Overview

A woman wearing a ballgown singing in the snow for returning ski troops; a technician's tears ruining a master recording of a new wartime song; fresh recruits spontaneously standing and doffing their caps to a new song, thereby creating the new wartime anthem. This well researched, multi-faceted book depicts the relationship between song and society during World War II in the USSR. Chapter topics range from the creation and distribution of the songs to how the public received and shaped them. The body of song that came out of that era created a true cultural legacy which reflected both the hearts of the individuals fighting as well as the narrative of the party and state in bringing the nation to victory.

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9781618118394

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Suzanne Ament's apparent enthusiasm for the living presence of the war songs among the Russians she encountered and interviewed verges sometimes on the romantic. She does not shy away from grand statements of music as a life-saving force in times of extreme violence and inhumanity. Her emotional involvement shines through the whole book, but is kept in balance by her extraordinary command of a wide range of sources and her meticulous analysis of all the factors involved. The most valuable contribution of this book to the understanding of Soviet history and culture is the light it sheds on the relationship between official cultural policy and grassroots reactions. The success of specific songs often ran counter to official opinion or ideological expectations. ... The Great Patriotic War has rightly been called the great unifier of the Soviet people. Suzanne Ament's timely study adds a much-awaited piece of explanation of how that peculiar agreement between State and People could arise in Soviet society at that time. -Francis Maes, Ghent University, Belgium, European History Quarterly Vol. 49(4) Of the many ways in which the Soviet experience of World War II was institutionalized, both at the time and thereafter, music was one of the most powerful. Suzanne Ament's new monograph adds considerably to our understanding of this process, as well as filling a significant gap in our understanding of the history of Soviet music more generally. ... Ament's approach is rich, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary in focus, offering both a sweeping synoptic account of the period, and some occasional instances of more detailed analysis and interpretation. ... Ament's book is to be welcomed for the light it sheds on cultural life during the Great Patriotic War and for taking us back to a much mythologized moment in Soviet history. -Philip Ross Bullock, Wadham College, University of Oxford, Russian Review Drawing on Russian-language scholarship, archival sources, a handful of interviews, and memoirs, Sing to Victory! paints an extremely detailed picture of wartime song in the Soviet Union-the first book-length treatment of the topic to appear in English. Over seven chapters, the author studies the songs themselves, their themes, their creators, their organizational contexts and networks of distribution, and their place in everyday life, both then and now. ... Written with sympathy for its subject and filled with stories of human resilience in inhuman conditions, Sing to Victory! is certain to become a go-to work for students of Soviet wartime song and a solid starting point for future research. -Matthew Honegger, Princeton University, MUSICultures

Suzanne Ament's apparent enthusiasm for the living presence of the war songs among the Russians she encountered and interviewed verges sometimes on the romantic. She does not shy away from grand statements of music as a life-saving force in times of extreme violence and inhumanity. Her emotional involvement shines through the whole book, but is kept in balance by her extraordinary command of a wide range of sources and her meticulous analysis of all the factors involved. The most valuable contribution of this book to the understanding of Soviet history and culture is the light it sheds on the relationship between official cultural policy and grassroots reactions. The success of specific songs often ran counter to official opinion or ideological expectations. ... The Great Patriotic War has rightly been called the great unifier of the Soviet people. Suzanne Ament's timely study adds a much-awaited piece of explanation of how that peculiar agreement between State and People could arise in Soviet society at that time. --Francis Maes, Ghent University, Belgium, European History Quarterly Vol. 49(4) Of the many ways in which the Soviet experience of World War II was institutionalized, both at the time and thereafter, music was one of the most powerful. Suzanne Ament's new monograph adds considerably to our understanding of this process, as well as filling a significant gap in our understanding of the history of Soviet music more generally. ... Ament's approach is rich, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary in focus, offering both a sweeping synoptic account of the period, and some occasional instances of more detailed analysis and interpretation. ... Ament's book is to be welcomed for the light it sheds on cultural life during the Great Patriotic War and for taking us back to a much mythologized moment in Soviet history. --Philip Ross Bullock, Wadham College, University of Oxford, Russian Review

Suzanne Ament's apparent enthusiasm for the living presence of the war songs among the Russians she encountered and interviewed verges sometimes on the romantic. She does not shy away from grand statements of music as a life-saving force in times of extreme violence and inhumanity. Her emotional involvement shines through the whole book, but is kept in balance by her extraordinary command of a wide range of sources and her meticulous analysis of all the factors involved. The most valuable contribution of this book to the understanding of Soviet history and culture is the light it sheds on the relationship between official cultural policy and grassroots reactions. The success of specific songs often ran counter to official opinion or ideological expectations. ... The Great Patriotic War has rightly been called the great unifier of the Soviet people. Suzanne Ament's timely study adds a much-awaited piece of explanation of how that peculiar agreement between State and People could arise in Soviet society at that time. --Francis Maes, Ghent University, Belgium, European History Quarterly Vol. 49(4)

Author Information

Suzanne Ament teaches Russian and World history at Radford University. With degrees in Russian area studies and history, her interests focus on music and culture. In addition to this book, she has written on the Soviet bard duo Ivashchenko and Vasil'ev, changes in Soviet music, and Russian revolutionary song.

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