Twórczość Juliusa Juzeliūnasa z perspektywy teorii postkolonialnej
The Work of Julius Juzeliūnas – a Postcolonial Perspective

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, the theory of postcolonialism has become a productive tool for the development of comparative studies of the culture of the USSR and post-Soviet countries. Postcolonialism specifically encourages critical reflection on cultural differences and interactions, given the political, social, and economic factors of the transformations of musical culture. That allows the reconsideration of the discourse on nationality and internationality, as well as on the representations of authenticity and hybridity seen as colonial and post-colonial identities in the imperial regime. Within that interpretive context, the paper examines the relationship between the representation of the ‘Other’ and the national self-confidence, the official ideology and the resistance to it in the music of Lithuanian composer Julius Juzeliūnas (1916-2001). In the pantheon of the Lithuanian composers’ school, Juzeliūnas is canonized as a transmitter and modernizer of national tradition. Yet he was not a dogmatic authority or adherent of a single system, but rather a convincing motivator of creativity and a paradoxical teacher. To interpret his creative biography, it makes sense to employ the interpretative model proposed by Mieczysław Tomaszewski, which encompasses creative biography, cultural space and historical time. Although the researchers of Juzeliūnas’ legacy have identified as many as five or even seven periods in his oeuvre (resonant to formative experiences featured by Tomaszewski), the internalization of rules introduced by other authors and development of individually discovered principles did not acquire stagnant stylistic forms in his music. The key turning point in Juzeliūnas’ artistic evolution was the acquaintance with the cultural Other – in his case it was African music. Juzeliūnas’ symphonic suite African Sketches (1962) joined the ranks of works by composers from various USSR nations inspired by the history and musical tradition of the Black Continent. Yet it was precisely African Sketches, a sonification of an imaginary Africa based mostly on folklore sources from the Congo region that started a radical creative change and renewal. Having persistently sought to solve the mystery of “Lithuanian harmony” in his earlier work, in this suite the composer revealed the structural power of his trademark ‘Juzeliūnas chord’ and the possibilities of his distinctive harmonic system (also named after him). Such self-discovery through the encounter with the Other is a characteristic of identity construction. The composer’s concern with the systematising Lithuanian folk melodies received continuation in his exploration of the structural analogies of ethnic music and the Eastern tradition. Thus, in this case, we can talk about the paradoxical effect of the collision with cultural alterity which led to a deeper understanding of national identity and a change in the positioning toward the colonial discourse of Soviet internationalism and nationalism. This way Juzeliūnas’ creative path was marked by the evolution from the colonial to postcolonial identities. In the context of Postcolonial Theory, the definitions of nationality by Lithuanian composer exhibit quite a typical case of cultural hibridity, veiled by a mask of national ‘purity’, when a cultural or national identity was constructed as a ‘counter-narrative to dominant canon’ (H. Bhabha, 1994).

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