Who is a Ukrainian musician?
Album Of The WeekWhen the penultimate print edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians appeared in 1995, I objected to the editors at their description of David Oistrakh as a ‘Ukrainian violinist’.
Oistrakh was born in Odessa in 1908. He was first considered Russian, then (in his identity papers) a Soviet citizen of Jewish origin. Never in his life was he defined as a ‘Ukrainian violinist’. He was, if anything, an Odessa violinist, one of a rich talent stream that rose from a multicultural port city to study in Moscow or Leningrad before they were let out onto the world stage.
Odessa was a brand name for violinists. Isaac Stern, born to Polish parents in San Francisco, said before his first trip to the USSR: ‘They send us their Odessa violinists, we send them ours’. In cultural terms, national borders never entered the equation.
After the breakup of the Soviet empire, we became more aware of regional affiliations, but they were often hybrid and confusing. Prokofiev, for instance, was born in the Donetsk Oblast. Does that make him, by any definition, a Ukrainian composer?
Sviatoslav Richter, born in Zhytomir and raised in Odessa, is also, technically speaking, a Ukrainian pianist. Likewise his Odessa compatriot and arch-rival Emil Gilels.
The Shostakovich family came from Belarus. Tchaikovsky was born in the Poltava region, in the middle of Ukraine. Rachmaninov was descended from Moldavians.
The more you look, the fewer musicians there are who can be identified as Russian, and the more who are Ukrainian or of other nations.
None of this is a nationalistic argument. A great artist belongs to the world, whatever the passport might say.
But in these terrible times, we have an overriding human duty to align ourselves with the victims of war crimes.
Today, we are all Ukrainian musicians.
To complete the picture one should add that Rostropovich was born in Azerbaijani Baku and Shostakovich was the grandson of a Polish freedom fighter and patriot who was sent to Siberia for taking part in the Polish January Uprising against Russia in1863.
The picture is indeed complicated and one has to be very careful here. Quite a few composers and artists from non-Russian Soviet republics have been (willingly or not) sucked into Russian imperial and then Soviet cultural propaganda.
You can see it in the case of “Taras Bulba”. Some people want to perform this work by Janacek or Lysenko now. But it was based on a controversial work by Gogol. Gogol wrote the novel in the wake of the Polish November Uprising of 1830 when there was a strong Tsarist anti-Polish propaganda which wanted to promote Russia as the leader and ruler of all Slavs (doesn’t it sound similar to present Putin’s narrative?). It was based on a fictional story which was supposed to underline Polish-Ukrainian hostilities. So it might not be a good idea to perform this work when Polish people give help so generously to over 1 mln Ukrainians right now.
Just remember. Felix Dzerzhinsky, who was Polish, was the founder of NKVD (predecessor of KGB) which became the symbol of Soviet (and often strongly anti-Polish) terror. His monument is still standing in front of the HQ of Belorussian KGB in Minsk.
Pis Propoganda to whitewash Poland’s complicity in the Holocaust like Jedwabne and Kielce. This is not the place for your distorted stories.
the most Jews in Auschvitz were martyred by Jewish kapos and American Jews were fully knowledgeable about murdering Jews but refused to help
were you in Auschwitz
Take no notice of gas-lighting comments. (A term derived from that famous film.)
In this case, you are much too kind toward this person whose hateful comment does not deserve a polite response.
And Napoleon exiled himself to Elba.
You are too tough on this “Musician” who is not “whitewash”ing anything, but simply describes what many Polish people are doing right now.
and this FYI is what is going on in Poland right now
Jan Zbigniew Grabowski
g9t2mSpt2u7t014ao71hre0d0ial ·
We live in the shadow of brutal war raging in the neighboring Ukraine. Even this direct threat was unable to stop the ongoing destruction of the democratic system conducted by Polish nationalists. Over the last few days, President Duda of Poland signed nominations of two hundred new judges who have been appointed in clear violation of the verdicts of the European Tribunal of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Yesterday, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal – a body which has become an obedient tool in the hands of the authorities – declared article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights null and void in Poland. This article reads that: “In the determination of his civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge against him, everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal established by law”.
