Lenin & music - hazards of indirect quote

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues and Prof Givens:

It's fascinating that several variations are cited on a supposed statement 
by Comrade Ul'ianov-Lenin about the "Appassionata."  Reminds me of the 
supposed quotation by Lenin about the "importance of film."

I remember that I once tried to track down and confirm Lenin's actual, 
original film-statement.  If memory serves, I discovered that Lenin had 
supposedly made the statement appx 1921, when supposedly it was 
heard by culture-minister Lunacharsky.  After considerable time had 
passed, perhaps even after Lenin had died, Comrade Lunacharsky 
(perhaps relying on memory?) quoted those words at a journalists' 
conference, TWO OR THREE YEARS AFTER THE FACT.   And it was that 
much later, "second hand" quotation which was taken as gospel by 
many later Soviet media historians.

Seems possible the same thing could have happened in connection 
with the "Appassionata."  If no tape recorder was turned on to capture 
Lenin's exact words, and if no trained stenographer was breathlessly 
inking onto paper his every syllable,   then we probably can never 
know for sure his exact statement or its exact meaning...

Happy Easter (belatedly),
Steven P Hill,
Univeristy of Illinois (USA).
_________________________________________________________________

Date: Tue 25 Mar 08:36:39 CDT 2008
From: <LISTSERV at bama.ua.edu> 
Subject: Re: GETPOST SEELANGS 
To: "Steven P. Hill" <s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU> 

Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:40:47 -0400
From: John Givens <givn at MAIL.ROCHESTER.EDU> 
Subject: Lenin question . . . 

Dear Seelangs:
I am posting a query from a colleague in German regarding Lenin's famous
Beethoven quote. If anyone can help out, please respond on- or off-list and I
will forward your responses.
Bol'shoe spasibo!
John Givens
givn at mail.rochester.edu
...............................................................................................

I am writing a paper on "The Lives of Others" and am trying to get the
specifics on a supposed quote from Lenin. In the film, the main
character says that, upon listening to Beethoven's Appassionata, Lenin
said,
"If I keep listening to it, I won’t finish the revolution."
I found several versions of this. One said something to the effect of "I
can't listen too often to this music because it makes me want to stroke
the heads of those, whose heads I must pummel/whose brains I must,
without pity, dash out!" [The German: Ich kann diese Musik nicht oft
hören, weil ich sonst Menschen die Köpfe streicheln will, denen ich sie
doch einschlagen muss, mitleidslos einschlagen.]
An article from Time quoting him in 1947, quotes him thus: ". . . but I
cannot listen to music too often. It affects my nerves and makes me want
to say sweet nothings and stroke the heads of men who live in a dirty
hell and can still create such beauty. But these days you can't go
around stroking people's heads lest your hand be bitten off. You have to
smash them over the head—smash them without mercy—even though in theory
we are against every form of oppression of mankind . . . ours is a
hellish task."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794511,00.html
I also found it in Lukács' "Lenin - Theoretician of Practice": . . .
Gorky recorded Lenin’s very characteristic words spoken after he
listened to Beethoven’s Appassionata sonata: “I know the Appassionata
inside out and yet I am willing to listen to it every day. It is
wonderful, ethereal music. On hearing it I proudly, maybe somewhat
naively, think: See! people are able to produce such marvels!” He then
winked, laughed and added sadly: “I’m often unable to listen to music,
it gets on my nerves, I would like to stroke my fellow beings and
whisper sweet nothings in their ears for being able to produce such
beautiful things in spite of the abominable hell they are living in.
However, today one shouldn’t caress anybody - for people will only bite
off your hand; strike, without pity, although theoretically we are
against any kind of violence. Umph, it is, in fact, an infernally
difficult task!”
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/xxxx/lenin.htm
Finally, Zizek suggests it is an anecdote that has been used
particularly among Lenin's detractors, as proof of his extreme self
control, but that this "extreme sensitivity" he showed to the music be
read in the context of his knowledge that it needed to be kept in check
for the sake of the political struggle.
http://www.lacan.com/zizek-seize.htm 
Can anyone tell me anything about this? Does anyone know what kind 
of role it played in Soviet discourses on art (particularly bourgeois art)?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Jenny
John Givens
Associate Professor of Russian
University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0082
______________________________________________________________________

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