MUSICIANSHIP AND SINGING IN ARKADY GAIDAR’S NOVEL TIMUR AND HIS TEAM

Abstract

The article deals with the motif of singing and music-making in the story “Timur and his team” (1940) by Arkady Gaidar. The author analyses 18 episodes in which the characters of the story sing or play music: a musical amateur performance (staging an opera), home and amateur music-making, Red Army chorus, trumpeter’s signals, performing a “novelty romance” and ditties accompanied by a fight, shouts of a milkmaid, improvised orchestra concert by children playing on “bottles, cans, bottles and sticks”, use of musical toys and so on. The musical texture of the novel is placed in the context of the mass musical culture of the 1930s and in the tradition of Russian classical music. The functions of this motif in the text of the story are revealed: the creation of an atmosphere of a dacha village near Moscow, allusions, and characterization of adult heroes. The article shows how the irony of the author is expressed through scenes of singing and music-making, and how the author’s accents are placed in the depiction and evaluation of characters. The analysis of this motif allows us to propose new interpretations of the world of children and adults depicted in A. Gaidar’s story; the relevant categories which distinguish children and adults in the story are original/secondary, natural/artificial, and improvisation/performance.

Keywords: Soviet chiмldren’s literature, Arkady Gaidar, Timur and his team, motif, singing, music