Well, one is perhaps entitled to a fair hearing, but no longer so in Poland. To add insult to injury, the decision has been rendered the very day US vice President Harris visited Warsaw….
While the Polish citizens and many NGO’s are performing wonderful acts of kindness, selflessly and constantly helping 1,6 million Ukrainian refugees (as of today), the Polish government has shown a total lack of preparedness and astounding indifference.
An area in which they excel, however, is the continuing attack on the Polish system of justice and on the civic society. Something awful.
more about what Polish people are doing right now
https://www.aol.com/news/polish-volunteers-worry-ukraine-refugee-165419922-172907164.html
Thank you for illustrating my point.
not at all and I have no idea what you think I meant by posting Jan Grabowski
Quoting from your own comment that includes this recent statement: “the Polish citizens and many NGOs are performing wonderful acts of kindness, selflessly and constantly helping 1,6 million Ukrainian refugees (as of today)”. We know that the numbers are growing daily.
A recent article to which you kindly provided a link talks about a man who is “one of the thousands of Poles who have jumped in to help the swelling wave of people fleeing war, by offering places to stay, transportation, food or even laundry or babysitting services”. These numbers are growing daily too.
That is what “Musician” referred to and these wonderful deeds of the last few weeks are just as true as horrible antisemitic crimes committed by a rather substantial number of Polish people in the middle of the last century. Both facts are a part of history now and neither one of them “whitewash”es the other.
Identity is a slippery slope. Regardless of identity we know that the USSR was an all-consuming entity that pushed a prescribed national identity to replace that of any individual identity. Since the end of the Cold War, it has become commonplace to refer to Soviet and pre-Soviet individuals of importance merely as “Russian,” and this was always problematic as it diminished the importance of the very question you pose. The majority of the great “Russian” musicians were actually “Ukrainian.” By whatever definition one tries to arrange the goalposts, they were Ukrainian. Also, most of so-called “Russian” cuisine originates in Ukrainian territory. These great artists were never allowed to identify as Ukrainian or to feel a kind of ethnic unity precisely because the USSR did not permit it. The Bolsheviks were determined to destroy any and all sense of patrimony or heritage, any possibly links to aristocracy or royalty. They all became ‘Comrades’ and any further distinction was frowned upon. Many of us Ukrainian artists have always tried to argue these points but they were always shut down because the consensus was that these composers and performers were simply “Soviet” or “Russian” and never officially recognized as “Ukrainian.” Now you begin to see things as they actually are.
On the same continuum as the western world’s cancellation culture; no doubt about where they found their inspiration!! (Clue: this was always going to be apparent to everybody.)
Ukrainian-Halfie: All this reminds now extremely vividly of Klaus Schwab and his criminal world gang, who want to erase nationalities, countries, culture and cultural identities and establish the GLOBAL COMMUNIST USSR, but much worse since the modern technology allows it!!
This IS where the utmost danger to the world comes from.
My Father used to say “You are not a horse if you are born in a stable”, in other words what nationality were your parents?
Sorry, i dont quite get it. Lots of horses are born in stables. But also many are not.
Did he mean, “being born in a stable does not make you a horse” ? Or maybe “to be a horse, you dont have to be born in a stable” ?
Homo Sapiens of planet Earth I’m guessing.
How come you didn’t mention anyone that openly self-identified as Ukrainian? There are some good composers such as Lysenko, Lyatoshinsky that this would be an opportunity to reach bigger audience.
The bombs are not picky.
Isaac Stern was not born in San Francisco. He was born in the town of Kremenets (then in Poland, now part of Ukraine), but his family moved to San Franciso when he was just 14 months old.
Thank you, Michael, for the error-catching.
BTW, Norman, Gilels was never an “arch-rival” of Richter, any more than Emmanuel Ax is an “arch-rival” of Andre Watts. In fact, Gilels always told anyone who’d listen about the greatness of Richter.
