On August 17, 2012, following six months in custody, three key members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison. Their attempted performance in the Christ the Savior ...Cathedral of Moscow-of a punk prayer denouncing lone presidental candidate Vladimir Putin-was condemned by the court as an act of religious hatred. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova,Maria Alekhina, and Ekaterina Samutsevich began serving their sentences on September 3, 2012. Their version of the event is as clear as attempted media analyses in Russia and the west have been muddled, confused, or irrelevant.
War of Songs Rogatchevski, Andrei; Steinholt, Yngvar B.; Hansen, Arve ...
05/2019, Volume:
203
eBook
This multi-authored monograph consists of the sections: “Pop Rock, Ethno-Chaos, Battle Drums, and a Requiem: The Sounds of the Ukrainian Revolution”, “The Euromaidan’s Aftermath and the Genre of ...Answer Song: A Musical Dialogue Between the Antagonists?”, “Exposing the Fault Lines beneath the Kremlin’s Restorative Geopolitics: Russian and Ukrainian Parodies of the Russian National Anthem”, “‘Lasha Tumbai’, or ‘Russia, Goodbye’? The Eurovision Song Contest as a Post-Soviet Geopolitical Battleground”, and “(Post-)Soviet Rock Soundtracks the Donbas Conflict”.
The current article opens a contentious issue for investigation: to what degree-if any-Pussy Riot have been influenced by the provocative, subversive, ironic, and self-contradictory aesthetics of the ...musical bands associated with the notorious oppositional National Bolshevik Party of Russia (NBP), now known as the Other Russia. This party, formed in 1993 by the countercultural author Eduard Limonov and the self-taught philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, tried to unite left- and right-wing extremists on the same platform, and attracted a significant number of artists and intellectuals to its cause. Music was an important part of the NBP's appeal and self-expression. For the first time ever in any language, the article examines the musical style and lyrics of selected key performances by such NBP bands as Krasnye zvezdy (Minsk, Belarus), Volshebnaia gora (Briansk), Banda chetyrekh (Moscow), Korroziia metalla (Moscow), Den' donora (Moscow), Zapreshchennye barabanshchiki (Rostov-on-Don), Viselitsa (Daugavpils, Latvia), Gosplan (Haifa, Israel), and Pop-mekhanika (St Petersburg). With the bands' musical style almost as varied as their geography, the article questions whether NBP music can be considered a popular musical style or a genre of its own. While the employment of punk aesthetics and the purpose of provocation differ between NBP bands and Pussy Riot, an overlap between their respective messages and artistic practices is identified and discussed. Finally, the article considers the potential consequences of bringing NBP music into the context of Pussy Riot's project. The immediate conclusion is that the dominant focus in Western research to date-on feminism, human rights issues, and freedom of speech-is potentially reductionist, since it overlooks local forms and traditions of paradoxical humor and provocation, with all their implications.
Any study of punk rock in Russia will in some way come into contact with the massive influence of Egor Letov, his band Grazhdanskaia Oborona, and their extensive output during the late 1980s. ...Academia has thus far been reluctant to study the band because of its leader's involvement with dubious right-wing movements and his many tasteless and provocative media stunts during the 1990s. By taking its point of departure in Letov's songs from four stages of his band's development, this article seeks to shed light on Grazhdanskaia Oborona's contribution to the development of punk in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia. When it comes to Letov's extremist views in the latter half of his career it attempts to venture beyond reductionist notions of fascism, into the complex landscape of the paradoxical and often confusing mixture of extreme ideologies that sprang out of the Soviet collapse. It will argue that Letov's work – his songs – come over as a lot less contradictory and ideologically extreme than their author's political stunts would suggest. Their aesthetics and ideology are first and foremost punk.
The current article opens a contentious issue for investigation: to what degree - if any - Pussy Riot have been influenced by the provocative, subversive, ironic, and self-contradictory aesthetics of ...the musical bands associated with the notorious oppositional National Bolshevik Party of Russia (NBP), now known as the Other Russia. This party, formed in 1993 by the countercultural author Eduard Limonov and the self- taught philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, tried to unite left- and right-wing extremists on the same platform, and attracted a significant number of artists and intellectuals to its cause. Music was an important part of the NBP"s appeal and self-expression. For the first time ever in any language, the article examines the musical style and lyrics of selected key performances by such NBP bands as Krasnye zvezdy (Minsk, Belarus), Volshebnaia gora (Briansk), Banda chetyrekh (Moscow), Korroziia metalla (Moscow), Den" donora (Moscow), Zapreshchennye barabanshchiki (Rostov-on-Don), Viselitsa (Daugavpils, Latvia), Gosplan (Haifa, Israel), and Pop-mekhanika (St Petersburg). With the bands" musical style almost as varied as their geography, the article questions whether NBP music can be considered a popular musical style or a genre of its own. While the employment of punk aesthetics and the purpose of provocation differ between NBP bands and Pussy Riot, an overlap between their respective messages and artistic practices is identified and discussed. Finally, the article considers the potential consequences of bringing NBP music into the context of Pussy Riot"s project. The immediate conclusion is that the dominant focus in Western research to date - on feminism, human rights issues, and freedom of speech - is potentially reductionist, since it overlooks local forms and traditions of paradoxical humor and provocation, with all their implications. (Author abstract)
This article investigates contemporary relationships between the popular music genre russkii rok (Russian rock) and historical, societal, national, and religious contexts. From an account of the St. ...Petersburg rok discourse it moves on to analyze how the genre is embedded in notions of the national. Among the aspects discussed are ties between musicians, government, and the Russian Orthodox Church. Made from a post-Soviet and postcolonial viewpoint, the investigations suggest that, while nationalism plays a prominent role in the genre's popularity, diffusion, and appropriation, a sentiment such as nostalgia is perhaps no less important.
Steinholt presents a discussion of the Western media's misinterpretation of the arrest and conviction of members of Russian feminist/anarchist punk band Pussy Riot over a "punk prayer" ritual they ...conducted in a Moscow cathedral. he asserts that the incident had nothing to do with punk rock.
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