Stravinsky’s ‘Problematic’ Political Orientation during the 1920s and 1930s

A mixture of circumstances had prompted Stravinsky’s earnest desire to ‘become a good American citizen.’ Notwithstanding the tragic and destabilising personal state of affairs that faced the composer in the late 1930s as a result of the deaths within the space of only a few months of his first wife, mother and eldest daughter, professional reasons drove him to seek sanctuary across the Atlantic. At that time, it was primarily American institutions that were commissioning new works from him. Furthermore, Stravinsky realised that with the outbreak of war, further composing and performing opportunities in Europe would be severely limited. No less undermining was his increasingly cool relationship with his second adopted country, France. Having lived in the country for well over a decade with a stateless passport, Stravinsky had eventually secured French citizenship in 1934. Yet in the following year he felt humiliated at the way the French establishment had treated him after his candidature to replace the recently deceased Paul Dukas as a member of the Académie des Beaux Arts was rejected, with the native-born Frenchman, Florent Schmitt, elected to the post.