|
On January 1st, 2010, just after midnight, a mildly satirical cartoon ran on Russian television, showing Medvedev and Putin dancing together on Red Square to a series of folkish couplets. Each figure made slight fun of the other, which led the press to wonder the reason for such sudden or unexpected "humor." Gradually the consensus emerged that Medvedev was using these comic ditties as a way to endear himself to the nation, only minutes after his annual New Year's address; Putin, a figure not known for his sense of humor, could perhaps be (politely) challenged by a slightly more personable dignitary. Laughter might win out over impressive severity.
What's interesting here is that Medvedev made this attempt with song, in fact with a CGI musical performance that was taken from the recognizable shows of two late-Stalinist comedians. The President's festive ability to fashion a sense of nationhood, therefore, was apparently best conducted via some shared, good-natured, and "folksy" stereotypes - all filtered through mild-mannered witticisms from prior Soviet decades. Everything here, needless to say, was constrained in some way: the degrees of mutually "respectful" mockery, the moot accuracy of a bowdlerized "folk" tradition, and the willingness to run parallel with fashion (or not).
Not a hair was out of place in a very controlled portrait.
The best way to examine these supposedly warm, fuzzy, and consoling stereotypes is, perhaps, to view them from afar. A tabloid newspaper in distant Azerbaijan, "Trend," published an article recently that brings some clarity to this issue, i.e., the ways in which "popular" music might - or might not - be able to foster a useful sense of national cohesion. The article in question concerned Russia's most popular exponent of a folk tradition, Pelageia, i.e., the 23-year old artiste Pelageia Khanova from Siberia's largest metropolis, Novosibirsk.
The Azerbaijan press expressed mild surprise that such a young woman would have chosen this time-honored genre, since "it's not fashionable." Neither are accordion-waving CGI politicians, to begin with, yet they know the importance of Soviet-style views of the "expansive, boundless" countryside in the creation of flattering forms of patriotism - which are always useful for the ratings of a conservative statesman. Expressing the same logic from a different standpoint, Pelageia noted - for the benefit of her non-Russian interviewer - that Slavic folk music is sufficiently significant that it ought to be popular.
As the images above and below suggest, her concept of "folk" extends far beyond the grassy worlds of milkmaids or fairy tales; she has in mind any time or space in which a sense of Russian community has operated free from the intrusion of policy. The dress above, for example, would suggest the brave defense of familial values under Stalin or during wartime. In those threatening contexts, "folk" becomes a grimly defensive exercising of normal life, come what may.
It's a wringing of hands and a hard-won smile at the same time.
"The time has come for folk music," she said. "People have started wondering where they come from, who their forefathers were, how they lived, and - as a result - what they sang, too. Culture should be part and parcel of each person's life, since it forms the very roots of their being. In our nation, though, those roots were constantly pulled up over the course of 70 years. Everybody was told that they were stopping the growth of a 'new, universal, and multi-ethnic culture.' It turned out, though, that the new culture [- being rootless -] was more like a weed..."
"Now, bit by bit, we're putting what was left back together. Some people are trying to do this creatively and bring their own little something to the proceedings, too. The combination of authentic Russian music with modern sounds and rhythms produces styles like ethno, folk-rock, ethno-jazz, or - as with my band - art-folk. That makes it more interesting for a wider audience. A new generation has appeared that won't be won over by any kind of pseudo-folk art. What they'll go for is either the real thing - the real cultural heritage - or some kind of reworking of those same roots."
As the picture below shows, with its odd combination of antique costume and pre-fab cafe architecture, this is a singer willing to travel far and wide in order to advocate these ideas or responsibilities.
This all has particular relevance at the start of the year, since Pelageia has just published a wonderful new album entitled "Paths" (Tropy), thus following directly on from the EP of last fall, released under the same name. The new, longer recording is available for free download; such is the need to promote concert tours and cultural ties. In distilling the importance of these "recently resurrected" traditions and times, the Russian press tends to conjure observations on Pelageia's craft along the following impressionistic lines: "In a mere 5 minutes, she can run the gamut from motifs born of Russian epic verse to divinely beautiful vocal flourishes, together with all kinds of thoughts on fate and repentance."
In a mere 5 minutes, she can run the gamut from motifs born of Russian epic verse to divinely beautiful vocal flourishes, together with all kinds of thoughts on fate and repentance.
Although such themes are indeed part and parcel of the folk tradition, the fact that they'd float immediately to the surface in terms of recognizable (or expected) emphases is very telling; it shows what people might seek (as consolation in tough times) or what politicians might want those same people - as voters - to seek. A nation is imagined and molded either as a community of suffering, bearing the blows of "fate," or as a body of the "repentant," never able to match the unfailing call of the nation. Duty, after all, always calls.
