Magnitizdat (USSR) - Revision history

Editor2018 at 15:08, 17 May 2019

2019-05-17T15:08:32Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:08, 17 May 2019
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	{{infobox		{{infobox
	\| nameofpractice = Magnitizdat		\| nameofpractice =Magnitizdat
	\| location = USSR		\| flagemoji =
	\| imagemap = USSR map.png		\| definition =Re-recording and distributing uncensored speech or music on cassette tapes in USSR
	\| ~~imageflag~~ = USSR ~~flag.png~~		\| location =USSR
	\| authorofpiece = James ~~Tayler~~		\| imagemap =USSR map.png
	\| authorinstitution = University of Bristol		\| clusters =
	}}		[[:Category:Solidarity\|Solidarity]] – [[:Category: Normative ambivalence\| Normative ambivalence]] – [[:Category: Non-conformity\| Non-conformity]] – [[:Category: Resistance\| Resistance]]
			\| categories =
	'''~~''Original text:~~ James Taylor, University of Bristol'''''		[[:Category:Russia\|Russia]] – [[:Category: FSU\| FSU]] – [[:Category: USSR\| USSR]] – [[:Category: Youth\| Youth]] – [[:Category: Music\| Music]] – [[:Category: Art\| Art]]
			\| authorofpiece =James Taylor
	~~<div~~ class="~~toccolours mw~~-~~collapsible mw~~-~~collapsed~~">		\| authorinstitution =School of Arts, University of Bristol, UK
	Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref>		\| authorwebsite = }}
			<big>'''By James Taylor, School of Arts, University of Bristol, UK'''</big>
	~~<div class="mw-collapsible-content">~~		[[Category:Solidarity]]
			[[Category: Normative ambivalence]]
			[[Category: Non-conformity]]
			[[Category: Resistance]]
			[[Category:Russia]]
			[[Category: FSU]]
			[[Category: USSR]]
			[[Category: Youth]]
			[[Category: Music]]
			[[Category: Art]]
			[[Category:Entry]]
			[[Category: Volume 1]]
			{\| class="wikitable"
			\|-
			\|style="font-size:1.1em;"\|Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''[[Roentgenizdat]]'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref>
			\|}
	[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|left\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]		[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|left\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]

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	Regarding the reproduction of imported western music, experts point out financial advantages of the re-recording practices. Vinyl recordings were extremely expensive and the further one went away from Moscow, the more expensive the discs became to consumers. Indeed, a vinyl in the Urals could cost around 200 roubles, which can be contextualised to an engineer’s monthly wage of 120 to 150 roubles a month (Aksenov 2012<ref>Aksenov, Pavel, Beatles for Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR (Moscow: BBC Russian Service, 5th October 2012), Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (14/08/2015).</ref>). In this respect, tape recordings often appeared to fill a gap in the market for affordable and accessible music. The Russian journalist Andrei Logutkov indicated that he bought a tape recording of a Beatles’ track (Sgt. Pepper) in the Russian city of Orlov, from a friend for just 60 kopecks (Ibid.). In the same way, music critic Artemy Troitsky wrote that a ‘tape recording of an LP cost three roubles, while the album itself would fetch 20 or 30 roubles’ (Troitsky 1987: 25<ref>Troitsky, Aretemy. 1987. Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia. London: Faber and Faber.</ref>). It is clear that the economic advantage to cassette re-recording was that popular music could be distributed to a wider and less-affluent audience, something which perhaps resonated with a socialist mentality to sharing and subverting private property rights.		Regarding the reproduction of imported western music, experts point out financial advantages of the re-recording practices. Vinyl recordings were extremely expensive and the further one went away from Moscow, the more expensive the discs became to consumers. Indeed, a vinyl in the Urals could cost around 200 roubles, which can be contextualised to an engineer’s monthly wage of 120 to 150 roubles a month (Aksenov 2012<ref>Aksenov, Pavel, Beatles for Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR (Moscow: BBC Russian Service, 5th October 2012), Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (14/08/2015).</ref>). In this respect, tape recordings often appeared to fill a gap in the market for affordable and accessible music. The Russian journalist Andrei Logutkov indicated that he bought a tape recording of a Beatles’ track (Sgt. Pepper) in the Russian city of Orlov, from a friend for just 60 kopecks (Ibid.). In the same way, music critic Artemy Troitsky wrote that a ‘tape recording of an LP cost three roubles, while the album itself would fetch 20 or 30 roubles’ (Troitsky 1987: 25<ref>Troitsky, Aretemy. 1987. Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia. London: Faber and Faber.</ref>). It is clear that the economic advantage to cassette re-recording was that popular music could be distributed to a wider and less-affluent audience, something which perhaps resonated with a socialist mentality to sharing and subverting private property rights.