Very true, Greg. Exactly as you stated. Unfortunately,
Gilels never enjoyed the reciprocation from Richter.
Thanks, Nick.
Might you know if Richter ever stated a liking for another pianist?
Right.When Gilels made his first tour to the US in 1955,he caused a sensation….Of course he got showered with praise,not just by critics,but also by many of the greatest fellow musicians around,among them Ormandy,Reiner,Bernstein and Rubinstein…His response often was.”This is nothing…You should hear Richter…”
I’ve been pondering with these same questions as well. Didn’t Tchaikovsky also have Polish roots …?
Also Anton Rubinstein was born into a Jewish family in Transnistria, Moldova, not far away from Odessa.
Alexander Borodin was from the Caucasus.
After all this, do we really have any single “Russian” composers left ?
Most people in that part of the world are very intertwined, so your question essentially asks to name pure Russians or pure Ukrainians, while none of the ones named in the article are. The thing is great many Russian and Ukrainian people have common ancestry, and also Tatar and many others and those links are much more common than in most of the West as it used to be one country.
The Russian Empire at its height was almost as multinational if you will as modern day USA yet we call everyone who lives here American, despite most having no relation to native Americans whatsoever and at times being segregated to bigger or lesser extent between each other.
And are you really sure of WHO “native Americans” were?!?
Tchaikovsky was born in Votkins, Ural region, Russia-not in Poltava, Ukraine. Alexandre Nemerovsky was born in Poltava.
Yes. Alexander Scriabin, Alexander Glazunov….you can continue the list if you like
A slippery slope indeed. A vast majority of those great (Soviet) musicians born in Ukraine bore passports where it was spelled in black and white that they were Jewish. Not once they were taken for Ukrainians or Russians. Having the word “Jewish was akin to a curse, a sure sign of a more difficult life ahead than a regular Russian or Ukrainian.
Soviets made a point of putting your ethnicity (which they called “nationality”) on the front page of your passport.
You are 100% right, Svetlana, except one little addition:
“…Having the word “Jewish” was akin to a curse, a sure sign of a more difficult life ahead than a regular Russian or Ukrainian….” AND STILL IS!
+1 for your final sentence, Norman:
“Today, we are all Ukrainian musicians.”
That is, if the Ukrainians will accept us (does “we” include Gergiev? No, I didn’t think so…)
Perhaps instead of classifying Oistrakh as a “Ukrainian violinist”, it would have been more appropriate to use terminology similar to what we can now find on the Wikipedia website. Since he died in 1974 and never acquired any other citizenship, he was therefore a citizen of the Soviet Union.
Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were born in Virginia at a time when it was still an English colony. But nobody in their right mind would say that they were “English statesmen”, for example.
Another thing to think about is the fact that Josef Stalin was born in Georgia; do we say that he was a “Georgian dictator”? I suppose there isn’t much that the people of present-day Georgia can do about that, but it would fit the analogy of Oistrakh.
Sergei V. Rachmaninoff was born in imperial Russia but took on American citizenship late in his life. Does anyone write about him that he was an “American composer, pianist, and conductor”? 🙂
As Michael B. pointed out, Isaac Stern was born in a town that used to be in what was then Poland, but now in Ukraine. Although he was probably somewhat proud of his Russian-Ukrainian heritage, he wouldn’t think of anyone writing about him other than as an “American violinist”, I suppose.
Something of a “Sturm im Wasserglass”, as the Germans would say. But still interesting to consider, with all the ramifications.
PS – à-propos the quote: “a Soviet citizen of Jewish origin”:
Soviet passports had an item labelled “Nationality”, and they would put “Jewish” there if that was known… not something that Oistrakh would add voluntarily.
