Журнал "Колодец" > Кладовая

Popular Music (2003) Volume 22/1. © 2003 Cambridge University Press, pp. 89-108. DOI:10.11017/S0261143003003064 Printed in the United Kingdom

You can't rid a song of its words:
notes on the hegemony of lyrics in Russian rock songs

Abstract

From the mid-1980s, rock music emerged as the leading musical culture in the major cities of the Soviet Union. In writings and research on this "Soundtrack of Perestroika", attention has been primarily paid to the words rather than the sounds. Russian rock critics and academics, as well as those who participate in Russian rock culture, persistently emphasize the literary qualities of Russian rock music and most still prefer to approach rock as a form of musical poetry - "Rok poeziya". This seems out of step with the growing emphasis on an interdisciplinary approach within popular music studies. The aim of this article is to investigate and discuss some of the core arguments that underpin notions of Russian rock music"s literary qualities. This may help to uncover some specific national characteristics of rock in Russia, whilst at the same time questioning the need for, and value of, a literary approach to the study of Russian rock.

The rock of our fatherland is founded first and foremost on the Word, on the new verbal subculture.
(Andrei Voznesenskiy, Troitskiy 1990A, p. 5)

Introduction

Over recent years, rock music has entered Russian academia. For many years, research on Russian rock music was dominated by Western scholars who regarded it as an exotic and intriguing cultural form. In the work of those scholars, Russian rock first and foremost served as a basis for more or less sophisticated sociopolitical analysis. Unfortunately, this body of work has done little more than add to already established, and sometimes quite dubious, Western conceptions of rock as a democratically minded counterculture that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. The new works on rock that are now published in Russia are therefore a welcome contribution to research in this field.
However, teething troubles are evident within this new body of work. Researchers at the Tver' university are pioneers of research on Russian rock but restrict themselves almost entirely to literary studies. Defining rock as poetry and defending it as a part of Russian literary "high culture" has been their first priority. Although their fifth volume of articles on Russian rock, entitled Vladimir Vysockiy i russkii rok (2001), has started to bring in sociological considerations, lyrics are still its main focus and the music is not discussed by any of the contributors. To defend rock as a worthy cultural form by concentrating on its literary qualities is a strategy that goes back to the pre-Perestroika 1980s, when Zhitinskiy, a member of the Union of Writers, started writing apologies for rock. Russian rock criticism has largely shared these views and helped to enforce thorn. Thus, the tradition of approaching rock as a form of poetry holds a firm grip on research on rock even today, and it has unfortunately blocked the way for musicological and performance-related approaches.
In this article I wish to examine and discuss the views presented by Russian rock critics, examining and assessing the arguments that are used to defend their approach to rock. Hopefully this might add some nuances to our understanding of the role of lyrics in Russian rock and highlight the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of it.

Rock critics and the word

Russian rock critics and writers underline the central position and special qualities of Russian rock lyrics and their priority over the music. Some also emphasize how the themes and function of Russian rock lyrics have traditionally differed from those in Anglo-American rock. Yet surprisingly few of them explain what caused this preoccupation with poetry, and what the specific function and characteristics of Russian rock lyrics might be.
Muscovite critic Troitskiy (1987, p. 34) has devoted part of his chapter on his hometown band MASHINA VREMENI (TIME MACHINE) to a discussion of arguments for Russian rock"s superior lyrical qualities and their origin in Russian culture. The subject of the rock lyric is also discussed extensively and from several different angles by Zhitinskiy (1990) in his articles on rock for the journal Aurora which contain the author's discussions about lyrics with musicians, critics and rock club officials. Zhitinskiy may have a limited knowledge of Anglo-American rock traditions and aesthetics, yet he gives a unique inside perspective on Russian rock as understood by a sympathetic minority within the Soviet cultural establishment of the early 1980s. Didurov (1994) writes from his own perspective as a rock poet, presenting his views on rock and poetry in order to explain his own artistic project. His observations thereby offer some valuable points of contrast to those made by the other writers. More popular works, like Zaicev et al. (1990), are generally sympathetic to Troitskiy's views, but their arguments are not as well developed.
In the following discussion, after a brief historical overview of the development of rock music in Russia, I shall follow Troitskiy's 1987 account paragraph by paragraph and discuss his key points in relation to other Russian writings on rock and interviews with Russian rock critics and musicians. I focus on Troitskiy because he is the most prominent rock critic and the only one to have published books in English. The impact of his writings on Western literature has therefore been the most significant. By bringing new examples of lyrics and interviews into the discussion I seek to contribute fresh perspectives to the understanding of the role of lyrics in the Russian rock song.

