Shaping national memory: The beginning of memorizing Stevan Stojanović Mokranjac in Serbian music (1919-1923)
The organization of musical life of Belgrade as the capital of the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was characterized by efforts towards a material, economic and cultural consolidation of the city after a war disaster; thus the mapping of continuity with pre-war tradition...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts - Institute of Musicology of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
2017-01-01
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| Series: | Muzikologija |
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| Online Access: | http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/1450-9814/2017/1450-98141723199M.pdf |
| Summary: | The organization of musical life of Belgrade as the capital of the newly
founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was characterized by efforts
towards a material, economic and cultural consolidation of the city after a
war disaster; thus the mapping of continuity with pre-war traditions acquired
a special significance. The first joint performance of Belgrade choirs in
peacetime conditions, organised by the Belgrade Choral Society (1919) and
dedicated exclusively to Mokranjac’s output testified to that effect. Soon
there followed four similar events (1922- 1923), and then a manifestation of
the transfer of Mokranjac’s remains from Skopje to Belgrade (1923). The aim
of this article is to examine these events as the first, though belated (due
to war circumstances) cases of memorizing Mokranjac after his death in 1914.
This research has taken into account the processes of canonization of
Mokranjac that had begun even during his lifetime, and the critical
examination of the canon is complemented by theoretical elements from memory
studies, because these events are about a (re)interpretation of the canon of
national art music through strategies of memorialization. Concerts and
narratives that are directly related to them are marked as artistic memorials
to Mokranjac; afterwards, I analyzed the commemoration ceremony itself.
Considering the results of the analysis, I concluded that these were two
types of memorizing Mokranjac, one of which was in the domain of the
professional music elite, while the other one acquired the proportions of the
national-state event. Accordingly, they also offered two kinds of national
memory. On the one hand, the version presented by the representatives of the
elite contributed to the canonization of Mokranjac and the creation of
national memory within the dominant group in the field of music which,
through its narrative about Mokranjac, expressed its own aesthetic
orientation and reinforced its social positions. On the other hand, the mass
gathering of various representatives of the state, civil institutions and
citizens pointed to the apposite narratives of glorifying Mokranjac, while
loading the ideology of the official state apparatus and putting memories of
Mokranjac into desirable Yugoslav frameworks. [Project of the Serbian
Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no.
177004: Identiteti srpske muzike od lokalnih do globalnih okvira: tradicije,
promene, izazovi] |
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| ISSN: | 1450-9814 2406-0976 |