Events in UCIS

Friday, October 10

4:00 pm Seminar
Phonographic Paleontology: Excavating the Sounds of Georgian Nationality, 1935
Location:
Baker Hall 246A, Carnegie Mellon University
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies along with Department of History and Carnegie Mellon University Department of History
See Details

This paper deals broadly with a history of music, technology, and changing ideas of race and ethnicity in the twentieth century. It focuses on Leningrad, where researchers in 1935 at the Institute of Anthropology, Archaeology, and Ethnography conducted recording experiments involving Georgian folk singers. Using the work of Maxim Gorky, Romain Rolland, and the hugely inflectional linguist Nikolai Marr, it shows how Georgian music inspired and challenged leading theories of language, nationality, and cultural evolution at a pivotal moment in Soviet history. Part of the Socialist Studies Seminar series.