LVIV MUSICIANS AND THE ANTI-AMERICAN DREAMS IN 1947-1948: WAR OF THE OUTLOOKS

Abstract

The relations in the artistic sphere of the USA and the USSR against the background of the economic crisis and ideological confrontation in post-war Europe are highlighted. There was an increase in hostility in the arts area that began during meetings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947-48. Such meetings were perceived quite ambiguously in the United States and extremely negatively in the USSR. The HUAC, which was established in 1938 to investigate the subversive activities of organizations or individuals in communist propaganda in the United States, intensified after the war. The reason for that was the fact the confrontation moved from an open bridgehead to a shadow zone. In 1947, a scandalous list of cultural and artistic figures (Hollywood blacklists) was compiled. According to it, artists were banned from engaging in professional activities on suspicion of sympathizing with communist ideology. The list of artists suspected of loyalty to the Communists among musicians in the United States included: composer A. Copeland, conductor L. Bernstein, composer G. Eisler, conductor D. Dixon, and others. Meetings were held in the institutions of the Soviet Union in order to publicly devalue progress in ideologically uncertain spaces. It is noted that the wave of anti-American propaganda did not escape Lviv’s musicians who joined the all-Soviet condemnation of capitalists. It is mentioned that one of the active speakers of anti-American propaganda was the director of the Lviv State Conservatory S. Pavliuchenko and musicologist J. Volynskyi. The article stressed that the situation became worse with the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) on the opera "Great Friendship" by V. Muradeli of February 10, 1948.