Valentina Radoman

THE ELEMENTS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTIC STYLE IN SERBIAN MUSIC
IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20^TH CENTURY

The master’s thesis entitled The elements of the impressionistic style in Serbian music in the first half of the 20^th century was written from the perspective of postcolonial theory, as a possible suggestion for reconstructing the Serbian cultural identity of the first half of the 20^th century. Namely, the assessing of the elements of the impressionistic style, (albeit) primarily chosen as a research area, has also proven as being an exceptionally optimal foundation for reflecting on one of today’s fundamental issues in social and humanistic sciences – the problem of identity.

The paper contains three basic chapters: Methodological guidelines, Stylistic analysis, and From a stylistic analysis towards a postcolonial narrative. The first chapter is made up of four subchapters (A nationalistic narrative: nation, nationalism and national identity in the context of comparative research, A postcolonial overview of the way of constituting a national identity in musicological comparastics, An intertextual comparastics: a theory on style in the light of a theory on text; concepts of appropriation and fluctuating and A methodological approach to research) in which the previous assessments of Serbian culture of the first half of the 20th century were critically appraised, and viewpoints on the contemporary understanding of the concept of nation depicted, as well as the concepts of ethnic and civic nationalism in works of art, the notion of national cultural identity, the colonial and postcolonial grasp of Serbian cultural identity, the influence of postcolonial theory on the aims and methods of comparative analyses of national cultures, the relationship between the intertextual and comparative evaluating of art, etc. Taking into account that certain institutional demands are implied during the writing of a master’s thesis, the second chapter is based on a formal analysis of French and Serbian impressionistic compositions in various genres. This also included distinctive examples from the areas of painting and literature. The entire chapter has been divided into three subchapters (Introductory evaluations, Context: compositional traits of French impressionism and Text: elements of the impressionistic style in Serbian music in the first half of the 20^th century), where the examples of French and Serbian art were assessed separately, that is set in a relationship of context and text, so as to emphasize the artificiality of the very act of comparing. The third chapter was conceived in three parts as well (Introductory comments on postcolonial narrative, Context: the theoretical foundations of French impressionism and Text: notional guidelines in Serbian music of the first half of the 20^th century). This chapter, after a formal analysis and with the evaluating of the ideological framework of French and Serbian impressionistic art, also includes an interpretation of the analytical part of the thesis, which to a large extent differs from previous interpretations (similar or identical formal analyses) presented in Serbian musicology. That is, it has been proven that many significant traits of French impressionism could not at all be accepted in Serbian music of the first half of the 20^th century, as the political-ideological framework (referring to the colony status and the dominating of an ethno-national/nationalistic political discourse) in which Serbian music was fostered were in disparity with the ideological context of French art of the same age. Thus, this sort of overview of Serbian music of the first half of the 20^th century, except for analyzing the primary issue of the style of impressionism, at the same time also perceives the numerous problems which were not devoted a lot of attention in Serbian musicology thus far (the problems of cultural identity, comparastics, nationalistic/political and musicological/discourse, etc.).

The thesis contains 191 pages, 43 scores, and 341 bibliographical units (selected from the references) in Serbian, English, German, French and Russian, in the period between 1929 and 2005. The thesis was defended in 2006 at the Department of musicology and ethnomusicology of the Faculty of Music Arts in Belgrade before a committee consisting of: Prof. Roksanda Pejović, Ph.D., Prof. Miško Šuvaković, Ph.D. (administrator), Prof. Sonja Marinković, Ph.D., Docent Vesna Mikić, Ph.D., and Docent Tatjana Marković, Ph.D. (administrator). The first part of the thesis, defended in 1996, was under the mentorship of Prof. Roksanda Pejović, Ph.D., while the second stage of the thesis was mentored by Docent Vesna Mikić, Ph.D.

Translated by Elizabeta Holt