Abstract: The object of this research is the unpublished and mostly unknown texts of M. F. Gnesin on the Jewish music culture: the report “Richard Wagner and Judaism” (1913), article “Anti-Semitism and Music” (1915), as well as manuscripts dedicated to the history and theoretical bases of Jewish music (“Jewish Music” and others, 1920’s). The subject of this research is the problems of cultural identity, national self-consciousness, “musical” nationalism that reflect a complicated process of establishments of the professional Jewish music culture in Russia of the early XX century. The key research methods contain the analysis of the handwritten and printed texts of M. F. Gnesin, as well as comparison of their fundamental premises and conclusions with the perspective of the national and foreign contemporaries. The following conclusions were made: Gnesin is one of the first national scholars, who comprehensively studied the history and stylistic peculiarities of Jewish music; Gnesin’s texts touch upon most important and relevant for his time questions – not only musicological, culturological, but also philosophical, social, psychological (particularly the phenomenon of the so-called “Jewish self-hatred”), as well as reflect the evolution of views upon the Jewish music culture within the environment of the representatives of Jewish intelligentsia of the early XX century. The scientific novelty consists in introducing into the scientific discourse the unstudied and unpublished texts of M. F. Gnesin, which have not previously been the subject of a particular research.

Abstract: The subject of the research is the conception of the synthesis of music and painting offered by Mikhail Gnessin. The object of the research is understudied and unknown researches of Mikhail Gnessin that reflect the main provisions of his conception. The author pays special attention to Mikhail Gnessin's unpublished text 'Rimsky-Korsakov and Painting' (1940's) in which Gnessin fully presents his views on the interaction between music and painting and describes techniques of 'sound recording' in orchestra compositions based on Rimsky-Korsakov's studybook 'The Basics of Orchestration'. The main research methods are the analysis of Gnessin's hand-written and published texts as well as comparison of the main provisions of his concept with analogous theories of art synthesis offered by other authors. The main conclusions of the article are the following. Gnessin offers his own conception of the synthesis of music and painting through interaction of their 'ultimate' features (music can be picturesque and spatial and painting can have temporal and constructive parameters), this concept reflecting the most progressive trends in art of the XXth century. 'Rimsky-Korsakov and Painting' is one of the first researches to be devoted to the interaction between music and painting based on the creative work of Rimsky-Korsakov (at the level of the smallest elements 'color - sound', techniques of musical 'sound recording', and musical dramaturgy). The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the author of the article introduces understudied and unpublished texts by Gnessin including a fundamental research 'Rimsky-Korsakov and Painting' which has never been a subject of particular research before.