Political Aspects Of Bards' Song In Contemporary Russia

Abstract

The phenomenon of Russian culture, defined as «bards' song», has successfully overcome the crisis, which occurred in the period of Perestroika. The acquisition by the population of the access to the forbidden or semi-legal texts of the songs, which were never published, uncrowned many sincere but not very professional authors of these songs. There emerged some singing poets, who turned out to be in demand in the market economy, and for whom the bards' song turned out to be a paid professional activity. Good poetry was supplemented by quite good musical accompaniment, and the political tunes began to sound in the texts of new Russian bards. Another merit of contemporary Russian bards is laughter generated by them, which allows not only to give up the false ideals of the past, but also not to take seriously the erroneous decisions of contemporary politicians. Political bards' song in the situation of lack of state censorship, stopped being the Soviet underground; it also did not transform into the sort of Russia museum exhibit. One can use different criteria in order to give the definition of the bards song, among which there are the following ones: 1) attitude of the political authority toward a created song, possibilities of its performance for the public on the regular basis (this criterion worked in the totalitarian society, but it is inapplicable in the democratic state); 2) professional status of an author (this criterion also worked well in the Soviet system, but it is inapplicable today); 3) quality of poetry, which was initially considered as secondary as regards the texts of professional poets-song-writers (this criterion does not have political limitations); 4) professionalism of the musical accompaniment (this criterion is vague nowadays — contemporary Russian bards use for their musical accompaniment not only the guitar, but also the piano, the accordion, the mandolin, the flute, the cello, the violin, the viola, the balalaika, the clarinet, percussions and other instruments); 5) place and level of publicity of the song's performance (in the USSR such places were mainly various formal and informal tourist camps and home concerts; today this criterion does not work). Thus, as the administrative barriers on the path of the development of bards' song were removed, it became just one of the kinds of art, which synthesize (as well as pop music) poetry, music and theater action. However bards' song has kept substantial features, which distinguish it from the pop music: 1) elitist audience; 2) semantic emphasis on poetry; 3) obligatory presence of the author's personality in the song; 4) lack of the so-called «untouchable» themes (bard's good feature is that he can laugh or be sad about the topics, toward which the official pop music has an anxious attitude); 5) civil standpoint of the author. As it was shown above, during the Soviet period of the country's development bards had every reason to dislike the state authorities. And many bards reciprocated this — they did it practically openly like A. Galich or by «locking it in the tables» like Y. Kim, the songs, which due to their content could not have been performed in public within those conditions. Allusions were allowed, but only to a very limited number of bards, who could do this only in a very small extent. When the Perestroika began, it turned out that practically each more or less well-known bard had a rather big number of political songs, anti-Soviet in their meaning. During the first period of the Perestroika (approximately 1986-1988) bards criticized first of all the past of the country, they practically didn't pay any attention to the modern life of the country. However it were not the political moments which interest the majority of the Soviet bards at the end of the 1980-es. The illusions, that their time has come, that there occurred a remake of the political thaw of the end of the 1950-es — the beginning of the 1960-es, turned their head and forced them to arrange public performances. Old songs were sung in front of bigger audiences, and there emerged a sharp problem of creating something new, of the search for some new paths of the development of bards' song. During this period they began to talk about the crisis of the bards' song itself. However the crisis of the end of the 1980-es embraced all sides of life of the Soviet Union — ideology, economy, social sphere, consumer market. In order to survive and to be in demand in the new conditions, bards' song was forced to go through a very difficult path of restructurization. By this term we mean the change of the profile themes of such songs. During the Soviet period the key theme of the absolute majority of bards' songs was a person distant from the Soviet society. This position was achieved within two basic trends. Firstly, the lyrical hero of bards' song could separate himself from other people within natural surroundings. Geographical resource of bards' creative work is inexhaustible. The second trend was more significant: the songs, which belong to it were devoted to natural human feelings, falling beyond the Soviet «novoyaz». However a new quality of bards' song was born as a result of the action of three main factors — 1) traditional independence of bards from the authority peculiar immunity as regards the authority; 2) lack of political censorship; 3) non-standard views of bards on standard Russian problems. As a result there emerged many bards' songs in the genre practiced earlier by A. Galich and Y. Kim. This phenomenon obtained mass character, and the list of the authors, for whom the genre of political song-pamphlet (-satire) turned out to be predominant, has considerably expanded. The number of such songs has increased, their themes have expanded. Contemporary political bards' song in Russia became much more tough: it practically doesn't have either facts or characters, free from criticism. At the same time the task of bards has become more complicated: there is no any gap between official interpretation of the events in mass media and their common perception. This had an influence on authors-bards: they were forced to raise considerably the level of the texts of their songs, to look for non-standard turns. Today bards of different generations successfully work in the genre of political song — elder generation (A. Gorodnitskiy, Y. Kim), middle (Vad. and Val. Mishuks, L. Sergeev), young generation (M. Kochetkov, T. Shaov). Their songs may be divided into several groups — historical, devoted to contemporary events (including those devoted to the highest strata of Russian authority, to the characteristics of the behavior of a Russian household in current political situation, and also songs-ballades, songs-reflections, which claim to a certain philosophic comprehension of the period, through which our country goes now) and finally prognostic songs. The demand of the population with the high educational qualification for the political bards' song will remain in future. What do the representatives of this part of Russian society expect from such songs? First of all, they expect an alternative view on the political life of the country. The priority of human but not state values is typical for the new society. However the political system turned out to be not ready for such «volte-face». The evidence of this may be found in recurring attempts to create a national idea for Russia. In this circumstances critical attitude toward whatever ideological values (people's patriotic, liberal etc.) will be in demand. Secondly, bards' political song gives an opportunity to laugh at serious things. For example, in the modem epoch it is rather stupid to argue in earnest about the so-called national idea. In this case one may talk only about the method of getting the resources for the financing of activities by various expert structures and by individual experts. A great number of bards' songs is devoted to inexpediency of such attempts. Thus, the prospects of political bards' songs also depend on the level of adequacy of the perception of social and economic realities of the country by the bodies of legislative and executive power. The fewer administrative efforts will be applied by the authority to ideological, moral and patriotic and other spheres, the fewer motives will the bards have to write political songs. Thirdly, it is necessary to say about the financial aspect of bards' political song. The increase of real cash incomes of the population within the conditions of economic growth in the country promotes the realization of bards' song as a whole and political bards' song in particular in the form of commercial projects. This market is certainly incommensurable by its extent with the market of a song, referable to mass culture, but it develops according to the same rules. There emerge competitive structures, providing the sales of bard production, there takes place the usual division of the market.