Authors

Discussion

This paper is an essay that examines how the general public of Japan, the only country to have suffered an atomic bomb, accepted Russian music during the Cold War era in the late 20th century, amid political tensions with the two great powers, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, by examining the social situation and trends in the music world, using Shostakovich's music as an example. Japan, which was a militarist dictatorship, experienced a complete change in its social situation after defeat in World War II. Thanks to the rapid increase in support for the Japan Socialist Party and the Japanese Communist Party, which gained power due to the major change in the political system, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States under the rule of the US occupation forces were once again viewed as an issue, and intellectuals became more interested in Russia as a symbol of anti-Americanism. A typical example of this is the "Utagoe Movement," a peace movement through choral singing that began in the 1950s. This movement was developed under political slogans such as "Let's use the chorus to protest against American colonial rule," and at the center of it all was a performance of Shostakovich's oratorio "Song of the Forest" sung with Japanese translations of the lyrics. However, with Japan's rapid economic growth and the Americanization of culture (i.e., anti-Russianization) that began in the 1970s, the choral movement itself stagnated, and the "Song of the Forest" boom also rapidly died down. As for Shostakovich, he was perceived as a composer loyal to the Soviet regime, and he was increasingly shunned by liberal people. After the Japanese translation of Volkov's "Testimony of Shostakovich" was published in 1980, anti-Soviet intellectuals began to praise Shostakovich, and in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the image of Shostakovich as someone who hated Soviet society was established. Nowadays, it is gradually being recognized in Japan that Shostakovich was not simply an anti-establishment artist, but an artist who transcended the system.  In order to ponder the significance of the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, a Japanese anti-nuclear weapons movement group, we would like to use this announcement to once again inform researchers around the world about the "Singing Movement," which was a concrete manifestation of resistance to the damage caused by U.S. nuclear testing in the second half of the 20th century.