	As with the earlier possession of ''roentgenizdat'' music, magnetic tape recorders conferred ‘significant symbolic capital upon its owner’ (Daughtry 2006: 25<ref>Daughtry, Martin J. 2006. Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ~~‘Samizdat~~ and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7 April).</ref>) and strengthened the demand for them. The economy of shortage alongside the weakened ideological constraints on imported music (as well as other western goods) ensured that, by the start of the 1980s, ''magnitizdat'' was being exploited for recording rock music on a mass scale. It has been argued that this phenomenon caused a decline in attendance figures at official concerts and the reduction of album sales, which eventually helped provoke ''Goskontsert'' (the state concert organisation) to promote the unofficial Soviet rock group ''Mashina vremeni'' (Time Machine) to ‘professional status’ (Easton 1989: 52-53<ref>Easton, Paul. 1989. ‘The Rock Music Community’ in Soviet Youth Culture, ed. by J. Riordan. London: Macmillan Press: 45-83.</ref>). Nevertheless, rock fans could surpass the official system through use of informal suppliers (known as the ''fatsovshchiki''), who were well known in closed circles for providing unofficial tape records and westernised clothing (e.g. blue jeans). Hanging around Western-tourist holiday hotels and popular tourist destinations, the ''fatsovshchiki'' would barter with tourists for marketable goods, which could then be passed on and sold through informal networks.		As with the earlier possession of ''roentgenizdat'' music, magnetic tape recorders conferred ‘significant symbolic capital upon its owner’ (Daughtry 2006: 25<ref>Daughtry, Martin J. 2006. Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘[[Samizdat]] and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7 April).</ref>) and strengthened the demand for them. The economy of shortage alongside the weakened ideological constraints on imported music (as well as other western goods) ensured that, by the start of the 1980s, ''magnitizdat'' was being exploited for recording rock music on a mass scale. It has been argued that this phenomenon caused a decline in attendance figures at official concerts and the reduction of album sales, which eventually helped provoke ''Goskontsert'' (the state concert organisation) to promote the unofficial Soviet rock group ''Mashina vremeni'' (Time Machine) to ‘professional status’ (Easton 1989: 52-53<ref>Easton, Paul. 1989. ‘The Rock Music Community’ in Soviet Youth Culture, ed. by J. Riordan. London: Macmillan Press: 45-83.</ref>). Nevertheless, rock fans could surpass the official system through use of informal suppliers (known as the ''fatsovshchiki''), who were well known in closed circles for providing unofficial tape records and westernised clothing (e.g. blue jeans). Hanging around Western-tourist holiday hotels and popular tourist destinations, the ''fatsovshchiki'' would barter with tourists for marketable goods, which could then be passed on and sold through informal networks.

