1944, 1948 and other Cultural Traumas. Bence Szabolcsi’s Path from the Labour Camp to Zhdanovshcina

Abstract

My study focuses on a turning point in the career of the influential music historian, Bence Szabolcsi (1899–1973). I argue that the year 1948 brought about a significant change in Szabolcsi’s scholarly work in several respects. Not only because he reached the peak of his career, as evidenced by his election as a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, but also because his scientific interests, his way of speaking and his methodology changed under the increasing political pressure which was formed even in Hungary by the so-called Zhdanov Doctrine. As a typical example, my study presents the story of the genesis of the short monograph on Antonio Vivaldi and pre-classical music, Európai virradat (European Dawn) written between 1944 and 1948. My study is based on primary sources preserved in the Archives of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences that have not yet been explored till now.