Introduction to Music and the Politics of Memory: Resounding Antifascism across Borders

Abstract

The idea for this special issue of Popular Music and Society was born out of a joint fieldwork project between the University of Cologne, Germany, and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana. It was our common interest in the sounding memories of antifascism that brought us together in 2015. All of us had formerly inquired into musical memories of the World War II antifascist resistances, focusing on the distinct locales of the former Yugoslavia (Ana Hofman), Italy (Federico Spinetti), and Germany (Monika E. Schoop). With the support of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Slovenian National Research Agency (ARRS) through a bilateral exchange program, our research focus expanded as we set out in 2017 to pursue the trajectories of antifascist music across borders-a topic that had received hardly any scholarly attention. Our joint research led us to the market square of Rijeka in Croatia, where we documented antifascist songs from different times and geo-cultural areas performed by the Pinko Tomažič Partisan Choir of Trieste (Tržaški partizanski zbor Pinko Tomažič/Coro Partigiano Triestino Pinko Tomažič). The choir was founded in 1972 and is named after a Slovenian antifascist activist and member of the Italian Communist Party killed in 1941. Our inquiry brought us to the outskirts of Trieste in Italy, where we attended staged performances and the collective singing of antifascist songs on a 1 May celebration organized by the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation Party). We sang antifascist songs from Spain, Italy, Germany, and the former Yugoslavia at a communal singing session at the bar Weißer Holunder in Cologne, Germany, an event hosted by organizers of the Edelweißpiratenfestival, which commemorates youth resistance against the Nazi regime. We further traced transnational networks of persecution, inquiring into the fate of young Slovenian resistance fighters at the site of the former youth concentration camp of Moringen, in the vicinity of Göttingen, Germany, the camp to which also members of the Swingjugend (Swing Youth) from Hamburg were deported during World War II. Like other youth groups who refused to conform to Nazi ideology, these young people who listened to swing and jazz, and dressed in a distinct style that clearly set them apart from the Hitler Youth, were classified as subversive by the German secret police Gestapo (Lange). Our research stems from and indeed corroborates the perception that antifascism is a transnational phenomenon. Traveling across borders, the sounding memories of CONTACT Federico Spinetti

Evaluation of the Influence of Music on Modern Culture and Society

“…Therefore, the benefits of music can change the world through mitigating bias and conflicts in society. Music is the aspect which can develop the mental state of human civilisation and develop the mental states of the human civilisation resulting in the development of society [16]. Music is a form of art that has the ability to change society in modern times.…”

Creating Atmospheric Coherence through Commemorative Rituals, Singing Partisan Songs, and Rehearsed Affect

“…: 49); but in the context of the commemoration and partisan song today, we can still speak about these symbolic links. 21 In the last decade, the actualization of revolutionary and partisan songs has been more present in the Slovenian, ex-Yugoslav, and wider international arenas in the context of the struggle against nationalism, neoliberalism, social inequalities, and neo-fascism (Hofman and Pogačar 2017;Petrović 2016;Hofman 2015b;Spinetti et al 2020). More specifically, the partisan song, sung either by an activist choir or by demonstrators at protests, is used to "(re)articulate the values or set the parameters for potential alternatives to the present conditions" (Hofman and Pogačar 2017: 22) and usually represents a struggle against current social injustices, inequalities, and certain political ideologies.…”

A microphone in a chandelier: How a secret recording sparks mnemonic imagination and affect

“…To approach these questions, I embarked on an analysis of the song, departing from the frame of media memory and music studies (Daughtry, 2015; Hofman, 2020; LaBelle, 2010; Pogačar, 2015), approaching music ‘as conduit of memory’ (Spinetti et al, 2020: 3), as a temporal object (Stiegler, 2014) that drives imagination and reveals shifting meanings and uses of the song. This approach targets the complexity of the song’s sociocultural lives: its role in mnemonic imagination that Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering (2012) define as ‘the faculty that allows us to move between personal experience and social meaning’ (pp.…”