Contemporary Musicology in a Neither/Nor State. Challenging the Status of Music(ologic)al Periphery

Abstract

This paper deals with the reception of European avant-garde in the Serbian/Yugoslav context of the 20th century, scrutinized in the highly influential study by Serbian musicologist Mirjana Veselinović-Hofman, “Creative Presence of European Avant-Garde with Us” [Stvaralačka prisutnost evropske avangarde u nas] (1983). While dealing with the musical reception of the avant-garde between the wars and during the sixties and the seventies, Veselinović-Hofman creates a musicological narrative through which we can observe several problematic knots regarding the model of center and periphery.