The Great Patriotic War in the Lives and Works of Composers and Musicologists of Chuvashia

The vicissitudes of the trials of the Great Patriotic War affected the fate of many figures of artistic culture of Chuvashia. Military themes were reflected in the music of Chuvash composers of the 20th century in a variety of ways. In this regard, the relevance of addressing the work and biographies of Chuvash musicians is obvious. The purpose of the paper is to identify and analyze works related to military themes in national music. The objectives of the research include consideration of the figurative, thematic and genre features of existing compositions, characterization of their musical and expressive means, clarification of biographical information about the authors-veterans. During the war years, the genre of mass song was popular, designed to support the patriotic spirit of the people and unite them in the fight against the enemy. Later, the tragic realities of the war found their meaning in operatic and symphonic compositions of a lyrical and dramatic nature. Members of the Union of Composers of Chuvashia, A.V. Aslamas, F.S. Vasiliev, A.M. Tokarev, and T.I. Fandeev, who fought at the front, most often addressed this topics. The oldest Chuvash musicologist, veteran Yu.A. Ilyukhin, made a huge contribution to the systematization of data on participants in military battles. The main research method in this article is source-based, the work covers a wide variety of works: scientific sources, archival materials, music editions and manuscripts, publications from periodicals. Factual, problem-chronological and analytical methods allowed us to summarize the results of the material under study. For the first time, the article brings together many facts that are not widely accessible to the general reader and examines them in the context of the presented topic.