Rock's becoming Russian: from imitation to self-expression

Russian rock has evolved through much the same stages as those described by Gestur Gudmundson (1999) for Nordic rock music, only in Russia the process started later and met with more serious technical and sociopolitical obstacles.
The first Russian rock bands were formed in the mid-1960s. They played mainly cover versions of songs by THE BEATLES on home-made equipment and sang in English as best they could. Bass guitars were made by stringing acoustic guitars with piano strings, and both bass and guitar were electrified using telephone mikes as pick-ups. Amplifiers were modified home stereo units or were created by students of electronic engineering. Bands performed in small cafes or at student evenings as literal "Beatle jukeboxes", compensating for the painful scarcity of Beatles records.
Gradually the instruments and equipment improved, but knowledge of the English language did not and repertoires were soon felt to be too narrow, so bands began to write songs in their native tongue. This first learning phase ended at the beginning of the 1970s with the arrival of new musical styles, most notably hard .rock. At the same time, the authorities started to crack down on amateur bands, breaking up concerts and confiscating equipment. To gain control over the growing rock scene, the authorities offered musicians the opportunity of joining so-called VIAs (Vocal-Instrumental Ensembles), which normally consisted of six to ten members and, in addition to electric guitar(s) and drum kit, sported horns, strings, balalaikas - and mandatory uniforms. In return for "going official", musicians were offered a steady income, professional instruments and the possibility of touring and releasing records. However, although the number of underground amateur bands decreased considerably following this new policy, the authorities were unable to exert control over musicians" spare-time activities. Amateur rock thus lived on and new rock styles and genres were imitated and learned.
From the end of the 1970s the number of amateur bands started rising considerably, and with the opening of the Leningrad Rock Club (LRC) in 1981 they found a central base within the USSR's second largest city. The LRC came into being due to a gap in a constantly shifting and often contradictory cultural policy. Repeated initiatives from bands and concert organizers at last met with interest from the authorities who were sufficiently attracted by the opportunity to control and monitor unsanctioned cultural activity to offer them some resources and facilities. The opening of the LRC coincided with the emergence of a new, local rock style. Imitation of Western rock styles had been followed by an integration of rock music with Russian cultural tradition, and by a desire for self-expression on one's own terms. The first Russian rockers had graduated - Russian rock was born.
The rock form which first earned the name "Russian" by no means reflects the whole history of Anglo-American rock. It consists of a limited number of bands and styles which set the trends for the 1980s. The leaders of this movement were influenced by the do-it-yourself ideals emerging with new wave and punk, but did not necessarily play those musical styles. In Russia, all known rock styles emerged over a relatively short period of time: blues and hard rock remained part of the expressional span, while punk rock had a remarkably limited influence. Punk rock was simply too much to handle for a rock club that led an insecure life under the scrutiny of the authorities, and unlike in Moscow, heavy metal met with little interest in Leningrad where the club was located.
The LRC became almost the sole refuge for rock under the repressive policies of the Andropov and Chernenko administrations. It therefore influenced the musical style that was to emerge with Perestroika and become known as Russian rock. (In the following discussion, italics will be used to distinguish Russian rock in general from Russian rock as a local style defined by local critics and writers.)
In 1985, "rock laboratories" opened in Moscow and Sverdlovsk as a rehearsal and performance space. Shortly after that, rock was let loose on the public stage and it started to encounter commercial structures. The ensuing process of acclimatization proved to be much more confusing, demanding and problematic than expected, but although Russian rock would never again be the same, it has remained true to some founding elements of its tradition, most notably those concerning the lyrics.