	''Magnitizdat'' was similarly highly evasive. The Soviet press attacked the cassette tape recordings for, as quoted in the newspaper ''Sovetskaya Rossia'' on 9 June 1968, ‘spreading faster than a flu virus,’ (Ryback 1990: 46<ref>Ryback, Timothy W. 1990. Rock around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>). Buying, selling or owning unofficial music tapes still carried up to a three year prison sentence (Sargent 2015<ref>Sargent, Hale, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (14/08/2015).</ref>). The Soviet militia (police) attempted to wage war against the ''fatsovshchiki'', but their attempts were futile as countless numbers continued to 'ply the trade’ (Ryback 1990: 109-110<ref>Ryback, Timothy W. 1990. Rock around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>). One Soviet musicologist, Vladimir Frumkin, on 20 March 1974 attempted to fly from Leningrad to the United States with a selection of cassette tape recordings of his bard-friend Bulat Okudzhava. The tapes were ‘verified’ by Soviet customs officials and then handed back to him, but upon arriving in the United States Frumkin discovered that his magnetic-tape recordings had been all ‘demagnetised’ (Daughtry 2006: 2<ref>Daughtry, Martin J. 2006. Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7 April).</ref>). Although these recordings had been erased, they were probably not fully checked; it was often the case that ''avtorskaia pesnia'' could be secreted amongst ‘other less provocative songs’ (Sargent 2015<ref>Sargent, Hale, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (14/08/2015).</ref>). Despite such efforts of containment by the authorities, thousands of recordings were already in unofficial circulation, locked into personal and private distribution networks.		''Magnitizdat'' was similarly highly evasive. The Soviet press attacked the cassette tape recordings for, as quoted in the newspaper ''Sovetskaya Rossia'' on 9 June 1968, ‘spreading faster than a flu virus,’ (Ryback 1990: 46<ref>Ryback, Timothy W. 1990. Rock around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>). Buying, selling or owning unofficial music tapes still carried up to a three year prison sentence (Sargent 2015<ref>Sargent, Hale, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (14/08/2015).</ref>). The Soviet militia (police) attempted to wage war against the ''fatsovshchiki'', but their attempts were futile as countless numbers continued to 'ply the trade’ (Ryback 1990: 109-110<ref>Ryback, Timothy W. 1990. Rock around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>). One Soviet musicologist, Vladimir Frumkin, on 20 March 1974 attempted to fly from Leningrad to the United States with a selection of cassette tape recordings of his bard-friend Bulat Okudzhava. The tapes were ‘verified’ by Soviet customs officials and then handed back to him, but upon arriving in the United States Frumkin discovered that his magnetic-tape recordings had been all ‘demagnetised’ (Daughtry 2006: 2<ref>Daughtry, Martin J. 2006. Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7 April).</ref>). Although these recordings had been erased, they were probably not fully checked; it was often the case that ''avtorskaia pesnia'' could be secreted amongst ‘other less provocative songs’ (Sargent 2015<ref>Sargent, Hale, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (14/08/2015).</ref>). Despite such efforts of containment by the authorities, thousands of recordings were already in unofficial circulation, locked into personal and private distribution networks.
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	As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.		As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.
	~~</div>~~
	~~</div>~~

	~~==Notes==~~
	~~<references />~~

	~~[[Category: Informal Practices]]~~		==References==
	~~[[Category:USSR]]~~
	~~[[Category: FSU]]~~
	~~[[Category:Normative]]~~
	~~[[Category:Non conformism]]~~
	~~[[Category:Entry]]~~

Admin at 18:28, 11 February 2019

2019-02-11T18:28:55Z

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	[[Category: Informal Practices]]		[[Category: Informal Practices]]
	[[Category:USSR]]		[[Category:USSR]]
			[[Category: FSU]]
	[[Category:Normative]]		[[Category:Normative]]
	[[Category:Non conformism]]		[[Category:Non conformism]]
	[[Category:Entry]]		[[Category:Entry]]

Admin at 12:51, 3 July 2018

2018-07-03T12:51:47Z

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	[[Category:Normative]]		[[Category:Normative]]
	[[Category:Non conformism]]		[[Category:Non conformism]]
			[[Category:Entry]]

Admin: Admin moved page Magnitizdat to Magnitizdat (USSR) without leaving a redirect

2018-06-01T11:13:32Z

Admin moved page Magnitizdat to Magnitizdat (USSR) without leaving a redirect

← Older revision	Revision as of 11:13, 1 June 2018
(No difference)

Admin at 17:33, 13 August 2016

2016-08-13T17:33:00Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:33, 13 August 2016
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	As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.		As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.
			</div>
			</div>

	==Notes==		==Notes==

Admin at 17:32, 13 August 2016

2016-08-13T17:32:29Z

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	\| nameofpractice = Magnitizdat		\| nameofpractice = Magnitizdat
	\| location = USSR		\| location = USSR
	\| imagemap =		\| imagemap = USSR map.png
	\| imageflag =		\| imageflag = USSR flag.png
	\| authorofpiece = James Tayler		\| authorofpiece = James Tayler
	\| authorinstitution = University of Bristol		\| authorinstitution = University of Bristol

