Music Sociology in the GDR: Under Conditions of Political Dictatorship, Despite of Political Dictatorship

Abstract

Christian Kaden, who sadly passed away shortly after the Vienna conference, refers to his personal experience as researcher under a dictatorship, the former German Democratic Republic. Often ignored, however, is the fact that scientific activities in such a regime produced remarkable results, not because of the dictatorship but despite it. The development of music sociology is, according to Kaden, an example of this. Up to the end of the 1960s, some rights of sociology as an independent academic discipline were accepted: the so-called ‘special sociologies’ got the chance to define themselves as niches where, in contrast to ideological indoctrination, explicitly positive theories could be formulated and empirical studies could be realized. Thus, at least during the 1970s and the 1980s, music sociology succeeded in keeping its distance from the dogmas of the predominant Marxism-Leninism. In particular, East Berlin musicology developed an advanced model of interdisciplinary research. The central figure of the scene was Georg Knepler, who organized an efficient network of private and semi-official contacts with leading scientists in different disciplines, e.g. from linguistics, cognitive psychology and ethnomusicology. The functional model of musical communication represented by Georg Knepler, Reiner Kluge and others, published in Kaden’s ‘Musiksoziologie’ in 1984, appeared as a convincing alternative to the highly conservative structure of German musicology. Kaden’s contribution is therefore an appeal to remember the scientific strategies which might again be strategies of the future.

Christian Kaden died before he could revise this text for publication. Our sincere gratitude goes to Mrs Ingrid Kaden, who allowed us to publish his speech in its version of September 2015.