{"id":1238,"date":"2021-05-18T12:44:24","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T16:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/?p=1238"},"modified":"2021-05-18T12:45:42","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T16:45:42","slug":"five-questions-with-rebecca-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/2021\/05\/18\/five-questions-with-rebecca-mitchell\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Questions With … Rebecca Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note: 2020-21 marks the 20<\/em>th<\/em><\/sup> anniversary of the Havighurst Center.  One of the ways we will mark this occasion is through a regular \u201cFive Questions With \u2026\u201d series, where we will check in with former colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, and students.  In this latest installment, Havighurst Center Director Stephen Norris asked Rebecca Mitchell five questions. Dr. Mitchell was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center from 2011-13 and is now Associate Professor of History at Middlebury College<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.\u00a0You just submitted your next book manuscript. Tell us more about it! How does it fit within your previous research interests?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of research on my next project (a\nstudy of the intersection between music, religion and empire in late imperial\nRussia), I was approached by an editor at Reaktion Press to suggest I write a\nbook on composer Sergei Rachmaninoff as part of their Critical Lives series.\nThese are short biographies that offer a new interpretation of a familiar\nfigure and challenge conventional stereotypes. Research on Rachmaninoff for my\nfirst book had poised me to take on this project aimed at a broader readership.\nThough Rachmaninoff is unquestionably one of the most popular classical music\ncomposers, he has not always been treated well by critics. In English-language\nscholarship, his detractors have argued that his music was part of an outlived\nRomantic tradition aloof from the modernist explorations of his more innovative\ncontemporaries (like fellow Moscow composer Aleksandr Scriabin). Even his\ndefenders have typically sought to uncover \u201cmodernist\u201d or \u201cprogressive\u201d\nelements in his compositional language. In the Soviet Union, by contrast, Rachmaninoff\nwas upheld as part of the romantic Russian national tradition of Tchaikovsky. Despite\nsome stylistic bases for these interpretations, I found that they all\ncaricatured a nostalgic, eternalized image of pre-revolutionary Russia that was\nvastly different from the world that I knew from my first book. Like many\nRussian emigres, Rachmaninoff himself contributed to fashioning this narrative\nof pre-1917 timelessness. As a cultural historian, I have situated Rachmaninoff\nwithin the remarkably dynamic time period in which he lived and worked. Before 1917,\nRachmaninoff actively responded to modernist musical and artistic trends across\nEurope, as well as the artistic and philosophical tendencies of the Russian\nSilver Age. Drawing in particular on Marshall Berman\u2019s famous account of\nmodernity in All That is Solid Melts Into Air<\/em>, I consider the nostalgia\nand melancholy so prominent in later accounts of Rachmaninoff\u2019s life to be an\ninherently modern<\/em> response to the upheavals of 1917. Rachmaninoff and\nhis music were products of the modern age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2.<\/strong> Speaking of your previous research, your award-winning book, <\/strong>Neitzsche\u2019s Orphans<\/strong><\/em>, weaves together philosophy, music, ideas about nationhood, and the imperial tensions of the late tsarist era. Tell us a little more about how that project originated and some of the sources you mined to get at this fascinating story.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nietzsche\u2019s Orphans <\/em>had a very long gestation. I actually first became interested in\nthe time period when I was an undergraduate piano performance major at the\nUniversity of Saskatchewan. Browsing the CD collection at the library, I found\na recording of Vladimir Horowitz performing the music of Aleksandr Scriabin, a\ncomposer I had never heard of before, and I fell in love with it. I checked out\nevery book I could find that dealt with his music and life (which at that time were\nrelatively few). I read Fabion Bowers\u2019 biography of Scriabin, in which I\ndiscovered that the composer thought he was God, and that his music would bring\nabout the end of the world in a final moment of universal ecstasy. Bowers\nquoted extensively from Scriabin\u2019s philosophical notebooks, but the original\nwas only available in Russian at that time (a wonderful translation by Simon\nNicholls and Michael Pushkin was published by Oxford University Press in 2019).\nIt was at that point that I decided to learn Russian \u2013 I wanted to read\nScriabin\u2019s philosophical musings in the original language. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was my initial impetus, but the project\nkept evolving. As I was examining publications from the Scriabin Society that\nformed shortly after Scriabin\u2019s death, I was shocked to discover that many of\nhis admirers kept talking about Scriabin in messianic terms. It was at this\npoint that I realized that this was not just a story of one self-aggrandizing\ncreative genius \u2013 people had bought into Scriabin\u2019s apocalyptic vision, but\ntweaked it in interesting ways. When I started looking at periodicals from the\ntime period (ca.1904-1917), I noted that music held a key place in public\ndiscourse (particularly in philosophical and literary journals). Music was\nactually a means through which educated late imperial Russian citizens grappled\nwith a whole range of issues, particularly the social, political and cultural\ndivisions that were a hallmark of an era (1900-1917) that witnessed two wars\nand three revolutions. In this research, I also realized that discussions about\nmusical style were entangled with fundamental questions about Russian identity\nat the very moment when nationalist narratives were increasingly challenging\nimperial forms of belonging in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who came to this project through a love of music, I wanted to bring the individuals, their artistic discussions, and their music to life. Scriabin featured prominently alongside Sergei Rachmaninoff in contemporary discourse, alongside