Outlaw Music in Russia: The Rise of an Unlikely Genre

Gordienko, an assistant professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at the University of Arizona, debuts with a rigorous examination of “one of the most popular and beloved music genres” in Russia and Ukraine: the russkii shanson. Noting that these folk songs are marked by their “colloquial speech” and “simple, unpretentious melodies,” Gordienko traces the roots of the genre to prison and criminal underworld songs (such as “Murka“ and “To the Blind Taiga, to Age-Old Swamps”) that articulated “the unembellished truth about life under Soviet rule.” Tracking the shanson’s evolution through the Stalin and Brezhnev eras, then to the Soviet Union’s disintegration in 1991 (when “the paradoxes of post-Soviet life” and the rise of “bandit capitalism” resonated with genre’s gangster themes), Gordienko documents how the shanson went mainstream in recent decades, with “booming” album sales and radio stations devoted to the genre. She also analyzes how the genre’s patriarchal elements jibed with Vladimir Putin’s nationalist agenda, resulting in new songs glorifying the Russian leader while he in turn adopted the musical argot into his speeches. Though Gordienko’s academic prose is heavy going at times, she unearths many intriguing aspects of the shanson. Russophiles and musicologists will savor this impressive study. (Jan.)