I suppose they should thank the Swiss for that idea.
man, you write nonsense, none of the artists you mentioned identified with Ukraine, Czajkowski and Roztropowicz had Polish roots, Stern and Ojstrach were Jewish, neither of them had a clue about Ukraine because there was no such thing, it was Lesser Russia
ha ha, clearly Jaro is another supporter of the anti-Semitic PiS government.
Probably a more authentic identifier of “nationality” or “ethnicity” than birthplace is the language spoken in the childhood home. Did Tchaikovsky of Prokofiev, for instance, ever speak Ukrainian in preference to Russian?
Ukrainian language use was limited back then to ethnically Ukrainian people, therefore Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky very unlikely knew a word of it. Everyone spoke Russian.
Benno Moiseiwitsch was born in Odessa as well. Studied there, so presumably lived there for his pre-adult life.
Kurt Masur was born in Silesia. Then Germany. Now Poland.
Is he listed as a Polish conductor in The New Grove?
Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976), born in Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine. Leonid Kogan (1924-1982), born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. These are different names for the same town, which is now called Dnipro.
Calling David Oistrakh “Ukrainian” is totally ridiculous and incorrect: not only for all the reasons mentioned in the post, but also because at the time of his birth and until well after his death there was no independent country named Ukraine. The city of Odessa where he was born and raised, as well as the rest of the Ukrainian territory, was a part of the Russian Empire that soon became the Russian-dominated Soviet Empire, and he lived virtually his entire adult life in Moscow. So, he was a Jewish person and a Soviet citizen who certainly belonged to the Russian culture – the really good part of it.
Maybe, in this Century, we should just stop it with the nationalistic nonsense and call ourselves human beings. To be practical, of course, one’s nationality is hyphenated if he immigrates, designating his country of birth first, a hyphen, and then, the country where he immigrated to.
So, Oistrakh is Ukrainian-Russian, etc. Silly, isn’t it. He was simply a great violinist and transcended the politics of his day, making beautiful, inspiring music for the whole world. He was a great human being, as well.
Oh, so we are now all ONE GLOBAL WORLD CULTURAL EMPIRE without individuals — one big mass….sounds exactly like Klaus Schwab’s fascist/communist ideas!!
NO! NO! and NO to your idea, Margaret! Each of us is an INDIVIDUAL with national and ethnic roots, personal life experience and certain national/multinational cultures of our individual family trees!! CERTAIN here is the keyword!!
Yes we all have separate family trees but it does not take terribly long before the trees connect to common roots and it turns out we are all tiny twigs on the same branch. Enjoy your family history and culture, no one is trying to take it away from you. But we are all from a single planet travelling around the same sun.
I wouldn’t be so adamant in preaching against the cosmopolitan culture. The history shows that some of the best ‘nationalistic’ musical works were conceived in multicultural melting pots – to mention Chopin, Liszt, Stravinsky. On the other hand, governements mandating ‘national’ culture and limiting the foreign influences produced in effect very poor artistic results. Human creativity is not limited by borders, language and ethnicity. People who have lived in Ukraine spoke many languages, were familiar with many cultures – which is exactly the reason they produced so many great musicians – by which I don’t mean to counter Ukrainian claims to their own country. A sense of nationality – as can be seen on the example of the US – can encompass many ethnicities and cultures. Both Poland and Ukraine for centuries were multi-cultural and multi-lingual. Many musicians who were born decades ago in Odessa as Russians or Russian Jews, now willingly identify as Ukrainians. Identity in this instance is a choice.
You should add Leonid Kogan who was also from Ukraine… Not to mention Vladimir Horowitz! Horowitz’s sister Regina lived in Kharkiv. and there was a piano competition held in his honour there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Kogan
HOROWITZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyone know who Chmielnitski was and his Polish Ukraine relationship?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising
https://www.aol.com/news/concern-grows-over-traffickers-targeting-075113783-163406933.html
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-poland-moldova-warsaw-d5df65dd2e8bc3d42029b1182eb84c59
Not musicians, but artists for sure: Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine
Here’s Odessa comes out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkS_SHsv0aI&t=86s
Do you see any Ukranian flags?