a third pianist-composer of whom I knew virtually nothing: Nikolai Medtner. Like both Rachmaninoff and Scriabin, Medtner was a pianist-composer trained at the Moscow Conservatory who regularly performed his own compositions in solo concerts. As I dug deeper, it was the Medtner family that emerged as a lynchpin for the entire project. While Medtner was known primarily as a composer, his elder brother, Emilii, was a leading theorist for the Russian Symbolist movement, and a unifying figure who spearheaded a particular racial vision of art. Because the Medtners were descended from a Baltic German family, it was intriguing to explore how they negotiated the moment when \u201cRussianness\u201d was increasingly defined according to ethnicity rather than loyalties to a particular regime. I also sought to emphasize the way in which entangled personal relations were key to this entire cultural milieu: both Medtner brothers were in love with the same woman, Anna Bratenshi, who married first Emilii and later Nikolai. In addition to published periodical sources from the time, I spent a lot of time in Russian archives reading the personal correspondences and diaries of quite a number of the people involved in these cultural circles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3.<\/strong> When you were a postdoctoral fellow at Miami, you organized a major conference on music and power held here in Oxford in 2013. The conference covered the \u201cproblems and perspectives\u201d of music in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia as understood at that time. How has the field developed since? What books, articles, or research projects stand out to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As one of the founders of the Russian, East\nEuropean and Eurasian music study subgroup at ASEEES, it has been exciting and\ngratifying to see the growth in this area. Scholars have been exploring the\nmultiple ways through which musical expression was shaped and meaning inscribed\ninto music in the Soviet era. Pauline Fairclough\u2019s book Classics for the\nMasses <\/em>is a wonderful examination of the legacy of classical music in the\nSoviet Union. Marina Frolova-Walker\u2019s recent book explores the politics behind\nthe Stalin Prize (Stalin\u2019s Music Prize<\/em>), while Kirill Tomoff has turned\nattention to the place of classical music in the cultural Cold War (Virtuosi\nAbroad<\/em>). Kl\u00e1ra M\u00f3ricz has turned new attention on the question of music\namongst the Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9 community after 1917 (In Stravinsky\u2019s Orb<\/em>it).\nLisa Cooper Vest and Lisa Jakelski both recently published monographs on music\nin Communist-era Poland. For imperial Russia, Adalyat Issiyeva\u2019s new book Representing\nRussia\u2019s Orient<\/em> is an exciting glimpse at the intersection of music and\nquestions of empire, and in 2019 Simon Morrison revisited and updated his\nwonderful study of Russian Symbolist opera. In terms of forthcoming\nscholarship, David Salkowski (Princeton University) just defended an excellent dissertation\nlooking at the intersection of music and Orthodoxy in late imperial Russia. Leah\nGoldman, Olga Panteleeva, Elina Viljanen, Polina Dimova are among the scholars\nwhose publications I look forward to reading in the near future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

4.<\/strong> You studied music in college (piano performance specifically): what are some of your favorite pieces and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given my recent research, I have been playing a lot of Rachmaninoff lately, notably his Etudes-tableaux and Corelli Variations. I also enjoy playing Scriabin\u2019s piano works, Nikolai Medtner\u2019s Forgotten Melodies, and Mikalojus \u010ciurlionis\u2019 kindred Silver Age piano works. I also enjoy playing impressionist works by Debussy, Ravel, and Saint-Saens. Beethoven sonatas and works by Bach are current favorites for my toddler, who seems to enjoy these older compositional sounds best at present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. Finally, as a faculty member at Middlebury College, how has the pandemic impacted academic life there?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Middlebury\nCollege switched to entirely remote learning in March 2020, I was on\nsabbatical, so it was my research and writing that took the biggest hit. My\nRachmaninoff book was scheduled for submission in summer 2020, but we lost\ndaycare for almost four months, and having a 1.5-year-old at home full time\nderailed my writing plans. It was only through the support of my partner (who\ntook on a lot of the childcare responsibility) that I was able to submit the\nbook in early 2021.  Throughout the\n2020-21 academic year, Middlebury held in-person classes, though faculty had\nthe option whether to teach their classes in person or via Zoom. I taught\nin-person for most of the academic year, and the classroom dynamic was\ndefinitely different. It was hard for students to engage in discussion to the\nsame extent while wearing masks and social distancing. Students were very\nwilling to adapt to safety precautions in order to have the in-person\nexperience though, and I was impressed by how engaged many of our students were\nable to be, difficult situation notwithstanding. I also experimented for the\nfirst time team-teaching a class with my colleague Sarah Bidgood at the\nMiddlebury Institute at Monterey on US-Soviet nuclear relations. We had worried\nabout how students would respond to a class that, by definition, required an\nonline component, but as it turned out, given the pandemic this was a complete\nnon-issue. While I think everyone is excited to be able to return to more\nin-person modes of learning, Zoom has at least simplified some amount of\nbroader geographic collaboration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: 2020-21 marks the 20th anniversary of the Havighurst Center.  One of the ways we will mark this occasion is through a regular \u201cFive Questions With \u2026\u201d series, where we will check in with former colleagues, postdoctoral fellows, and students.  In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":781,"featured_media":1241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/781"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1243,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions\/1243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/havighurst\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}