In light of the recent historiography of Vichy, which stresses its initial political concession, competing factions, and then escalating collaboration with the occupant, this book proposes new questions concerning the shifting nature of French cultural as well as political identity. As the occupation advanced, how did those responsible for cultural policies attempt to adapt their conceptions of French values to accord with the agenda of collaboration in all professional fields? How was French cultural identity and its relation to German culture gradually reconceived by both the occupant and by Vichy as the former played an increasingly interventionist role in music, a symbolic stake in the national self-image of both regimes? Employing the theoretical insights of Gramsci and Bourdieu into hegemony and how it is achieved and combated, this book examines the ways in which musical works were fostered or appropriated and transmitted—physically inscribed, framed, and presented during different phases of the regime as specific groups assumed power. As this study concomitantly demonstrates, we find not only accommodation but also resistance among those artists involved with Vichy’s institutions, and especially in music, where new cultural practices, strategies, and modes of communication emerged as musicians confronted the increasing loss of autonomy in their field. They were forced to assume a position along the spectrum from compliance to resistance on the basis of their perceptions, experience, and subjectivity. Some sought to maintain integrity and avoid appropriation while remaining visible, continuing subtly to innovate and incorporate alternative cultural representations proposed by the Resistance.
The Black Culture Movement and the Black Community