The question is whether such duty is best expressed at home or in the voting booth, in the name of a "better, bigger" collective. Thankfully, the picture below would suggest the former.
And these issues of group identity bring us to another major rock release of the season, by Sergei Shnurov's outfit "Ruble" (Rubl'). Formed from the ashes of legendary ska ensemble Leningrad, Rubl' appeared at first to be something of an inside joke, since Shnurov (aka "Shnur") had immediately taken hold of a totally different genre: rough 'n' ready garage rock, with full-throated, slapdash vocals that were designed to hark back to what he called the "pure rock" of the '70s, prior to the gaudy nastiness of the subsequent decade.
Interestingly enough, Shurnov's professional background, before playing any music on a professional scale, was as an antique wood restorer - and his education (at least under his mother's influence) involved prolonged contact with an Orthodox spiritual academy. Given that he, like Pelageia, is therefore the product of a respectful, historically and spiritually aware family, what's his attitude towards national cohesion at the present moment, or the possibility that it could be best expressed by music?
It's clearly an intense matter.
That intensity finds expression in a devil-may-care worldview: "Nobody needs my band. We're only playing for ourselves. Who's going to come and see us, eh? People who used to listen to Leningrad? Come off it! Those people listen to our old records at home - and are perfectly happy, too." The conversation could only go downhill from this point... And indeed, when asked about an upcoming TV show he recently made on the topic of Russia's "non-existent" show business, the descent into melancholy began once more. (We warn our Russian-speaking readers that the lyrics in these files - as expressions of social decay - are very rude.)
Nobody needs my band. We're only playing for ourselves. Who's going to come and see us, eh? People who used to listen to Leningrad? Come off it! Those people listen to our old records at home - and are perfectly happy, too.
"We're going to use that TV show to investigate something that doesn't even exist. We don't have [proper] politics in Russia, either, but that doesn't stop people getting involved in it, does it? Where exactly is this place we live, for example? Do we live in 'Russia' or in the 'Commonwealth of Independent States'? I don't even know where the borders of my homeland are. Nobody knows."
"As for Putin and the government... I reckon that all these governments we've had since 1917 have been fundamentally temporary in nature. Yet all the time we're trying to set Putin up like a Czar. But Putin is not a Czar. Nor is Medvedev. Politics is always forcing us to choose between Pepsi and Coke, but if you happen to want tomato juice - there isn't any. There's no Russia, either. I've no idea what's going on nowadays. I'd suggest that all Russian women leave the country for good ASAP, and all men should simply kick the bucket. What else is there to do?"
Palpable anger.
Rubl's new album expresses a similarly severe outlook. Entitled "No Change, Thanks" (in the sense of spare change or coins: "Sdachi ne nado"), the same phrase could be read as "No Surrender." Less of a standard album, in fact, than a collection of the various tracks released on line since 2008, this release is also free for downloading; it exists as testament to all manner of negations. It is neither on CD, nor sold, nor promoted; it's all - as we'd expect - brimming with loud and foul-mouthed expressions of how contemporary society is itself lacking in some fundamental sense - and has long become the embodiment of emptiness.
This isn't nihilism, so much as massive disillusion. Social groupings, we learn, are better managed by three guys and a bottle - in the case of Shnur(ov) - or by a long-forgotten rural family - in the case of Pelageia. Though they form an odd pair, these two performers are both historically sensitive individuals, fully aware of how policy aspires to a societal embodiment of music's various "harmonies," but - based on national experience - is very unlikely to succeed.
Nasty surprises always appear, the result of "fate" and the cause of "repentance."
The core difference between our male and female artists lies in the fact that Pelageia, thanks - maybe - to your youth, is not yet totally disillusioned. Shnur, however, has long seen desire turn into grim drives. Objects of social desire have long since slipped away, yet become more cherished as a result. Drinking - being one way, initially, to keep potential "virtually" alive - becomes drinking in order to obliterate surrounding failures.
Including oneself.
Moribund drives gravitate around cherished goals: between them sits song, both engendering hope and mollifying failure. Hence, no doubt, Medvedev's decision to use nationally famous, pseudo-folk ditties from the prudish realm of post-war Soviet culture - and do so with a faint smile. His mild, self-deprecating claim to "national" kinship came, as we noted, only minutes after the national anthem. To follow the greatest, most severe form of musical policy with a hop, skip, and a giggle suggests that such proud sentiments cannot be taken seriously. Everybody wishes they could... but "fate and repentance" appear to have the upper hand, so irony seems a more convincing register.
The two new albums by Pelageia and Rubl' stand apart from the President's wavering, as the embodiment of lost ideals and/or hopeless futures. As we can see below, those men and women entrusted with upholding the nation's law and order are bigger fans of Shnurov's outlook.
That can't be good.
Comments
Login / Register