Machteld Venken (Catholic University of Leuven)
Signing a meaning to war memory
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, about 2.1 million Ostarbeiterinnen, Soviet young women of Ukrainian, Russian or Belarusian decent, were deported to Germany and Austria to do forced labour. Being the first generation having grown up with the revolutionary ideas of the young Soviet state, these women had received intensive music training in Soviet propaganda songs. The training enabled the songs to become a means of making sense to life for them. During World War II, Ostarbeiterinnen faced experiences which could not be articulated through the songs they had learned. Therefore, they composed alternative lyrics to propaganda melodies or searched for alternative singing practices in order to give meaning to their war experiences. They thus still used Soviet songs with their hollow propaganda slogans and symbols, but found ways to sing beyond them.
About 4,000 Ostarbeiterinnen migrated to Belgium after liberation, and about 1,000 of these former Ostarbeiterinnen gathered in an immigrant organisation, the Association for Soviet Patriots/Citizens (Soiuz Sovetskikh Patriotov - further SSP, from 1953 onwards Soiuz Sovetskikh Grazhdan - further SSG). This contribution focuses on how its members together practised war memory through singing. It focuses on singing practices during the gatherings of the organisation, examining how during the choir rehearsals and concerts of SSP/SSG, a group memory was constituted which gave meaning to the war experiences of its members.
During the Cold War, Soviet authorities displayed soldiers’ wartime activities as exemplary for the virtuous patriotic nature of Soviet citizens and marginalized war experiences deviating from this image. They meticulously prevented the voices of former Ostarbeiterinnen from contradicting this official Soviet narrative on war memory and succeeded to a great extent within the Soviet Union. In Belgium, the Soviet Embassy and the ‘Motherland’ Association in Moscow, an organisation set up by the Soviet Union to maintain contact with Soviet migrants living abroad, intensively controlled the SSP/SSG’s working. As a consequence, the repertoire of SSP/SSG mainly consisted of Soviet propaganda songs articulating the official Soviet narrative on war memory. Members were willing to sing them, because they knew that only through actively participating in the SSP/SSG, they had a change to be granted a visa to travel home. Nevertheless, the SSP/SSG members, through singing, were able to develop an own narrative on war memory. Like during the war, they found ways of manoeuvre beyond the fixed framework of control.
During rehearsals, singing could function as music therapy, making the unpronounceable pronounceable. The choirs for instance continued to sing original propaganda songs with alternative lyrics created during World War II, in this way silencing but not forgetting the accompanying second layers of meaning articulating for instance hunger, homesickness and resistance. During concerts, moreover, choir members dialogued with Belgian audiences. They performed certain songs on stage in such an order, to gain approval from the public, in this way articulating an appeal to be included in Belgian narratives on war memory.
Liberated Belgium initially narrated itself through an imagined national identification of collective resistance and a deliberate forgetting of whatever did not fit into that narrative. An identification of Flemish Catholicism and collaborationism would only proliferate throughout the following decades. During all time, however, Ostarbeiterinnen were perceived as being ‘communists’ or ‘war whores’. The choir members sung for instance a specific Belgian song in order to conform to the normative stereotypisation of virtuousness in post-war Belgium. Or, they visually presented their war experiences on stage through a for Belgians recognisable Holocaust lens by means of concentration camp outfits. Their appeal to be, in this way, integrated in Belgian narratives on war memory, was, however, uttered in vain.
About 4,000 Ostarbeiterinnen migrated to Belgium after liberation, and about 1,000 of these former Ostarbeiterinnen gathered in an immigrant organisation, the Association for Soviet Patriots/Citizens (Soiuz Sovetskikh Patriotov - further SSP, from 1953 onwards Soiuz Sovetskikh Grazhdan - further SSG). This contribution focuses on how its members together practised war memory through singing. It focuses on singing practices during the gatherings of the organisation, examining how during the choir rehearsals and concerts of SSP/SSG, a group memory was constituted which gave meaning to the war experiences of its members.
During the Cold War, Soviet authorities displayed soldiers’ wartime activities as exemplary for the virtuous patriotic nature of Soviet citizens and marginalized war experiences deviating from this image. They meticulously prevented the voices of former Ostarbeiterinnen from contradicting this official Soviet narrative on war memory and succeeded to a great extent within the Soviet Union. In Belgium, the Soviet Embassy and the ‘Motherland’ Association in Moscow, an organisation set up by the Soviet Union to maintain contact with Soviet migrants living abroad, intensively controlled the SSP/SSG’s working. As a consequence, the repertoire of SSP/SSG mainly consisted of Soviet propaganda songs articulating the official Soviet narrative on war memory. Members were willing to sing them, because they knew that only through actively participating in the SSP/SSG, they had a change to be granted a visa to travel home. Nevertheless, the SSP/SSG members, through singing, were able to develop an own narrative on war memory. Like during the war, they found ways of manoeuvre beyond the fixed framework of control.
During rehearsals, singing could function as music therapy, making the unpronounceable pronounceable. The choirs for instance continued to sing original propaganda songs with alternative lyrics created during World War II, in this way silencing but not forgetting the accompanying second layers of meaning articulating for instance hunger, homesickness and resistance. During concerts, moreover, choir members dialogued with Belgian audiences. They performed certain songs on stage in such an order, to gain approval from the public, in this way articulating an appeal to be included in Belgian narratives on war memory.
Liberated Belgium initially narrated itself through an imagined national identification of collective resistance and a deliberate forgetting of whatever did not fit into that narrative. An identification of Flemish Catholicism and collaborationism would only proliferate throughout the following decades. During all time, however, Ostarbeiterinnen were perceived as being ‘communists’ or ‘war whores’. The choir members sung for instance a specific Belgian song in order to conform to the normative stereotypisation of virtuousness in post-war Belgium. Or, they visually presented their war experiences on stage through a for Belgians recognisable Holocaust lens by means of concentration camp outfits. Their appeal to be, in this way, integrated in Belgian narratives on war memory, was, however, uttered in vain.
