like to record here my gratitude to the present Director of the First Belgrade Choral Society, Svetlana Vilic, who generously granted me access to the archive and dispensed of her time in order to further my investigations. The scores in question include both sacred and secular music by composers including Marenzio and Monteverdi and, in particular, Palestrina. Their inclusion in the repertoire of the Society was the result of the training and initiative of the composer and conductor Kosta P. Manojlovic. What is interesting about this, apart from the fact that the liturgical works are ...
New Sound, 2014
The great anniversary - 100 years since the death of Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac - is an opportunity to survey his overall activity from a different angle, which has so far been sidelined in our historiography: his contacts and cooperation, but also discords with some of the many Czech musicians who played various roles in Serbian music during the 1800s and early 1900s. For the sake of clarity, they are presented here in the context of those institutions where Mokranjac was personally most involved and made important achievements along various developmental lines of our music history: in the domains of interpretation, teaching, and compositional creativity. Also, the paper mentions only those who helped Mokranjac as his driving force, loyal or like-minded associates in the realization of his diverse musical and creative intentions.
Musicological Annual, 2016
The paper provides a concise insight into the activity of Slovenian musicians residing in Sarajevo during the Austro-Hungarian administration. Besides the Slovenian musicians’ activities at the collective level, the paper discusses their individual endeavours and also endeavours from perspective of guest artists. Guest Slovenian artists such as Slovenian opera, was one of the most renowned ensemble that visited Austro-Hungarian Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Muzikologija, 27, 2019
This paper deals with the activities of Petar Krstić in the domain of music education in the fi rst years aft er the First World War and the constitution of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. As a long-serving director of the Serbian Music School, Krstić initiated various processes in order to modernize it and transform it into institution of higher level of music education. For that purpose he focused on the school's internal reorganization and 'etatization'. As a result, Krstić prepared new school regulations and several draft s of legal texts and started negotiations with the authorities. Krstić's ideas, plans and his undertakings concerning the reforms during the rule over the Serbian Music School/Music School in Belgrade will be discussed in detail together with their historical value.
Serbian musicological society at the beginning of its second decade (2006-2017)
2017
The purpose of the text is to present, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Serbian Musicological Society (SMS), the circumstances of its founding on 5 July 2006 and offer a panoramic survey of its accomplishments in research and publishing so far, which reexamine our stance toward our musical heritage and/or illuminate previously neglected chapters from the history of music in Serbia. The many and diverse contributions of the Serbian Musicological Society to the achievements of Serbian musicology in general are reflected in its conception and organization of scholarly meetings, publication of essay collections, scores, and sound recordings, organization of concerts, as well as initiation of large-scale projects in the reconstruction of individual anthological works of stage music, independently and in collaboration with related insti tutions and opera houses.
Muzikologija, 2018
This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the initial period of the Institute of Musicology SAS, the first scientific institution of this kind in Serbia (and Yugoslavia), in order to give an insight into the development of national musicology and ethnomusicology. The results of earlier research about the topic have been expanded by means of the analysis of documents from the archive of the Institute of Musicology SASA. The organization of the Institute’s functioning, general research orientation, key topics, methodological choices and the significance of individual researchers were considered in detail. This diachronically oriented overview of research into music throughout the 20th century enabled us to pointing out the continuities and innovations after World War II and the Institute’s foundation.
Exile from the “Music Paradise”: Musicians in Occupied Belgrade 1941–1944
Прометеј 021: Од агона до прогона. Сеобе од антике до данас/Prometheus 021: From Agon to Exile, Migrations from Antiquity to the Present Days, edited by Snežana Vukadinović, Svetozar Boškov i Aleksandra Smirnov-Brkić. Novi Sad: Faculty of Philosophy ISBN 978-86-6065-838-0 , 2024
The chapter is focused on the status of musicians during the German occupation of Belgrade in World War II. The main goal of this chapter is to promote a more philosophical understanding of the issue of music in the occupied territories in WWII. With that goal, the author used two concepts: ‘music heaven’ and ‘anti-utopia’. By focusing on the concept of imaginary ‘music heaven’, the author intended to grasp the idealistic nature of Nazi ideology in the Third Reich but also in the occupied territories. In line with that, through the context of symbolic ‘music paradise’, the author analyzed several groups of musicians. Most important attention were focused on musicians who were exiled and persecuted – Jews and Roma. Motivated by Milan Ristović and his use of ‘rural anti-utopia’, the author of this chapter develops understanding of music in society through the concept of ‘anti-utopia’. The chapter is based on extended archival and periodical research in the State Archives of Serbia, the Archives of Yugoslavia, and National Library of Serbia. Finally, this chapter resulted as continuation of research about the position of musicians during the Nazi rule in Europe and Jewish musicians in Belgrade which were topics of doctoral dissertation and the latest book published by this author.