Admin at 17:27, 13 August 2016

2016-08-13T17:27:56Z

Show changes

Admin at 21:45, 25 July 2016

2016-07-25T21:45:21Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:45, 25 July 2016
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	‎[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|right\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]		<div class='item'>‎[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|right\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref><br><br>The first tape recorders (the EL’fa-6, the Dnepr-3 and the Spais) slowly emerged into the market by the late 1950s, but ‘their production was limited.’<ref>Timothy Ryback, Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union, p.44</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was steadily increasing the production of tape recorders throughout the 1960s; 128,000 cassette recorders were in circulation by 1960, which had risen to 4.7 million by 1985.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> While an estimated fifty million Soviet citizens bought these Soviet-made tape recorders, many thousands of Japanese recorders were equally smuggled into the Soviet Union by Soviet sailors and were either sold in second hand shops or passed on through informal networks.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> However, with the sudden increase of tape recorder sales and the influx of foreign tourists, these products were soon being exploited to re-record and multiply unofficial Western music records or songs by Soviet bards (singer-songwriters such as Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vyisotskii, and others who used poetry and music to express political commentary), which allowed artists and other amateur enthusiasts to become more accessible to a larger audience. Their music, which was initially restricted to small numbers gathering in private apartments, was now being circulated via underground networks to an increasing number of listeners. As Timothy Ryback states:<blockquote>A vast underground culture developed around Magnitizdat. Tapes were collected, recorded, and passed on. Although sound quality dissipated with each re-taping, the recordings evoked what one observer called the ‘romance of the forbidden.’ Through the hiss of surface noise, one heard not only the voice of the singer but also the presence of the audience: chairs scraping across the floor, a bottle knocking against glasses, muted laughter or quiet applause, the rattle of a tram on the street below […] From these underground recordings, legends emerged, faceless legends, recognisable only by their voices, their music, and their lyrics.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, p. 45</ref></blockquote><br><br>Regarding the reproduction of imported western music, Artemy Troitsky illustrates that where original albums would be expensive to buy, around 50-70 roubles on the black market [average monthly wage: 120-150 roubles], a tape recording he bought of a Beatles track (Sgt. Pepper) from a friend, would cost just 60 kopecks!<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> Purchasing the Beatles’ White Album for one rouble, Troitsky admits that he was ‘pleased to find on it Glass Onion, which [he had] previously heard on a disc on the bones.’<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> It is clear that just like the x-ray disks in the previous decade; the demand for the tape cassette was primarily strengthened by the earlier demand for ''Roentgenizdat'' music, which thus conferred ‘significant symbolic capital upon its owner.’<ref>Martin Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7th April 2006), p. 25</ref> By the start of the 1980s, ''Magnitizdat'' was being fully exploited for recording rock music. Paul Easton argues that this phenomenon caused a decline in attendees at official concerts and the reduction of album sales, which eventually helped provoke ''Goskontsert'' (the state concert organisation) to promote the unofficial Soviet rock group ''Time Machine'' [''Mashina Vremeni''] to ‘professional status’.<ref>Paul Easton, ‘The Rock Music Community’ in J. Riordan Soviet Youth Culture (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989), pp. 52-53</ref> Nevertheless, rock fans could surpass the official system through use of informal suppliers (known as the ''fatsovshchiki''), who were well known in closed circles for providing unofficial tape records and westernised clothing (e.g. blue jeans). Hanging around Western-tourist holiday hotels and popular tourist destinations, the fatsovshchiki would barter with tourists for marketable goods, which could then be passed on and sold through informal networks. While the Militia attempted to wage war against the ''fatsovshchiki'', their attempts were futile as countless numbers ‘continued to ply the trade’.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 109-110</ref>[[File:Bulat Okudzhava.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|left\|Bulat Okudzhava performing at Palace of the Republic, Berlin, Germany, 1976.]]<br><br>While much of the official press attacked the cassette tape recordings for ‘spreading faster than a flu virus,’<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 46</ref> and buying, selling or owning unofficial music tapes still carried up to a three year prison sentence, ''Magnitizdat'' was highly evasive.<ref>Hale Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013) </ref> Martin Daughtry explains the story of Soviet musicologist Vladimir Frumkin, who on 20 March 1974 was attempting to fly from Leningrad to the United States with a selection of cassette tape recordings of his bard-friend Bulat Okudzhava. The tapes were processed by Soviet customs officials and then handed back to him, but upon arriving in the United States Frumkin discovered that his magnetic-tape recordings had been ‘demagnetised’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 2</ref> Although these recordings had been erased, they were probably not fully checked - often ''avtorskaia pesnia'' could be secreted amongst ‘other less provocative songs’.<ref>Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013)</ref> Nevertheless, hundreds, if not thousands, of the same recording were already in unofficial circulation, locked into personal and private distribution networks. By the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was apparent that the Soviet authorities had failed to control or limit the unstoppable ''Magnitizdat'' production.<br><br>As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.
