Singing the Self: 'Guitar Poetry', Community and Identity in the post-Stalin Period

吉他诗歌在20世纪50年代末兴起于苏联，这一时期的标志是苏联社会的去斯大林化。在官方圈子里，对斯大林的谴责产生了重申苏联信仰基本原则（如集体主义、党的思想和对祖国的热爱）的需要，特别关注苏联青年的培养。吉他诗歌最初是一种自发的、由青年人驱动的消遣，受到苏联当局的谨慎青睐，他们认为它是苏联青年所关心的问题的真实表达（如果是需要专业指导的原始形式），也是文化意识形态影响的潜在工具。然而，到了20世纪60年代初，这种偏爱变坏了，因为个别吟游诗人成为了流行明星，而且由于通过magnizdat（自制录音带）传播，歌曲迅速传播，相对来说没有审查。到20世纪60年代末，对吉他诗歌的全面攻击正在进行中：个别吟游诗人在媒体上受到恶毒攻击，音乐会和节日被禁止。到了20世纪70年代，这一流派同时受到压制（一方面是通过对个别吟游诗人的迫害，另一方面是对整个流派的批评性沉默）和增选（例如，吟游诗人的歌曲被用于电影，电视和戏剧表演）。人们早就注意到（见Smith 1984），大多数吟游诗人和绝大多数歌曲都是非政治性的，而且许多吟游诗人在整个20世纪70年代及以后公开参与创作生活。然而，与此同时，对吉他诗歌的强烈政治化的观点仍然存在;这反映在对歌曲歌词直接导致的官方敌意增加的理解中（这些歌词被广泛接受为吉他诗歌中意义的特权网站）。这种看似矛盾的情况--大多数歌曲的歌词在政治上无害的性质与吉他诗歌引起的政治上充满活力的反应相结合（并继续挑起）--值得仔细研究。本项目旨在解决这一重要但迄今被忽视的问题，分析吉他诗歌不仅仅是一种娱乐手段或殉难的俄罗斯信件的化身，而是作为一种强大的交流媒介，自我塑造和社区建设。这个项目的理论框架是基于边缘理论，重点是“边缘”的社会和文化现象的特点。这种方法提供了一种方式来看待吉他诗歌的混合性（文学和音乐方面的综合）和边缘性（在空间，文化和技术“灰色地带”生存和发展的能力）作为创造潜力和“激进的可能性”（胡克斯）的网站;也是对苏联意识形态体系的隐含挑战。分析将包括吉他诗歌作为一个整体，在次要和主要的吟游诗人和检查歌曲的性能以及在文本。虽然不再强调，文本的作用不会被忽视，并将被视为与上下文，传播，性能和接收的问题，将前景作为沟通和自我塑造过程中的关键要素。通过强调而不是抹杀吉他诗歌的复杂性和矛盾性，这种跨学科的方法将揭示吉他诗歌在后斯大林时期苏联社会中的功能，在个人康复和个人人格塑造中的重要作用。通过关注一种在西方尚未得到充分研究的体裁，该项目将对非经典俄罗斯文化的研究做出重要贡献。通过借鉴边缘理论，该项目将有助于弥合西方批评理论的重要主体与俄罗斯文化研究之间的差距;它也将为更广泛的大众文化理论研究做出重要贡献。

Guitar poetry arose in the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, a period marked by the destalinisation of Soviet society. In official circles, denunciation of Stalin created a need to reaffirm fundamental tenets of Soviet faith (such as collectivism, party-mindedness and love of the motherland), with a particular focus on the upbringing of Soviet youth. Initially a spontaneous and youth-driven pastime, guitar poetry was received with cautious favour by Soviet authorities, who saw it as a genuine expression of the concerns of Soviet youth (if in a raw form requiring professional guidance) and as a potential instrument of cultural-ideological influence. By the early 1960s, however, this favour soured, as individual bards achieved popular stardom and, thanks to dissemination via magnitizdat (home-made tape recordings), songs circulated rapidly and relatively free of censorship. By the late 1960s, a full-scale assault on guitar poetry was underway: individual bards were viciously attacked in the press, and concerts and festivals were banned. By the 1970s the genre was simultaneously suppressed (through persecution of individual bards, on one hand, and critical silence about the genre as a whole, on the other) and co-opted (bards' songs were used in films, on television and in theatrical spectacles, for example). It has long been noted (see Smith 1984) that the majority of bards and the vast majority of songs were apolitical, and also that many bards participated openly in creative life throughout the 1970s and beyond. At the same time, however, a strongly politicised view of guitar poetry persists; and it is reflected in the understanding of increased official hostility as a direct result of songs' lyrics (these being widely accepted as the privileged site of meaning in guitar poetry). This seemingly paradoxical situation--the politically innocuous nature of most songs' lyrics combined with the politically charged response guitar poetry provoked (and continues to provoke)--deserves close scrutiny.The present project seeks to address this important but hitherto neglected issue, analysing guitar poetry not simply as a means of entertainment or an incarnation of martyred Russian letters, but as a powerful medium of communication, self-fashioning and community-building. The theoretical framework for this project is grounded in marginality theory, which focuses on the peculiarities of 'borderline' social and cultural phenomena. This approach offers a way of viewing guitar poetry's hybridity (its synthesis of literary and musical aspects) and its marginality (its ability to survive and thrive in spatial, cultural and technological 'grey areas') as sites of creative potential and of 'radical possibility' (Hooks); and also as implicit challenges to the Soviet ideological system. The analysis will encompass guitar poetry as a whole, taking in minor and major bards and examining songs in performance as well as in text. Though deemphasised, the role of text will not be ignored, and will be considered alongside issues of context, dissemination, performance and reception that will be foregrounded as key elements in the processes of communication and self-fashioning. By underscoring rather than effacing guitar poetry's complexities and contradictions, this interdisciplinary approach will shed new light on guitar poetry's function in Soviet society of the post-Stalin period, on its vital role in the rehabilitation of the individual and in the shaping of individual personalities after the fall of the 'cult of personality'. By focusing on a genre that is as yet understudied in the West, this project will make an important contribution to the study of non-canonical Russian culture. By drawing on marginality theory, the project will help to bridge the gap between an important body of Western critical theory and Russian cultural studies; and it will also represent an important contribution to the theoretical study of popular culture more broadly.