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Music Historiography and Propaganda in the First Half of the 20th Century: The Croatian Example

From the second half of the 19th century, when Croatian music historiography as scholar discipline started to develop, to the World War II fundamental aesthetic, idational, that is, ideological belief that music historiography, just as music itself, should promote the national identity was presented in historiographical works. That is why the focus of the periodization of Croatian music history, introduced for the first time in 1885 by the founder of music historiography in Croatia Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834-1911), was the period of Croatian national revival (1835-1848). The idea was taken over by the authors of the musical-historiographical syntheses written and published in the first half of the 20th century: Stjepan Hadrović (1863-1934), Božidar Širola (1889-1956), Branimir Ivakić (1906-1943), Josip Andreis (1909-1982), and Hubert Pettan (1912-1989). As a social, political and cultural movement, which aimed at constituting a nation in the contemporary sense of the word, the period of National Revival was seen as a turning point in the history of Croatian music, as a stronghold where the history of Croatian music in the sense of authentic national music, i.e. of art music based on folk music, actually started. Music historiography strongly promoted that idea as the only way to „define the proper role of Croatian music” (Andreis, 1942) that is the „presence of that music in the world“ (Širola, 1922), but not its supremacy as some European music historiographers of that period would sometimes present their national music histories. In addition, „the process of creation of art music in Croatia is based primarily on the recognition that folk music is the only source of art music and that art music, imbued with the spirit of folk music, is an excellent instrument in the struggle for political independence“ (Andreis, 1942). It should be mentioned that unlike historiography in Croatian music criticism some also thought that the period of hegemony of Slavic music was coming. Speaking about musical-historiographical journalism a mention should also be made of the promotion of Marxist interpretation advocated by essays of Pavao Markovac (1903-1941), but without a significant impact to musical historiography at the time.

music historiography, propaganda, 20th century, Croatia

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