Alexander Aliab’ev, Decembrism, and Russia’s Orient

Abstract

This chapter considers the formation of an early-nineteenth-century Russian discourse about Russia’s own Orient. It focuses on how the Decembrist movement, with its particularly favorable perception of Caucasian mountaineers, shaped the view of oriental “others.” The growth of nationalism and imperial expansion and the influence of western European Orientalism complicated the issue. The chapter delineates a category of purely Russian musical portraits of the “other” in the repertoire of art songs by Alexander Aliab’ev (1787–1851). Aliab’ev’s personal experience with authorities, years in exile, and travel to the Caucasus—during which he became acquainted with new sonorities, scales, and rhythms—resulted in the unique musical language he assigned to the oppressed non-Russians living in the empire’s southern and eastern outskirts. His art songs, based on original transcriptions and inspired by Decembrist literature, allowed subjugated minorities to sing with their own musical and linguistic accents.