Bard (Soviet Union)
Encyclopedia
- For other meanings of the word, see Bard (disambiguation)Bard (disambiguation)- A type of person :* Bard, a minstrel in medieval Scottish, Irish and Welsh societies; and later re-used by romantic writers* Bard , popular poets and singers who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment-Fictional bards :...
.
The term bard (Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
: "бард" bard) came to be used in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in the early 1960s, and continues to be used in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
today, to refer to singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment, similarly to beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
folk singer
Folk Singer
Folk Singer is a 1964 album by Muddy Waters. Waters plays acoustic guitar, backed by Willie Dixon on string bass, Clifton James on drums, and Buddy Guy on acoustic guitar...
s of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Because in bard music songwriters perform their own songs, the genre is also commonly referred to as author song ("авторская песня" avtorskaya pesnya). Bard poetry differs from other poetry mainly in the fact that it is sung with simple guitar accompaniment as opposed to being spoken. Another difference is that this form of poetry focuses less on style and more on meaning. This means that fewer stylistic devices are used, and the poetry is often in the form of a narrative. What separates bard poetry from other songs is the fact that the music is far less important than the lyrics; chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
s are often very simple and tend to repeat from one bard song to another. A far more obvious difference was the commerce-free nature of the genre; songs were written to be sung and not to be sold.
Stylistically, the precursor to bard songs were Russian "city romances," also known as urban romances, which touched upon common life and were popular throughout all layers of Russian society in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. These romances were traditionally written in a minor key and performed with a guitar accompaniment.
Bard poetry may be roughly classified into two main genres: tourist song and political song, although some other subgenres are also recognized, such as outlaw song (blatnaya pesnya
Shanson
Russian chanson is a neologism for a musical genre covering a range of Russian songs based on the themes of the urban underclass and the criminal underworld. This song style, originally called blatnaya pesnya , has been popular in Eastern Europe ever since its first appearance in the beginning of...
) and pirate song.
Initially the term "bard" was used by fans of the tourist song genre, and outside these circles, the term was often perceived as slightly derisive. However there was a need for a term to distinguish this style of song from the traditional mainstream pop song, and the term eventually stuck.
Many bards performed their songs for small groups of people using a Russian guitar
Russian guitar
The Russian guitar is a seven-string acoustic guitar that arrived in Russia toward the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, most probably as an evolution of the cittern, kobza, and torban...
, and rarely, if ever, would they be accompanied by other musicians or singers. Those who became popular were eventually able to hold modest concerts. Bards were rarely permitted to record their music, given the political nature of many of their songs. As a result, bard tunes usually made their way around via the copying of amateur recordings (known as magnitizdat
Magnitizdat
Magnitizdat is a term used to describe the process of re-copying and self distributing live audio tape recordings in the Soviet Union that were not available commercially...
) made at concerts, particularly those songs that were of a political nature.
Tourist song
During the Soviet Era of Stagnation, campingCamping
Camping is an outdoor recreational activity. The participants leave urban areas, their home region, or civilization and enjoy nature while spending one or several nights outdoors, usually at a campsite. Camping may involve the use of a tent, caravan, motorhome, cabin, a primitive structure, or no...
, and especially its intense forms such as alpinism, kayaking
Kayaking
Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving across water. Kayaking and canoeing are also known as paddling. Kayaking is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle...
/canoeing
Canoeing
Canoeing is an outdoor activity that involves a special kind of canoe.Open canoes may be 'poled' , sailed, 'lined and tracked' or even 'gunnel-bobbed'....
, and canyoning
Canyoning
Canyoning is traveling in canyons using a variety of techniques that may include other outdoor activities such as walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling, and/or swimming....
, became a form of escapism
Escapism
Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life...
for young people, who felt that these activities were the only ways of life in which such values as courage, friendship, risk, trust, cooperation, and mutual support still mattered. It is these types of situations and virtues that tourist songs use for their subject matter.
Many of the best tourist songs were composed by Yuri Vizbor
Yuri Vizbor
Yuri Vizbor was a well-known Soviet bard and poet as well as a theatre and film actor.-Summary:...
who participated and sang about all the sports described above, and Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky is a well-known Soviet and Russian bard and poet. Professionally, he is a geologist and oceanographer....
who spent a great deal of time sailing around the world on ships and on scientific expeditions to the far North.
A notable subgenre of the Tourist song was the Sea song. As with other tourist songs, the goal was to sing about people in hard conditions where true physical and emotional conflicts appear. Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
had several songs of this sort, since his style suited them perfectly. Many of Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky is a well-known Soviet and Russian bard and poet. Professionally, he is a geologist and oceanographer....
