Shanson

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Russian Shanson (from French "chanson") is a neologism for a musical genre covering a range of Russian songs based on the themes of the criminal underworld. This song style, called blatnaya pesnya ("criminals' song"), has been popular in Eastern Europe ever since its first appearance in the beginning of the 20th century. Shanson can be seen as one of two genres stemming from 19th century Russian city romance songs (русский городской романс), the other being the author's song. The two genres are now quite distinct, but have overlapped significantly throughout the 20th century.

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[edit] History

The earliest criminal songs in this style largely came about due to the crumbling Czarist regime, but the style has changed significantly after the rise of Stalin, when both innocents and criminals were massacred and sent to labor camps.

Yet another change occurred during the Khrushchev Thaw, when the songs from the camps started reaching the public, performed by artists like Arcady Severny, Vladimir Vysotsky,[citation needed] and Alexander Rosenbaum[citation needed].

Modern artists affiliated with the Shanson genre often sing not in the traditional style used even by the Khrushchev-era performers, but more professionally, borrowing musical arrangements from pop, rock, and jazz.

[edit] Themes

Shanson can be compared with American gangsta rap, but while the two genres are thematically similar, they vary greatly in both lyrical and musical style. Lyrically, Shanson songs are usually narrative-driven and are more similar to ballads than pop songs. In fact, this is one of the reasons for naming the genre after French Chanson (the other being musical similarity).

Shanson themes vary greatly depending on the time in which the songs were written and the places in which they are set. For example, songs set in the Odessa of the 1910s tend to be more cheerful, and are sharply contrasted by the dark, depressing, and violent songs set in the Stalinist era. The interesting thing is that it is common for a Shanson artist, regardles of the time in which he writes his songs, to include songs of all periods in his repertoire, and write songs set in an era different from his own. This often leads to confusion: for example, the bard Alexander Gorodnitsky reports being beaten up once after claiming authorship to one of his songs, which was attributed to a Gulag inmate living over 30 years earlier.

Recurring themes in Shanson songs include:

  • The execution of a traitor to a criminal gang (the first such song is probably "Murka"). This is usually in the context of the Russian criminal law, which punishes betrayal very harshly.
  • Being sent to, or released from, a labor camp.
  • Love in the context of criminal life, the conflict usually being either betrayal or separation due to imprisonment.
  • Glorification of the 'merry thief' archetype. These songs are often set in the city of Odessa, where the Jewish Mafia was characterized as being particularly cheerful and colorful. Odessa Couplets often depict the rich and glorious life before Stalin's regime, when Odessa was among the only cities in the young Soviet Union to have free trade. These songs are often narrations of weddings and parties, sometimes based on real events.

As seen above, Shanson is rooted in prison life and criminal culture, but some Shanson performers insist that the genre transcends mere criminal songs, and look upon Alexander Vertinsky and Alla Bayanova as their precursors.

[edit] Musical style

The musical style of the older Russian criminal songs, much like the Russian Bard songs, are heavily influenced by the classical Russian romance genre of the 19th century, more specifically a subgenre known as the City Romance. Romance songs are almost always divided into four-line rhymed couplets, rarely have a chorus, and follow a fairly consistent chord progression (Am, Dm, and E, sometimes with C and G added). The strumming pattern is also predictable: it is either a march, or slow 2/4 rhythm fingerpicking. Romance songs were traditionally played on a Russian guitar, whose which the tuning makes playing these chords easier (most of them are played as a single-finger bar chord).

[edit] Performers

Criminal songs were prominently performed by artists like Arcady Severny, Vladimir Vysotsky, Alexander Gorodnitsky, and Alexander Rosenbaum. Notice that with the exception of Severny, these performers are usually better known for their Bard songs. Arkady was one of the rare performers who focuses exclusively on collecting and performing old criminal songs.

Modern shanson performers include Villi Tokarev and Lyuba Uspenskaya (both based in the US), Sergei Trofimov and Aleksandr Novikov, Vika Tsyganova and Mikhail Krug (recenly murdered by criminal acquaintances at his villa in Tver).

[edit] External links in English

[edit] External links in Russian

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