The Sound of Socialism, Part 1

 What are the sounds of socialism? And does socialism sound different from capitalism? This question came up after reading the forum “Socialist Sound Worlds” in the Winter 2023 Slavic Review. But whether socialism sounded different was hard to know from the forum. Though its articles dealt with sound, ironically, no sounds accompanied them. Listeners know that the Eurasian Knot has featured listener submitted sounds from the region on our episodes. And given our interest in sound, we figured to do a short interview series with the authors featured in the Slavic Review forum. In this episode, we talk to one of the forum’s editors, Gabrielle Cornish, about her article, “Lenin in the Groove” and we listen to clips of Lenin’s voice, Soviet muzak, and a cosmonaut music box! Guest: Gabrielle Cornish is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research broadly considers music and everyday life in the Soviet Union. She’s currently finishing a book titled, Socialist Noise: Sound and Soviet Identity after Stalin.