Background
With the decadent freedom of jazz and the rebellious sneer of punk, the concept of music as symbolic of everything from politics to lifestyle is a familiar one in the United States and Western Europe . Censorship is also a recurrent issue, with “explicit lyrics” labels, the family-friendly policies of Wal-Mart and bans on songs and album covers deemed offensive. However, the symbolic power and restriction of music in Communist countries reached levels unseen in democracies – particularly when referring to such abstract elements as rhythm and instrumentation. Censorship laws in Eastern Europe shaped, and were shaped by, such disparate concepts as industrialization and modernity, nationalism and nostalgia, and racial purity and discrimination. In ways that were subtle, overt, even violent, the Communist governments erased and remodeled traditional music to suit their political ideals.
The Balkans, with such a mix of ethnicities and larger populations of Turks and Roma (gypsies), had particularly strict laws. Many aimed to marginalize and demonize a minority or to homogenize a newly-unified group of peoples. Bulgaria suffered the most, given its proximity to both Turkey and the Soviet Union , the arbiter of most cultural policies. The study of these policies in relation to the surrounding political climate offers insights into the power of music as metaphor. A government's policies regarding local and foreign music can often be used to outline its nationalistic and ethnic attitudes. This concept has become increasingly important over the last 30 years, when the experience of music, rather than its formal structure alone, became the prime factor in its meaning (Erlmann, 1996).
In order to develop a complete picture of how the political and cultural spheres interrelate, it is necessary to look at many aspects within and beyond them. Consequently, this paper will discuss the socio-political and musical landscapes before, during and after Communism. The musical aspects are particularly diverse, including instruments, rhythm, scales, lyrics, context, choreography, professionalization, cultural hybridity, dissemination through new technologies and control of the industry itself. However, the paper will also analyze other influential elements, such as the destruction of village life and subsequent rise of industrialization, race relations, religion, national self-image and the secondary economies of the 1980s. The ultimate revelation is the central role of music in every aspect of the private and public lives of those living behind the iron curtain and under an iron fist.
Most of the music considered is that which already existed during World War I – namely, the songs of villages. They represent a collective identity and connection with the past, and they were played by nearly everyone, rather than by a set of professional musicians. Spontaneous variations on lyrics were common, but the main content and structures were constant. This is a strong contrast with the post-WWII musical landscape. Corollaries in the United States are early country, bluegrass and folk music, though the Eastern European folk songs are considerably older. Their foundation is the opposite of modern rock, which is centered on individuality, or identification with a subculture, and innovation (old styles or songs are discarded). The exception is the rebellious, increasingly wild music of the Roma, whose style is unsurprisingly symbolic of their defiance of Communist authority. The main peoples considered are Bulgarians, Hungarians and the Roma – all of whom had quite different experiences and illustrate varied reactions to the limitations placed upon them. However, other countries, including Czechoslovakia , those that formed Communist Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union are also discussed.
The concept of national identity and ideology, as well as its marriage to folklore, began in earnest in the late nineteenth century, and could be found all over Europe. Widespread surges of national pride and idealization of the past, the beginnings of folklore as a defined discipline, and the first recording equipment all appeared at that time. The seeds of the industrial revolution, influence of Romanticism and newfound freedom are thought to be primary catalysts (Baumann, 1996) . The Balkan states had just won independence from the Ottoman Turks and were proud of their autonomy (Rywkin, 2001) . Lingering resentment toward the Turks would factor prominently in post-WWII censorship battles and is indeed voiced today, even among youths, in several Balkan countries (personal communication, Aug.-Sept. 2003). Thirty-five years later, the same surge of nationalism can be seen in the newly-formed Czechoslovakia , finally free of the dissolved Austro-Hungarian empire (Porter, 1994).
Hungarians, however, were still suffering under Austrian rule in the late 1800s. With no property or voting rights, they and other dominated countries found happiness and identity in music and dance. It was one of the few things they still possessed. Even when they were prohibited by the Czechs from wearing their folk costumes, the underlying traditions and songs managed to survive . Hungarians developed a national identity sooner than other countries, using music as a legitimate claim to their land – noting that the underlying musical similarities throughout the country reflect a unified people. This increased after losing two-thirds of their territory after WWI (Hirsch, 1997) .
The early establishment, central role and consistency of Hungarian folk music are likely reasons for its nearly-intact survival through centuries of threatened identity and oppression. They go so far as to equate it with political power and compatibility. The Hungarians' greater borrowing in the exchange of musical influences with Slovaks was considered a “dangerous Slovakian infiltration.” And the lack of mutual influence between German and Hungarian music “proves that the difference between their collective souls is almost unbridgeable.” Even within the country, those villages that are furthest away from Budapest are thought to be the most authentic. And those in lost territories, such as those in Romania and Slovakia , are “more Hungarian than Hungary .” They termed their systematic approach (despite its romantic ideations) “folk music science” and used detailed intellectual and ideological constructs to prove the existence of a “folk soul” (Hirsch, 1997) .
Both of these situations – newfound sovereignty and continual oppression – found an expression in folk music. Collectors, folklorists and festivals sprang up as the twentieth century loomed. These also appeared in reaction to modernity in western European countries, which developed sooner than their eastern neighbors. Tourist-judged alphorn festivals appeared in Switzerland as early as 1806. The ideological aspects, though, were absent (Baumann, 1996) . Classical composer/musicologists such as Hungarian Bela Bartok and Czech Leos Janacek began incorporating folk themes into their pieces and studying their origins.
These were the beginnings of folklore becoming “folklorism,” as those one step removed were studying and preserving, rather than experiencing it firsthand (Broughton, Ellingham and Trillo, 1999) . These studies were the forerunners of the ubiquitous Folklore Institutes of the Academies of Science the soviets opened all over eastern Europe. Several were created in the 1950s, as the soviet propaganda machine shifted into high gear. These institutes held archives of music and scholarship, both real and fabricated. Other earlier archives and institutes occasionally existed, but the Institutes were the first large-scale archives of folklore. But in spite of the intelligentsia's tendency to trap it amber for study, living village music was still the heart of national identity and social interaction until the 1950s.