's songs are about the sea since he actually had the opportunity to experience life at sea. While some songs were simply about sailors, others were about pirates. With the romanticism of songs like Brigantine by Pavel Kogan
Pavel Kogan
-Biography:Though born in Kiev, Pavel and his family moved to Moscow in 1922. He studied at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute and at the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature....
, pirate songs are still popular at author song concerts today. Almost every bard has at least one song of this type.
Tourist song was generally tolerated by the government, and it existed under the moniker author song (avtorskaya pesnya), i.e., songs sung primarily by the authors themselves, as opposed to those sung by professional singers (although professionals often "borrowed" successful author songs for their repertoires). Another name for this genre was "amateur song" (samodeyatelnaya pesnya, literally translated as "do-it-yourself song" or "self-made song"). This term reflects the cultural phenomenon of the Soviet Union called "amateur performing arts," or khudozhestvennaya samodeyatelnost. It was a widespread, often heavily subsidized occupation of Soviet people in their spare time. Every major industrial enterprise and every kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
had a Palace of Culture
Palace of Culture
Palace of Culture or House of Culture was the name for major club-houses in the former Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern bloc. It was an establishment for all kinds of recreational activities and hobbies: sports, collecting, arts, etc., and the Palace of Culture was designed to have room...
, or at least a House of Culture, for amateur performers to practice and perform.
Many of them, as well as many universities, had Clubs of Amateur Song ("Klub samodeyatelnoy pesni", or KSP), which, in fact, were clubs of bard song and which stood quite apart from the mainstream Soviet "samodeyatelnost'".
Grushinsky festival
Grushinsky festival
Grushinsky festival is an annual Russian bard song festival that has been established in 1968. It takes place near the city of Samara, on the Mastryukovo lakes...
traces its origins to tourist song fan meetings, but now includes songs from all genres.
Political song
Songs of this kind expressed protestProtest song
A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
against the Soviet way of life. The genre varied from acutely political, "anti-Soviet" songs to witty satire in the best traditions of Aesop
Aesop
Aesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
. Some of Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...
's songs touch on these themes.
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
was perceived as a political song writer, but later he gradually made his way into the more mainstream culture. It was not so with Alexander Galich, who was eventually forced to emigrate; owning a tape with his songs could mean a prison term in the USSR. Before emigration, he suffered from KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
persecution, as did another bard, Yuliy Kim
Yuliy Kim
Yuliy Chersanovich Kim is one of Russia's foremost bards and playwrights. His most famous works, encompassing everything from mild humor to biting political satire, include songs for movies such as Bumbarash, The Twelve Chairs, and An Ordinary Miracle, as well as the songs "The Brave Captain,"...
. Others, like Evgeny Kliachkin
Evgeny Kliachkin
Evgeny Isaakovich Kliachkin was a Soviet and Russian bard, singer, and composer.-Biography:...
and Aleksander Dolsky, maintained a balance between outright "anti-Soviet" and plain romantic material.
Paradoxically, "songs" from pro-Communist plays by Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
, supposedly criticizing fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
and capitalist
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
society (and thus applauded by the Soviets), could be seen as protest songs, and hence were popular among bards. These were often called zongs (the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
pronunciation of the word 'Song'). Below is a quotation from a 'zong', translated from the Russian:
- Rams are marching in rows.
- Drums are rattling.
- The skins for these drums
- Are the rams' own.
The most obvious political accusation would be the humiliation of Soviet "peaceful demonstrations," held several times a year all over the Soviet Union, but the actual idea is deeper than that.
Outlaw songs
These songs, known in Russian as blatnaya pesnya, or more recently as shansonShanson
Russian chanson is a neologism for a musical genre covering a range of Russian songs based on the themes of the urban underclass and the criminal underworld. This song style, originally called blatnaya pesnya , has been popular in Eastern Europe ever since its first appearance in the beginning of...
, originated long before the bards appeared in the Soviet Union. Their origin can be traced as far back as the first decade of the 20th century. While not differing much in style from other bard songs, these songs can be compared in their content to modern rap
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
: glorification of crime and city romance. These songs reflected the breakup of the structure and rules of the old Russian society.
Since the 1930s, new outlaw songs had emerged from the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
s. Many of these songs were concerned with innocent people who were sent to the labour camps, rather than with criminals. Some songs were actually composed in the camps.
During the Khrushchev Thaw
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
years, many were released from the camps, and with them came their songs. Bards such as Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Gorodnitsky
Alexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky is a well-known Soviet and Russian bard and poet. Professionally, he is a geologist and oceanographer....
learned of these anonymous songs and started singing them. At that point, the songs gained a more symbolic meaning of struggle against oppression. Bards such as Alexander Rosenbaum
Alexander Rosenbaum
Alexander Yakovlevich Rosenbaum is a Soviet and Russian bard from Saint Petersburg. He is best known as an interpreter of the blatnaya pesnya genre...
also wrote many humorous outlaw songs about the Jewish mafia in Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
. Many of these songs were inspired by authors like Isaac Babel
Isaac Babel
Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of My Dovecote, and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature...
