Jazz in Osteuropa / Jazz in Eastern Europe

A joint research project of scholars from the Freie Universität Berlin and colleagues from Poland, Hungary and Slovakia will explore the socio-political significance of jazz in Eastern Europe, as Ilka Seer reports ( Tagesspiegel ). The project looks at "opposition through cultural transfer" and is funded by the Volkswagen Foundation with a grant of 350.000 Euro. Jazz as "music of freedom and democracy" was seen as dangerous in the socialist countries of Eastern Europe, as project supervisor Prof. Dr. Gertrud Pickhan of the Freie Universität's Osteuropa-Institut explains. Partial studies will examine the role jazz played in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany as well as jazz as "Jewish music".