Finding a way in the taiga: defining styles, comparing traditions

Before I start discussing Troitskiy's observations on Russian rock, his use of the terms Western rock and Russian rock need to be defined. Throughout Troitskiy's work, Western rock appears to refer to the Anglo-American tradition broadly defined as rock with its entire range of different musical styles. In the following discussion I shall continue to use the term in this way and will avoid confusing it with Western rock forms that have specific national or non-Anglo-American characteristics.
When it comes to Russian rock, it is important to clarify what sort of rock music critics are talking about when they use this term. Among the bands and songwriters that Troitskiy finds it worth mentioning in his books, Back in the USSR and Tusovka: Who's Who in the New Soviet Rock Culture (1990), we find, as suspected, no punk or heavy metal bands. Officially approved VIA bands are almost entirely left out. With the exception of the rock band MASHINA VREMENI, which joined Goskoncert - the state concert agency - in the early 1980s, he concentrates on well-known LRC bands and Moscow rock laboratory bands. The Sverdlovsk scene, associated with CHAI-F's Rolling Stones-oriented sound and NAUTILUS POMPILIUS' New Romantic pop-rock, is left out. So too is Revyakin's (aka The Siberian Jim Morrison) band KALINOV MOST from Novosibirsk.
Is it, then, correct to call this selection Russian rock and compare it to Western rock as an entity? The term Russian rock, as a rule, describes amateur bands (professional would, in a Soviet context, mean officially employed) that were registered in official rock clubs and sang in Russian, and the new generations of bands that followed in their tradition. The definition of Russian rock should be kept as open as possible in order to reduce the danger of excluding important musical styles. However, as used by critics like Troitskiy, the term excludes the majority of Russia's VIAs and punk and metal bands.
The term Western rock should then refer to the specific Anglo-American traditions that Russian rock relates to. The music produced in the rock club environments of Leningrad and Moscow shows marked resemblances to the New York (NY) new wave scene of the mid to late 1970s and the British (UK) new wave, post punk and new pop scenes. These musical traditions or styles should not be distinguished too rigidly, however, because they are mixed together within Russian rock.
Troitskiy's discussion of novaya volna, a direct Russian translation of "new wave" (1990л, р. 249-50), associates that style with generational conflict, and suggests that it attracted a new generation that had tired of what it regarded as old-fashioned rock styles and conventions. One is led to believe that this mirrors the opposition of Anglo-American new wave to prog(ressive) rock, but the generational conflict that Troitskiy has in mind is probably of a more local kind. From 1985, a new generation of bands emerged at the LRC, which by then had several older musicians in the ranks of its organization. The latter had kept the club going through the rock repression years and had learned the value of compromise and caution. When the younger, provocative and outspoken new wave bands took to the stage, they felt muffled by their older colleagues who feared for the club's existence. (In fact, the LRC continued to censor rock music long after the KGB and the official establishment had turned their attention to more serious matters.) They included bands like TELEVIZOR and ALISA who were influenced by British trends such as gothic rock and electronic new pop, and they were referred to as the novaya volna.
The term novaya volna thus came to refer to both the Western term "new wave" and its local variant. The first meaning of "novaya volna" is represented on the 1982 cassette album Taboo which was independently released by the leading band of the LRC establishment, AKVARIUM (CD 1994), and on a live recording of that band made on 4 June of that same year (CD 1996). These recordings reveal that the band was quite familiar with new wave styles from New York and the UK; which incorporated punk, reggae and ska elements. Punk rock was thus a formative influence on the emergence of new wave in Russia, but did not emerge as a style in its own right until later.1 This is also evidenced in the 1982 concert recording by AKVARIUM and its crazed-out punk version of Podmoskovnye vechera ("Evenings outside Moscow") (ibid.).