	~~<div class='item'>~~Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref><br><br>The first tape recorders (the EL’fa-6, the Dnepr-3 and the Spais) slowly emerged into the market by the late 1950s, but ‘their production was limited.’<ref>Timothy Ryback, Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union, p.44</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was steadily increasing the production of tape recorders throughout the 1960s; 128,000 cassette recorders were in circulation by 1960, which had risen to 4.7 million by 1985.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> While an estimated fifty million Soviet citizens bought these Soviet-made tape recorders, many thousands of Japanese recorders were equally smuggled into the Soviet Union by Soviet sailors and were either sold in second hand shops or passed on through informal networks.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> However, with the sudden increase of tape recorder sales and the influx of foreign tourists, these products were soon being exploited to re-record and multiply unofficial Western music records or songs by Soviet bards (singer-songwriters such as Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vyisotskii, and others who used poetry and music to express political commentary), which allowed artists and other amateur enthusiasts to become more accessible to a larger audience. Their music, which was initially restricted to small numbers gathering in private apartments, was now being circulated via underground networks to an increasing number of listeners. As Timothy Ryback states:<blockquote>A vast underground culture developed around Magnitizdat. Tapes were collected, recorded, and passed on. Although sound quality dissipated with each re-taping, the recordings evoked what one observer called the ‘romance of the forbidden.’ Through the hiss of surface noise, one heard not only the voice of the singer but also the presence of the audience: chairs scraping across the floor, a bottle knocking against glasses, muted laughter or quiet applause, the rattle of a tram on the street below […] From these underground recordings, legends emerged, faceless legends, recognisable only by their voices, their music, and their lyrics.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, p. 45</ref></blockquote><br><br>Regarding the reproduction of imported western music, Artemy Troitsky illustrates that where original albums would be expensive to buy, around 50-70 roubles on the black market [average monthly wage: 120-150 roubles], a tape recording he bought of a Beatles track (Sgt. Pepper) from a friend, would cost just 60 kopecks!<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> Purchasing the Beatles’ White Album for one rouble, Troitsky admits that he was ‘pleased to find on it Glass Onion, which [he had] previously heard on a disc on the bones.’<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> It is clear that just like the x-ray disks in the previous decade; the demand for the tape cassette was primarily strengthened by the earlier demand for ''Roentgenizdat'' music, which thus conferred ‘significant symbolic capital upon its owner.’<ref>Martin Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7th April 2006), p. 25</ref> By the start of the 1980s, ''Magnitizdat'' was being fully exploited for recording rock music. Paul Easton argues that this phenomenon caused a decline in attendees at official concerts and the reduction of album sales, which eventually helped provoke ''Goskontsert'' (the state concert organisation) to promote the unofficial Soviet rock group ''Time Machine'' [''Mashina Vremeni''] to ‘professional status’.<ref>Paul Easton, ‘The Rock Music Community’ in J. Riordan Soviet Youth Culture (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989), pp. 52-53</ref> Nevertheless, rock fans could surpass the official system through use of informal suppliers (known as the ''fatsovshchiki''), who were well known in closed circles for providing unofficial tape records and westernised clothing (e.g. blue jeans). Hanging around Western-tourist holiday hotels and popular tourist destinations, the fatsovshchiki would barter with tourists for marketable goods, which could then be passed on and sold through informal networks. While the Militia attempted to wage war against the ''fatsovshchiki'', their attempts were futile as countless numbers ‘continued to ply the trade’.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 109-110</ref>[[File:Bulat Okudzhava.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|left\|Bulat Okudzhava performing at Palace of the Republic, Berlin, Germany, 1976.]]<br><br>While much of the official press attacked the cassette tape recordings for ‘spreading faster than a flu virus,’<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 46</ref> and buying, selling or owning unofficial music tapes still carried up to a three year prison sentence, ''Magnitizdat'' was highly evasive.<ref>Hale Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013) </ref> Martin Daughtry explains the story of Soviet musicologist Vladimir Frumkin, who on 20 March 1974 was attempting to fly from Leningrad to the United States with a selection of cassette tape recordings of his bard-friend Bulat Okudzhava. The tapes were processed by Soviet customs officials and then handed back to him, but upon arriving in the United States Frumkin discovered that his magnetic-tape recordings had been ‘demagnetised’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 2</ref> Although these recordings had been erased, they were probably not fully checked - often ''avtorskaia pesnia'' could be secreted amongst ‘other less provocative songs’.<ref>Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013)</ref> Nevertheless, hundreds, if not thousands, of the same recording were already in unofficial circulation, locked into personal and private distribution networks. By the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was apparent that the Soviet authorities had failed to control or limit the unstoppable ''Magnitizdat'' production.<br><br>As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.

