Bard (Soviet Union)

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Bulat Okudzhava, a pioneer of the Bard genre
Bulat Okudzhava, a pioneer of the Bard genre
For other meanings of the word, see Bard (disambiguation).

The term bard (бард) came to be used in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s (and continues to be used in Russia today) for singer-songwriters who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment. Bard poetry differs from other poetry mainly in the fact that it is sung along with a simple guitar melody 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 often takes 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 progressions 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" 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 may be recognized, such as outlaw song (blatnaya pesnya) and pirate song.

Initially the term "bard" was used by fans of the tourist song, and outside these circles, the term was often perceived as ironic. However there was a need for a term to distinguish this style of song from the traditional kind of concert song, and the term eventually stuck.

Many bards performed their songs for small groups of people using a Russian guitar, and rarely, if ever, would they be accompanied by other musicians or singers. Those who became popular would be able to hold modest concerts. Bards were rarely permitted to record their music, given the political nature of many songs. As a result, bard tunes usually made their way around via the copying of amateur recordings (known as magnitizdat) made at concerts, particularly those songs that were of a political nature.

Contents

[edit] Types of songs

[edit] Tourist song

During the Brezhnev era of stagnation in the history of the Soviet Union, camping, especially its extreme forms such as alpinism, kayaking/canoeing, and canyoning, became a form of escapism 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.

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 had several songs of this sort since his style suited them perfectly. Many of Alexander Gorodnitsky'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, pirate songs are still popular at "author song" concerts today. Almost every bard has at least one song with this motif in it.

Russian bard Novella Matveyeva
Russian bard Novella Matveyeva

This type of bard poetry was tolerated by the government, and it lived under the definition of 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 repertoire). 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 had a Palace of Culture 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'". Many of the best tourist songs were composed by Yuri Vizbor who participated and sang about all the sports described above, and Alexander Gorodnitsky who spent a great deal of time sailing around the world on ships and on scientific expeditions to the far North.

[edit] Political song

Songs of this kind expressed protest against the Soviet way of life. The genre varied from acutely political, "anti-Soviet" songs, fitting perfectly under the infamous Article 58, to witty satire in the best traditions of Aesop. Some of Bulat Okudzhava's songs touch on these themes.

Vladimir Vysotsky 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 forced to emigrate—owning a tape with his songs could mean a prison term in the USSR. Before emigration, he suffered from KGB persecution, as did another bard, Yuliy Kim. Others, like Evgeny Kliachkin and Aleksander Dolsky, maintained a balance between outright anti-Soviet and plain romantic material. Since most of the bards' songs were never permitted by Soviet censorship, most of them, however innocent, were considered to be anti-Soviet, in addition to being romantic or tourist.

Paradoxically, "songs" from pro-Communist plays by Bertolt Brecht, supposedly criticizing fascism and capitalist society (and thus applauded by the Soviets), could be seen as perfectly fitting Article 58 as well, and hence were popular among bards. These were often called zongs (German 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 skin for these drums
Is 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.

Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky

[edit] Outlaw song

These songs 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 outlaw songs can be compared in their content to modern rap: glorification of crime and city romance. These songs reflected the breakup of the structure and rules of the old Russian society. At that time, this type of anti-Soviet song was legal.

Since the 1930s, new outlaw songs had emerged from the Gulags. Many of these songs were concerned with innocent people who were sent to the labour camps, rather than with criminals. It should be noted that some songs were actually composed in the camps, while others were inspired by them, but the result was the same - honest songs about victims under harsh conditions.

During the Khrushchev Thaw years, many were released from the camps, and with them came their songs. Bards such as Alexander Gorodnitsky 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 also wrote many humorous outlaw songs about the Jewish mafia in Odessa. Many of these songs were inspired by authors like Isaac Babel.

[edit] Other songs

Even more common than the Tourist songs were songs about 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 Vizbor and Vladimir Vysotsky, took a very direct approach and used simple and honest language to illustrate life. Other bards, such as Bulat Okudzhava, took a more symbolic approach and expressed their views on life through extended metaphors and symbolism.

Russian bard Alexander Sukhanov
Russian bard Alexander Sukhanov

Another type of song that appeared in Russia long before the bards was the War Song. Many of the most famous bards wrote numerous songs about war, particularly The Great Patriotic War (WWII). Bards had various reasons for writing and singing songs about war. Okudzhava, who actually fought in the war, used his sad and emotional style to illustrate the futility of war in songs such as "The Paper Soldier" ("Бумажный Солдат"). Vladimir Vysotsky 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 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.

[edit] Famous bards of Soviet epoch

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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