Mieczysław Weinberg and the Category of Borderland

Abstract

Polish musicologist and author Danuta Gwizdalanka titled her publication Mieczysław Wajnberg: kompozytor z trzech światów [Mieczysław Weinberg: Composer from Three Worlds] (Poznań, 2013). Weinberg (1919–1996) was a Polish composer with Jewish roots who spent most of his life in the USSR. Without any doubt, he can be called ‘a composer from the borderland’ due to his ‘hybrid identity’, which was one of the most important reasons that affected the appreciation of Weinberg’s output both during his lifetime and after death. The main ideas of this paper centre on the category of ‘borderland’ and its representations in Weinberg’s biography and oeuvre. According to the typology proposed by Krzysztof Zajas, Weinberg’s life and works can be considered in terms of the following types of borderland: interdisciplinary, spatial, psychological, existential, sociological, and mythological. Through the prism of the category of ‘borderland’, Weinberg’s creative work manifests itself as a highly individual and invaluable testimony of his times, Far from eclectic and epigonic in relation to the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, his oeuvre is unique in the world’s music literature.