	==Notes==		==Notes==

Admin at 21:43, 25 July 2016

2016-07-25T21:43:04Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:43, 25 July 2016
Line 1:		Line 1:
	‎[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|right\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref>		‎[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|right\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]
			<div class='item'>Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref><br><br>The first tape recorders (the EL’fa-6, the Dnepr-3 and the Spais) slowly emerged into the market by the late 1950s, but ‘their production was limited.’<ref>Timothy Ryback, Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union, p.44</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was steadily increasing the production of tape recorders throughout the 1960s; 128,000 cassette recorders were in circulation by 1960, which had risen to 4.7 million by 1985.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> While an estimated fifty million Soviet citizens bought these Soviet-made tape recorders, many thousands of Japanese recorders were equally smuggled into the Soviet Union by Soviet sailors and were either sold in second hand shops or passed on through informal networks.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> However, with the sudden increase of tape recorder sales and the influx of foreign tourists, these products were soon being exploited to re-record and multiply unofficial Western music records or songs by Soviet bards (singer-songwriters such as Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vyisotskii, and others who used poetry and music to express political commentary), which allowed artists and other amateur enthusiasts to become more accessible to a larger audience. Their music, which was initially restricted to small numbers gathering in private apartments, was now being circulated via underground networks to an increasing number of listeners. As Timothy Ryback states:<blockquote>A vast underground culture developed around Magnitizdat. Tapes were collected, recorded, and passed on. Although sound quality dissipated with each re-taping, the recordings evoked what one observer called the ‘romance of the forbidden.’ Through the hiss of surface noise, one heard not only the voice of the singer but also the presence of the audience: chairs scraping across the floor, a bottle knocking against glasses, muted laughter or quiet applause, the rattle of a tram on the street below […] From these underground recordings, legends emerged, faceless legends, recognisable only by their voices, their music, and their lyrics.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, p. 45</ref></blockquote><br><br>Regarding the reproduction of imported western music, Artemy Troitsky illustrates that where original albums would be expensive to buy, around 50-70 roubles on the black market [average monthly wage: 120-150 roubles], a tape recording he bought of a Beatles track (Sgt. Pepper) from a friend, would cost just 60 kopecks!<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> Purchasing the Beatles’ White Album for one rouble, Troitsky admits that he was ‘pleased to find on it Glass Onion, which [he had] previously heard on a disc on the bones.’<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> It is clear that just like the x-ray disks in the previous decade; the demand for the tape cassette was primarily strengthened by the earlier demand for ''Roentgenizdat'' music, which thus conferred ‘significant symbolic capital upon its owner.’<ref>Martin Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7th April 2006), p. 25</ref> By the start of the 1980s, ''Magnitizdat'' was being fully exploited for recording rock music. Paul Easton argues that this phenomenon caused a decline in attendees at official concerts and the reduction of album sales, which eventually helped provoke ''Goskontsert'' (the state concert organisation) to promote the unofficial Soviet rock group ''Time Machine'' [''Mashina Vremeni''] to ‘professional status’.