.
Other songs
Even more common than the tourist songs were songs about ordinary life (usually life in the USSR). Nearly every bard wrote a significant number of songs on this theme. The setting is very frequently urban, often in major cities such as Moscow (particularly the Arbat). Some songs of this type, such as the ones by Yuri VizborYuri Vizbor
Yuri Vizbor was a well-known Soviet bard and poet as well as a theatre and film actor.-Summary:...
and Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
, took a very direct approach and used simple and honest language to illustrate life. Other bards, such as Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Okudzhava
Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...
, took a more symbolic approach and expressed their views on life through extended metaphors and symbolism.
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
wrote songs about war simply because they provided that extreme setting in which honour and emotional strength are needed, and a man's true character can be seen. Vysotsky's war songs were praised by veterans for their extreme success in portraying war, despite the fact that the poet did not actually serve in the military. Yuri Vizbor
Yuri Vizbor
Yuri Vizbor was a well-known Soviet bard and poet as well as a theatre and film actor.-Summary:...
wrote war songs in which the people involved in the war were the most important element, rather than the war itself. In these songs, the war would often be happening in the background while the actual song would be in the style of the tourist song, with emphasis on nature and human emotions.
Some bards also wrote children's songs for various festivals and plays. These songs enjoyed great success, as the poets chose to write them in the same fashion as their other songs. This resulted in songs that, while directed at children, still had deep meaning behind them and were enjoyed by adults. The most famous bard performers who sang children's songs were the husband and wife duo Sergey Nikitin and Tatyana Nikitina
Tatyana Nikitina
Tatyana Khashimovna Nikitina is a prominent Russian bard, physicist, and politician. She usually performs together with her husband, Sergey Nikitin....
. Interestingly, Sergey and Tatyana are still considered bards, even though they are known primarily for setting great works of poetry to their own music.
Famous bards of the Soviet era
- Vladimir VysotskyVladimir VysotskyVladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
- Victor BerkovskyVictor BerkovskyViktor Semyonovich Berkovsky was a Soviet and Russian bard.-Early years and education:Berkovsky was born on July 13, 1932 in Zaporizhia, Ukrainian SSR...
- Alexander DolskyAlexander DolskyAlexander Alexandrovich Dolsky is a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, artist, and most famously known for being a bard....
- Alexander DulovAlexander DulovAlexander Andreevich Dulov was a Russian poet, songwriter, bard, and chemist.- Biography :Alexander Dulov graduated from Moscow State University with a specialization in Chemistry and worked at the Russian Academy of Science Institute of Organic Chemistry. Dulov started to write songs in the...
- Alexander Galich
- Alexander GorodnitskyAlexander GorodnitskyAlexander Moiseevich Gorodnitsky is a well-known Soviet and Russian bard and poet. Professionally, he is a geologist and oceanographer....
- Alexander GradskyAlexander GradskyAlexander Borisovich Gradsky is a Russian rock singer, bard, multi-instrumentalist and composer. He was one of the earliest performers of rock music in Russia. His diverse repertoire includes rock 'n' roll, traditional folk songs performed with a rock twist, and operatic arias...
- Evgeny KliachkinEvgeny KliachkinEvgeny Isaakovich Kliachkin was a Soviet and Russian bard, singer, and composer.-Biography:...
- Yuliy KimYuliy KimYuliy Chersanovich Kim is one of Russia's foremost bards and playwrights. His most famous works, encompassing everything from mild humor to biting political satire, include songs for movies such as Bumbarash, The Twelve Chairs, and An Ordinary Miracle, as well as the songs "The Brave Captain,"...
- Arik Krupp
- Yuri KukinYuri KukinYuri Kukin was a Russian bard.He was born in 1932 in the town of Syasstroy in the Leningrad region. After graduating from the Institute of Physical Training in Leningrad in 1954, Kukin worked as a figure skating coach in sports schools...
- Novella Matveyeva
- Sergey Nikitin
- Tatyana NikitinaTatyana NikitinaTatyana Khashimovna Nikitina is a prominent Russian bard, physicist, and politician. She usually performs together with her husband, Sergey Nikitin....
- Bulat OkudzhavaBulat OkudzhavaBulat Shalvovich Okudzhava was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, musician, novelist, and singer-songwriter. He was one of the founders of the Russian genre called "author song"...
- Yuri VizborYuri VizborYuri Vizbor was a well-known Soviet bard and poet as well as a theatre and film actor.-Summary:...
- Victor Luferov
External links
- Artist's song
- bardrock.com - modern bard music
- Bards.ru (Russian) - information, pictures, lyrics and sound
- Author's song
- Literary Kicks: The Soviet Underground - information and some translations