Zofia Lissa on Popular Music or How the Influence of Marxist Ideology Impacted the Research on Pop Music in Socialist Poland.

In socialist Poland - as in many countries in the proximity of the USSR - the problem of popular (also referred to as light or entertainment) music was largely ignored in musicological writings. In this paper it is claimed that the tendency, in Poland, to omit the research and publications dealing with popular music can be, at least partially, linked to the reception and the legacy of works published in the 1940s and 1950s by several prominent Marxist musicologists, and predominantly those of Zofia Lissa (1908- 1980), whose role in the history of Polish musicology cannot be overlooked. Through a critical reading some of her selected papers this paper presents Lissa's arguments for and against popular music. The paper will also consider how her influential opinions impacted the research of popular music in Poland in the second half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]