Troitskiy's definition of novaya volna breaks with the Anglo-American new wave paradigm by including "new pop" as well. This explains his description of Russian new wave thus: "...a maximum of attention to scenic form (like paying attention to hairstyle, make-up and every possible visual accessory), a laconic and contemporary musical sound - all of which are dictated by the Western wave principles". However, Russian followers did not always use the same hairstyles and make-up as their colleagues in Anglo-American new pop. Some of the make-up of members of the Russian new wave was reminiscent of the UK glam rock scene or even Genesis-style prog rock. For example, AKVARIUM's lead singer preferred an early 1970s Bowie look to the mascara and smeared lipstick of Robert Smith. The Anglo-American influences were perhaps more marked musically than visually.
Tver' and Russian rock critics have their own favorite rock poets, who they are reluctant to compare with Anglo-American styles or trends. They include, in particular, the late Aleksandr Bashlachev, whose music is seen as genuine, unspoiled Russian culture. They also include Boris Grebenshchikov of AKVARIUM, a band that engaged in wide-ranging stylistic experiments during the early 1980s, Yuriy Shevchuk from the rock band DDT, Viktor Tsui from the band KINO, and Konstantin Kinchev from the band ALISA, the last two of whom are regarded as the poet representatives of novaya volna. In addition, Andrei Makarevich from the band MASHINA VREMENI will usually be included by fellow Muscovite critics of the older generation. "Mike" Naumenko from the band ZOOPARK, whose R&B songs were sometimes direct translations of songs by Dylan or Bolan, is treated with more suspicion, although the rewriting of Western originals in Russian was quite common. Most of these "rock poets" perform musical styles which to varying degrees resemble NY and UK new wave rock (as performed by the older LRC generation) and new pop (as performed by the younger LRC generation).
The question of authenticity demands some attention. In spite of all the above mentioned similarities in attitude, sound and style between Russian and Anglo-American new wave rock, there is one fundamental difference: if NY/UK new wave is largely modernist or post-modernist, Russian new wave is more romantically oriented and promotes strong notions of authenticity. The following definitions of authenticity may help explain why:
Authenticity is what is left in popular music when you have subtracted the commercial aspect. The essential contradiction between commercialism and authenticity in rock expresses itself in the music, in its production and its reception. (Michelsen 1993, p. 59)
By claiming authenticity you insist that you are doing something "that matters". By avoiding the label of authenticity you are saying that it is not important whether you are doing anything that matters - but it can be important in another way. (Gudmundsson 1999, p. 57)
To LRC bands rock mattered. It was a lifestyle. And Russian rock had no commercial aspects to corrupt its sense of authenticity until the late 1980s, although the absence of marketing and commercial distribution networks did not prevent hundreds of thousands of copied tapes from circulating.2 People knew not only the songs, but also the names of the bands and their songwriters, some of whom were launched to stardom "in the red" well before commerce set in. Not until the early 1990s were commercial structures strong enough to pose a threat. In a recent interview I conducted in St. Petersburg with Mikhail Borzykin from the new wave band TELEVIZOR, he stressed that a big difference between Russian and Western rock in the 1980s was that in Russia, people still believed in the rock'n'roll myth:

[...] we saw rock music as the only way to an inner freedom, a way of thinking that was long since dead and gone in the West. We took everything literally, legends and all. If a UK band messed up a hotel room for the press to produce a scandal they"d live neat and tidy ever after. Here it was done for real: TV sets from windows and all that. And Sid Vicious. Bottle-throwing and pogo bloodbaths were not constructed over here. It was all for real. Here legends were believed and the kids did what they could with vodka and beer. (Personal communication, 22 September 2001)

Role of lyrics - lyrics of spirituality

...the lyrics in Russian rock play a more important role than in Western rock. The reasons for this may be the Russian rockers" awareness that they're borrowing music invented elsewhere, their weaker technical virtuosity, and the fact that the commercial and dancing functions of rock never predominated here; more value was always placed on the ideas in a song. (...) the purely literary level of our rock lyrics is higher, on the average, than in the West. (Troitskiy 1987, p. 34)

If a comparison is made between the lyrics of Russian rock and Anglo-American new wave and new pop, Troitskiy's point about the former's superior literacy loses some of its strength. The limitations of his argument are evident in the above quote. Firstly, what he describes as Russian musicians" weaker technical virtuosity could instead, and this would be fairer to the many fine instrumentalists among them, be interpreted as a combination of the limitations of poor technical equipment and instruments with a preference for the post-punk aesthetics of minimalism and simplicity. The absence of commercialism also makes it more appropriate to compare the music with UK/NY new wave and post-punk rock, where musicians sought to retain wider artistic control of their work by signing to small independent record companies with alternative distribution networks.
Secondly, the fact that the music was not primarily made to be danced to is important. It should be emphasized, however, that this was partly because of the ban on dancing at concerts which prevailed until 1987. Police were normally present at gigs and festivals to ensure order and prevent audiences from acting "in an uncivilized manner". This contributed to giving the lyrics an all-important function in communicating with an audience prevented from responding physically and freely to the music. The physical ecstasy of musical empowerment at concerts was inhibited by restrictions, thus strengthening the importance placed on lyrics by Russian critics.
Informants involved with Russian rock music confirm that it was listened to with a special sensitivity for the lyrics, and that when musical qualities were sought, Anglo-American music was preferred. Some see this as historically determined, influenced by a traditional Russian way of thinking which suggests that Russian songs, from folk traditionals to rock songs, are to be listened to, not danced to. The story-telling mode of the folk classic Chernyj voron ("Black Raven") may serve as an example here, a song to be listened to and sung in cramped peasant cabins on long winter nights.
In addition, until the mid-1980s, rock hardly existed in the Soviet media. Information on rock music was unobtainable through all official channels. Therefore, the rock lyric became important also as a means for conveying information. According to music journalist and former member of the LRC Council, Andrei Burlaka:

[...] before rock music started sounding through the media, the song as a means of communication was crucial to songwriters and bands. Songs were their way of communicating their thoughts, values, tastes and ideas - what books, poets and musicians they admired and so on. There was a lot of information that they wanted to spread and it turned out such information was in great demand, too. (Personal communication, 24 October 2001)

Nevertheless, Troitskiy's claim that Russian rock lyrics generally play a "more important role" than they do in Anglo-American rock music, and that Russian rockers attribute "more value to the idea of a song", should be treated with caution. Firstly, an idea in a song cannot be restricted to its lyrics because the accompanying music should also be taken into account. Secondly, how does one measure the value of music, lyrics and performance to songwriters and their audiences? Nevertheless, although it might be incorrect to insist that lyrics are more important in Russian rock, it may be that their role does differ from that of lyrics in Western rock.
Several theorists, among them Simon Frith (1996, p. 158), have pointed out that in written poetry the printed word and its layout alone control the production of meaning, whereas a song lyric produces meaning through its interaction with voice, music, style and stage behaviour. In this interaction, the lyric may take on a leading or passive role. Ulf Lindberg (1995, p. 63) defines three main types of rock lyrics: focused lyrics are those that clearly dictate the meaning of the music; musified lyrics are those whose meaning is influenced by the music and the musical qualities of words and lines are as important as their lexical and grammatical meaning; freely shaped lyrics are those that contribute to musical emotion and are open to improvisation. This is not to say that lyrics cannot take on both a leading and passive role simultaneously, nor that a focused lyric alone controls the production of meaning. While musified and freely shaped lyrics can be described as characteristic of Anglo-American new wave and indie rock lyrics, Russian rock songs tend to favour focused lyrics.
It would hardly be just to claim that a focused lyric is more important or of a higher quality than a lyric playing a more passive role, in that it makes a musical piece more significant and richer in terms of ideas. The domination of focused lyrics within a particular musical tradition can only imply that lyrics play a different role within that tradition. Even the lyrics of AKVARIUM's Boris Grebenshchikov could be described as a combination of both musified and focused, a fact that by no means questions his position as one of the most celebrated Russian rock poets. That rock lyrics have a different, even greater significance to Russian rock songwriters and audiences can be agreed without relying upon notions of importance or quality. From his post-Soviet position, Didurov explains in the following way why lyrics in Russian rock get so much attention:

