Russia and the West: Irrationalism in Music and Beyond. Creative Thought of Alexander Ivashkin

Abstract

The paper engages with the ideas of the prominent musician and musical scholar Alexander Ivashkin (1948-2014), whose chapter on Irrationalism in Russian music forms part of the collective volume Facets of Russian Irrationalism between Art and Life: Mystery inside Enigma edited by Olga Tabachnikova (Brill-Rodopi, 2016). We address Russian and Western European conceptions and manifestations of irrationalism in art, and highlight methodological challenges which this topic presents. A possible correlation between artistic creativity and political liberties is discussed, drawing on Ivashkin's earlier publications. This leads to a broader discussion of Russia vis-à-vis Western Europe in the framework of artistic differences and cultural constants. Using Ivashkin's philosophical premonitions concerning the invasion of Russian arts in Western culture, we argue that alongside some potentially destructive tendencies of this phenomenon, there are also highly inspiring and meaningful features to it.