<ref>Paul Easton, ‘The Rock Music Community’ in J. Riordan Soviet Youth Culture (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989), pp. 52-53</ref> Nevertheless, rock fans could surpass the official system through use of informal suppliers (known as the ''fatsovshchiki''), who were well known in closed circles for providing unofficial tape records and westernised clothing (e.g. blue jeans). Hanging around Western-tourist holiday hotels and popular tourist destinations, the fatsovshchiki would barter with tourists for marketable goods, which could then be passed on and sold through informal networks. While the Militia attempted to wage war against the ''fatsovshchiki'', their attempts were futile as countless numbers ‘continued to ply the trade’.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 109-110</ref>[[File:Bulat Okudzhava.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|left\|Bulat Okudzhava performing at Palace of the Republic, Berlin, Germany, 1976.]]<br><br>While much of the official press attacked the cassette tape recordings for ‘spreading faster than a flu virus,’<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 46</ref> and buying, selling or owning unofficial music tapes still carried up to a three year prison sentence, ''Magnitizdat'' was highly evasive.<ref>Hale Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013) </ref> Martin Daughtry explains the story of Soviet musicologist Vladimir Frumkin, who on 20 March 1974 was attempting to fly from Leningrad to the United States with a selection of cassette tape recordings of his bard-friend Bulat Okudzhava. The tapes were processed by Soviet customs officials and then handed back to him, but upon arriving in the United States Frumkin discovered that his magnetic-tape recordings had been ‘demagnetised’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 2</ref> Although these recordings had been erased, they were probably not fully checked - often ''avtorskaia pesnia'' could be secreted amongst ‘other less provocative songs’.<ref>Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013)</ref> Nevertheless, hundreds, if not thousands, of the same recording were already in unofficial circulation, locked into personal and private distribution networks. By the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was apparent that the Soviet authorities had failed to control or limit the unstoppable ''Magnitizdat'' production.<br><br>As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.
	The first tape recorders (the EL’fa-6, the Dnepr-3 and the Spais) slowly emerged into the market by the late 1950s, but ‘their production was limited.’<ref>Timothy Ryback, Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union, p.44</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was steadily increasing the production of tape recorders throughout the 1960s; 128,000 cassette recorders were in circulation by 1960, which had risen to 4.7 million by 1985.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> While an estimated fifty million Soviet citizens bought these Soviet-made tape recorders, many thousands of Japanese recorders were equally smuggled into the Soviet Union by Soviet sailors and were either sold in second hand shops or passed on through informal networks.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> However, with the sudden increase of tape recorder sales and the influx of foreign tourists, these products were soon being exploited to re-record and multiply unofficial Western music records or songs by Soviet bards (singer-songwriters such as Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vyisotskii, and others who used poetry and music to express political commentary), which allowed artists and other amateur enthusiasts to become more accessible to a larger audience. Their music, which was initially restricted to small numbers gathering in private apartments, was now being circulated via underground networks to an increasing number of listeners. As Timothy Ryback states:

	<blockquote>A vast underground culture developed around Magnitizdat. Tapes were collected, recorded, and passed on. Although sound quality dissipated with each re-taping, the recordings evoked what one observer called the ‘romance of the forbidden.’ Through the hiss of surface noise, one heard not only the voice of the singer but also the presence of the audience: chairs scraping across the floor, a bottle knocking against glasses, muted laughter or quiet applause, the rattle of a tram on the street below […] From these underground recordings, legends emerged, faceless legends, recognisable only by their voices, their music, and their lyrics.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, p. 45</ref></blockquote>