Why, because today our history and the day of today were given back to us. And the word is just as important a part of culture as the living cell to the human organism. Like experience and memory of past generations are encoded in the human cell, a people"s history lives in the word. Like a cell reacts instantly to changes in its environment and the organism it is part of, the word responds to changes in the life of a nation, to the cataclysms of its historical environment. (...) When the people wake up after the stagnation, it searches for and gives birth to ideas, fights for its rights, remembers that it is both a subject and an object of politics.
Then the word is filled with its hopes, dreams, sorrows, joys and fight, becomes their bearer, tool and weapon.
I am convinced that the way of our rock is special, in many ways original - it is the way of literature, sung in the style of rock, because, generally speaking, the word traditionally lies in the foundation of genuine Russian expression. (Didurov 1994, p. 19)

Apart from the consequences of the silence of the media on rock music during the Soviet-era, the answer to the question of what makes a Russian rock lyric more significant to a Russian listener may lie in different ideas about the functions of rock. Western observers with their minds set on concepts of counterculture, Peres-troika and the "democratisation process", have frequently described these functions as primarily sociopolitical. In my first thesis on the subject (Steinholt 1996), I too started out with this assumption only to discover that the Russian audience from the mid to late 1980s turned their backs on bands that promoted political slogans too openly. This led songwriters to look beyond the sociopolitical arena for inspiration. Didurov (1994) represents a more sophisticated argument than mere slogan-ism, yet most of his poet colleagues moved away from political involvement at an earlier stage.
A keyword here is dukhovnost' ("spirituality") and it stems from a Russian hippie understanding of rock. It is closely linked to the romantic notions of authenticity described earlier. In the words of Leningrad rock journalist Aleksandr Starcev: "It seems to me rock is always an art form, and as such should not submit to the conjuncture of the moment, but deal with universal human values" (Zhitinskiy 1990, p. 318). Or, as Boris Grebenshchikov from the Leningrad band AKVARIUM (henceforth BG) puts it:

Speaking of rock "n" roll it is impossible not to speak about religion. For this there is a very simple and very atheist reason. Religion is spiritual life and rock "n" roll is spiritual life. Religion has been taken from us since childhood. Rock "n" roll is to us the only form of spiritual life. (...) Rock "n" roll leads to religion because religion can explain (...) this spiritual life, unlike rock "n" roll, which in itself explains nothing. Religion is the explanation, rock "n" roll is the force. (...)
We have been torn away from our roots (...) the powerful and eternally living folk tradition, as they love to say among us. When this contact was all broken, such a strong hunger came over us, such a thirst that set people howling like wolves. But instead of devouring each other they went back and started growing anew, using any means fit in order to find unity, find understanding and a feeling for one another, find rituals to help us grasp all this, find the feeling for nature. But rock'n'roll, unlike genuine folk culture, is a very fast-moving thing. Rituals and traditions change every two weeks. Yet its foundation remains the same - a search for unity with God, with the world, with the universe... (ibid., pp. 225-6)

Whether rock"s function is seen as that of assisting a spiritual awakening for BG or a civic awakening for Didurov, the latter sums up the role of literature in its fulfillment: "(…) Russian aesthetic reasoning, Russian understanding of the world were fully realized in language, finding in it the only possible exit - the exit into literature" (Didurov 1994, p. 19).

Literary and musical tradition: from bards to "bastards"

Rock lyrics here have a direct tie to our poetic tradition and reflect its lexical and stylistic heritage. That"s probably explained by the fact that "serious" academic poetry is really very popular in the USSR. Books of verse often become bestsellers, and the most popular poets -such as Voznesensky or Yevtushenko - sometimes read their works in sold out sport palaces, just like rock stars. In the late fifties we already had a recognized school of bard performers, poet intellectuals who sang their verses and played an acoustic guitar accompaniment. (Troitskiy 1987, p. 34)

