At the Intersection of Musical Culture and Historical Legacy: Feminist Musicology in Poland
At the Intersection of Musical Culture and Historical Legacy: Feminist Musicology in Poland

Summary/Abstract: In Poland, feminist perspectives in the field of musicology are still notonly very rare, but also hold a highly problematic status. Both an overviewof relevant Polish literature and scholars’ experiences reveal a two sided problem within Polish feminist musicology, where there is on theone hand a great disregard for the study of intersections between sex,gender and music, and on the other hand a significant controversy overhow to approach the subject once it is acknowledged. The challenges which today’s feminist musicology in Poland needs to confront, areconnected with complex and very often ambivalent way in which classicalmusic culture and the feminist discourse have been shaped sincethe beginning of the communist era (1945-1989). Reaching back to thatperiod, various historical, political and social factors have influencedthe study of women and gender in the contemporary Polish musicology.Three equally crucial issues are investigated in order to understandthe status of feminist musicology in Poland: 1) the challenges Polishmusicology has had to face due to the communist propaganda; 2) theway in which communist reality has shaped the attitude to feminismin the society; 3) the way in which history of Polish classical music isinfluenced by the figure of Grażyna Bacewicz. The essay characterizes each of these phenomena and presents how they may have contributed to the problematic status of feminist musicology in Poland nowadays.

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