Presenter: Colin Takeo
Faculty Mentor: Loren Kajikawa
Presentation Type: Oral
Primary Research Area: Humanities
Major: Music History, Historyv
Funding Source: HURF, OU Humanities Center, UROP, 3500; CHC Study Abroad Grant, Clark Honors College, $1000
After World War II, Germany had to be rebuilt. The artificial division of the country in 1949 made an already difficult task even more complicated. Although the Cold War period remains a dark memory for many, it also offers a glimpse into the process of constructing national and socialist cultural identity. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) began in earnest to promote a new societal consciousness in the 1950s, and redoubled their efforts after the 1953 Worker’s Uprising. In 1954, the GDR government and composers allied with the socialist cause began a new cultural campaign using musical events and the socialist-realist aesthetic to establish authority over the East German population. By promoting their own socialist aesthetic and combining it with German cultural traditions, they created a hybrid culture that co-opted patriotic prestige from German cultural icons while also promoting a revolutionary, anti-capitalist consciousness. To explore this campaign, I performed original research at state archives in Berlin and Leipzig. My primary sources were programs, internal documents, and musical works related to the Musikfest des VDK, a state-sponsored music festival held in Leipzig in 1954. The research has revealed that the Musikfest’s socialist-realist pieces heavily relied on rhetorical, extra-musical framing and cultural appropriation.