Playing with Fire

ACRONYMS

ASM

(Assotsiatsiya Sovremennoi Muzyki) Association of Contemporary Music, 1923–9. Officially closed 1932.

BSO

(Bolshoi simfonicheski orkestr) Large Symphony Orchestra. The acronym for the All-Union Radio orchestra, previously known as Orkestr VRK (Orkestr Vsesoyuznyogo Radio komiteta), Orchestra of the All-Union Radio committee.

Cheka (ChK)

(Chrezvychainaya Komissiya po Bor’be s Kontrrevolyutsiei i Sabotazhem) The Extraordinary Commission to fight Counterrevolution and Sabotage. Established in December 1917, it was effectively the first Soviet secret police organisation.

DZZ

(Dom Zvukozapisei) The House of Sound Recordings. Between 1936 and 1958 it served both as a concert hall and a recording studio, where the first shellac records were made as well as most radio broadcasts. Taken over by Gosteleradio in 1958.

Glavrepertkom

(Glavniy Reportuarniy Komitet) Main Repertoire Committee. A censorship organisation (part of GlavLit) responsible for authorising theatre and concert performance repertoire.

ISCM

International Society for Contemporary Music. Founded in 1922 and still active today.

KGB

(Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti) Committee of State Security. Founded in 1954, it acted as successor to previous secret police organisation (Cheka, GPU; NKVD etc).

Komsomol

(Komunisticheski Soyuz Molodezhi) Communist Youth Union. Full name VLKSM, standing for All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League. Founded in 1918.

LASM

(Leningradskaya Assositsiatsiya Sovremennoi Muzyki) Leningrad Association of Contemporary Music. Active between 1925 and 1928.

MORS

(Mezhdunarodnyaya Organizatsiya Pomoshchi Bortsam Revolyutsii) International Organisation for Aid to Fighters for the Revolution. Yudina refers to MOPS, either a misprint or a subsidiary of MORS, usually known in English as International Red Aid, founded in 1922 with the aim to support both materially and morally political prisoners of all regimes and victims of class war.

Mossoviet

(Moskovskoi gorodskoi soviet) Moscow Town Council founded in 1917.

Muzfond SSSR

(Musykalny fond SSSR) The Music Fund of the USSR was created in 1939 as part of the Union of Composers, as a means to help finance composers’ and musicologists’ needs, from folklore expeditions, vacations in ‘creative rest homes’ to professional expenses such as copying scores and providing commissions and material aid.

Muzgiz

(Gosudartvennoye Muzykal’noye Izdatel’stvo) State Music Publishers, founded in 1930, taking over from the musical sector of the State publishers.

Narkomfin

(Harodni Kommisariat Finansov) People’s Commissariat for Finance. Dom Narkomfina refers to a constructivist building in Moscow erected between 1928 and 1930, designed for ‘communal living’.

NEP

(Novaya Ekonomicheskaya Politika) New Economic Policy, 1921–8. A partially free market economy allowing private enterprise so that the country could get back on the rails economically after the civil war.

NKVD

(Narodniy Kommisariat Vnutrennikh Del) People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, established in 1917, amongst whose responsibilities was overseeing prisons and labour camps. In 1934 it took over the secret police role from the GPU, while in 1946 it became the Ministry for Internal Affairs.

Oberiu

(Ob’edineniye Real’nogo Iskusstva) Unification of Real Art. A Leningrad ‘absurdist’ group created in 1926 by writers Daniil Kharms, Alexander Vvedensky and Nikolai Zabolotsky. Its first public meeting took place in January 1928. The group stopped functioning in the early 1930s.

Oberiut/i

Member/s of the Oberiu group.

OGPU (also GPU)

( Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskpye Upravleniye) State Political Directorate. Organisation responsible for internal security between 1923 and 1934, replacing the Cheka.

POMPOLIT

(Pomoshch Politicheskim Zaklyuchyonnym) Help to Political Prisoners. An offshoot of the Political Red Cross founded in 1922 by Yekaterina Peshkova and Mikhail Vinaver. Closed in 1937.

RAPM (also VAPM and APM)

( Rossiskaya Assotsiyatsiya Proletarskikh Muzykantov) Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. Founded in 1923, active in late 1920s and disbanded in 1932.

SEKSOT

(Sekretni sotrudnik) Secret collaborator. An informer. A term invented by the Soviet security organs, that was used more widely only in the derogatory sense.

TASS

(Telegrafnoye Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union.

TseKUBU

(Tsentralnaya Kommissiya po Ulucheniyu Byta Uchyonykh) Central Commission for the Betterment of Scientists’ Life. An organisation which existed between 1922 and 1937.

VKhuTEMAS

(Vyshchiye Khudozhestvenniye Tekhnicheskiye Masterskiye) Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops. Founded immediately after the Revolution for free study of the Arts, open to all initially without need to take an entry examination.

VOKS

(Vsesoyuznoye Obshchestvo Kulturnoi Svyazi s Zagranitsei) All-Union Society for Links with Abroad. Created in 1925 to promote cultural exchange with other countries.

VRK

(Vsesoyuznyj Radio Orkestr) All-Union Radio orchestra, 1930–52. It then became known as BSO (see above).

VTO

(Vserossisjoye Teatralnoye Obshchestvo) All Russian Theatrical Society initially founded in 1877. In Soviet times it existed between 1932 and 1992 as the Union of Theatre Workers. The VTO Soviet Opera Ensemble was founded by Ivan Kozlovsky in 1938.