Historically, the Russian musical underground originates from the pre-revolutionary gorodskoi romanz ("city ballad") and blatnaya pesnya ("underworld song"). The blatnaya pesnya was an urban genre, which had no relation to politics or protest. It included variants of "cruel song" with a sentimental plea for pity, and songs that revelled in the criminal or semi-criminal milieu. They all depicted a way of life that the Bolsheviks sought to eliminate or refused to recognize, as observed in Stites and van Geldern's Mass Culture in the Soviet Union (1995, p. 72). The camp songs, which emerged in the years after Stalin"s death, represented a further development of the blatnaya pesnya paradigm and provided a setting for the post-war bardovskaya pesnya ("bard song"), which included songs written and performed by guitar-playing poets Galich, Okhudzhava and Vysotskiy, to mention but the most famous.
The urban genre bardovskaya pesnya, which is also known as avtorskaya pesnya ("author's song"), treated themes like religious faith or love for the Motherland in a natural and non-ideological way. Lyrical themes concerning the problems and "worries of everyday life or the Russian Character were treated with rich humour or powerful satire. The close relations between the bardovskaya pesnya and the poetic tradition meant that the bardy were viewed more as lyricists than musicians. Troitskiy (1990л, р. 52) describes their lyrical and musical influence as no less important to Soviet rock than Afro-American influences were to American rock "n" roll. This is not to say that Soviet Rock remained locked inside the paradigm of the bardovskaya pesnya, nor, as I will show below, that rock songwriters themselves necessarily embraced Troitskiy's view. Russian rock bands also utilized elements of the Soviet Avant-garde of the 1920s, the 1950s" mass poetry of the Estradniki (see Troitskiy's reference to the poets Voznesenskiy and Yevtushenko in the above quote), and Western- and jazz-inspired Soviet subcultures of the 1950s. They also gave more or less ironic renderings of classics from official mass culture.
The height of bard rok, which was a musical hybrid combining acoustic rock in the style of Bob Dylan with avtorskaya pesnya, coincided with the emergence of Anglo-American new wave rock. Rather than merely imitating this new Anglo-American style as before, Russian bands began to integrate it to a greater extent with Russian musical and lyrical styles, leaving out what they felt was irrelevant for their purposes. As the Norwegian sociologist Odd Are Berkaak has put it (1989), one doesn't inhabit each other's symbolic universes, but sees metaphorical possibilities in each other's ways of expression in relation to one"s own local and contemporary demands of expression.
The rock critic Zhitinskiy (1990, pp. 191-6), curious about the extent of relations between rock and the avtorskaya pesnya, conducted short interviews with rock songwriters and representatives of other "official" and "unofficial" composers. This is what the rockers answered to the question, "Has there in your opinion been mutual influences and synthesis between rock music and the avtorskaya pesnya?". Andrei Makarevich from the rock band MASHINA VREMENI said that of course there had been: "On the level of self-expression, rock and the avtorskaya pesnya are very close. Rock music is that avtorskaya pesnya, realised in another musical language. The very word avtorskaya describes both genres. With Boris Grebenschikov (BG), for instance, the two genres often interact. Obviously with us too". Viktor Tsui from the band KINO said: "With me they couldn't be different, because I am an author and I play only rock music". "Mike" Naumenko from the band ZOOPARK said: "Mutual influence... Yes, on the level that practically all bands play and sing their own material and the author normally sings the song. Another question is that the lyrics are not always of the necessary quality, but in any case any attempt in this area may be welcomed. It has already been mentioned, but is well worth underlining once more, that however paradoxical it may sound, rock music is a folk music in the most positive sense of the word". In an interview with Urlayt, an underground music paper, part-time solo performer Yuriy Naumov declared: "I have been raised on Western rock, and when people say that Vysockiy was the first Russian rocker, they might be right, but with me it triggers a protest because my roots are not here. Music set me going, not words" (ibid., p. 265).
These differences in opinion largely concern the definition of avtorskaya pesnya. The rockers are not prepared to see it as a genre term that belongs exclusively to the bard poets, but link it to their own work. They see rock as merely a different means of expressing similar thoughts and emotions. They thus distance their work from that of the bards. Furthermore, as Naumenko from the band ZOOPARK has observed, however influential the bard tradition has been, it cannot guarantee poetical mastery within Russian rock. The rock critic Aleksandr Starcev, reviewing a 1986 rock festival staged at Moscow's Rock Laboratory (ibid., p. 246), complained about "toothless lyrics" and "anonymous band leaders".
In overlooking the similarities between Russian rock and UK/NY new wave and post punk rock, Troitskiy gives the impression that all factors contributing to the tradition of rock poetry are somehow exclusively Russian in origin. It would perhaps be fairer if he also acknowledged the influence of literate Anglo-American songwriters apart from the obvious examples of THE BEATLES and THE ROLLING STONES.
There is little doubt that the songwriters of Russian rock are closely connected with the tradition of Russian poetry, whether sung or written (on the other hand, the music of Anglo-American rock musicians like David Bowie, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, David Byrne, Tom Verlaine, Ian Curtis, Mark E. Smith and Matt Johnson can also be connected with poetic traditions), but they do not make such a big effort to prove it. To them, rock music is a perfectly valuable tradition in its own right and being inspired by a literary tradition is not necessarily a ticket to membership in it. Russian bands have been working to develop rock in their native language. Compared to rock bands in other European countries they were late starters, but from the 1980s onwards they were slowly but surely making progress and were contributing a distinctly Russian rock dialect.
Russian rock of the late 1980s may have aspired to "high" art traditions because it had not had time to mature into a full-grown movement that set its own standards and borrowed musical influences from wherever it saw fit. It was still constrained by the cultural establishment and struggled to prove itself worthy of inclusion within "high" culture.

