Converting Nationalism Into Socialism Through Folk Music in Stalinist Romania

Abstract

"When a political change occurs, either in democratic or under authoritarian circumstances, the institutional dimension is the first that manifests the control exerted by the new power. We know that the socialist realism was imposed by politicians but in the end, it was created by the composers. Either convinced or not by the communist beliefs, they were faced with providing content for a doctrine that had clear contours and sharp direction, but with technical dimensions impossible to pinpoint. My intention is to shed light not on the politically active composers (whose works explicitly conveyed the propaganda messages of the regime), but rather on those that were trying to find a middle ground between the requirements of the socialist realism canon and their own ideals and aesthetic preferences. One of the most common solutions used by these composers, and one of the most polyvalent, was the appeal to folklore. It conveniently satisfied both the nationalism and the artistic aspirations of the interwar school of composition as well as the requirements of the communist present. Keywords: Nationalism, socialist realism, Stalinist Romania, Soviet model, Romanian Composers Union. "