Different thematics: No sex, please - we're Russian?

Our rockers don't sing about the same things as Western rockers do... In the entire enormous repertory of TIME MACHINE there's not a single clear-cut love song, let alone one about sex. (Troitskiy 1987, p. 34)

It should come as no surprise that MASHINA VREMENI, the first widely known rock band to "go official" in pre-Perestroika USSR, did not sing about love, sex or any subject that involved making reference to individuals. The band"s endless lyrics about lanterns, candles and isles of hope bear witness to continual compromises with censors. Troitskiy would only need to turn to Mike Naumenko's band ZOOPARK to find lyrics portraying a landscape of depressed R&B eroticism. But, to be fair, Naumenko was an exception.
Sexual themes are surprisingly rare in Russian rock lyrics of the 1980s and when the lyrics do concern sex, they do so in a way that differs from Western rock lyrics." The music also covers a wide range of expression. It may be funny, absurd, euphoric, joyful, romantic, dreamy, sentimental, sorrowful, angry or dark and gloomy; however, it is very rarely sexy. Does this reflect a conscious decision made by the songwriters concerned, or does it indicate the more subconscious influence of Russian literary and cultural traditions, or is it a consequence of the censorship of rock by the Russian authorities during its formative years? The answer possibly lies in a combination of all three factors. Going back to the above-mentioned views of Didurov and BG on the functions of rock, sex appears to be a luxury topic in relation to the ambitious projects of the rock poets. Russian rock of the 1980s was more concerned with the academic than with the physical.
The reverse side of this, however, is that the theme of physical love was then left to the lyrical cliches of the estrada ("pop mainstream"). This helped to reinforce the notion that the topic of sex lowered a song"s lyrical value. What, then, has become of the heritage that represents the golden age of Russian literature and the fact that the topic of sexual desire concerned so much of the work of writers like Gogol, Dostoevskiy and Tolstoi? Fortunately, the ideals of critics and musicians do not always correspond, as illustrated by the lyrics cited below. The first two examples are songs by the Russian rock band AKVARIUM: "Beregi svoi khoi" composed in 1982 and "Ona mozhet dvigat" composed in 1985. As a suitable Anglo-American contrast I have chosen to cite some of the lyrics from the song "Princess of the Streets" by THE STRANGLERS (1977). (I apologize for the fact that my rhymeless translations of AKVARIUM into English cannot adequately recreate the poetic feel of the songs.)