	Regarding the reproduction of imported western music, Artemy Troitsky illustrates that where original albums would be expensive to buy, around 50-70 roubles on the black market [average monthly wage: 120-150 roubles], a tape recording he bought of a Beatles track (Sgt. Pepper) from a friend, would cost just 60 kopecks!<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> Purchasing the Beatles’ White Album for one rouble, Troitsky admits that he was ‘pleased to find on it Glass Onion, which [he had] previously heard on a disc on the bones.’<ref>Pavel Aksenov, Beatles For Sale: The Vinyl Underground in the USSR, Accessed Online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19827438 (27/02/2013)</ref> It is clear that just like the x-ray disks in the previous decade; the demand for the tape cassette was primarily strengthened by the earlier demand for ''Roentgenizdat'' music, which thus conferred ‘significant symbolic capital upon its owner.’<ref>Martin Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice prepared for the University of Pennsylvania conference – ‘Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries’ (7th April 2006), p. 25</ref> By the start of the 1980s, ''Magnitizdat'' was being fully exploited for recording rock music. Paul Easton argues that this phenomenon caused a decline in attendees at official concerts and the reduction of album sales, which eventually helped provoke ''Goskontsert'' (the state concert organisation) to promote the unofficial Soviet rock group ''Time Machine'' [''Mashina Vremeni''] to ‘professional status’.<ref>Paul Easton, ‘The Rock Music Community’ in J. Riordan Soviet Youth Culture (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1989), pp. 52-53</ref> Nevertheless, rock fans could surpass the official system through use of informal suppliers (known as the ''fatsovshchiki''), who were well known in closed circles for providing unofficial tape records and westernised clothing (e.g. blue jeans). Hanging around Western-tourist holiday hotels and popular tourist destinations, the fatsovshchiki would barter with tourists for marketable goods, which could then be passed on and sold through informal networks. While the Militia attempted to wage war against the ''fatsovshchiki'', their attempts were futile as countless numbers ‘continued to ply the trade’.<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 109-110</ref>

	[[File:Bulat Okudzhava.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|left\|Bulat Okudzhava performing at Palace of the Republic, Berlin, Germany, 1976.]]While much of the official press attacked the cassette tape recordings for ‘spreading faster than a flu virus,’<ref>Ryback, Rock Around the Block, pp. 46</ref> and buying, selling or owning unofficial music tapes still carried up to a three year prison sentence, ''Magnitizdat'' was highly evasive.<ref>Hale Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013) </ref> Martin Daughtry explains the story of Soviet musicologist Vladimir Frumkin, who on 20 March 1974 was attempting to fly from Leningrad to the United States with a selection of cassette tape recordings of his bard-friend Bulat Okudzhava. The tapes were processed by Soviet customs officials and then handed back to him, but upon arriving in the United States Frumkin discovered that his magnetic-tape recordings had been ‘demagnetised’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 2</ref> Although these recordings had been erased, they were probably not fully checked - often ''avtorskaia pesnia'' could be secreted amongst ‘other less provocative songs’.<ref>Sargent, Refrains of Dissent, Accessed Online: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/d1.html (02/010/2013)</ref> Nevertheless, hundreds, if not thousands, of the same recording were already in unofficial circulation, locked into personal and private distribution networks. By the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was apparent that the Soviet authorities had failed to control or limit the unstoppable ''Magnitizdat'' production.

	As a phenomenon, ''Magnitizdat'' shares many qualities with ''Roentgenizdat'', primarily as both practices helped surpass the state-authorised music distribution channels. The core difference was that while ''Roentgenizdat'' was a cheap imitation of vinyl disks in short supply, ''Magnitizdat'' used authentically produced magnetic tapes which eventually made x-ray disks technologically redundant (cassette tapes had a longer duration and better audio quality). These authentically produced tapes and tape recorders were also permitted in every household, compared to the strictly illegal paper copying devices of ''Samizdat'', and therefore came with less risk of being arrested. The ‘Frumkin’ case, for example, indeed highlights the ‘difference in the regime’s attitudes towards ''magnitizdat'' and ''samizdat''’.<ref>Daughtry, Magnitizdat as Cultural Practice, p. 3</ref> The fact that Frumkin had considered it a worthwhile attempt to emigrate with several ‘''magnitizdat''’ tapes – something unthinkable with the forbidden works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn – is testament to the ambiguity of policy around cassette tapes. Nevertheless, just like ''Roentgenizdat'' became the medium for unofficial jazz music, ''Magnitizdat'' became the medium for unofficial ''avtorskaia pesnia'' and later rock music, helping return artistic choice and freedom to the masses by breaking the Soviet government’s monopoly on information.

	==Notes==		==Notes==
	<references />		<references />
	[[Category:USSR]]		[[Category:USSR]]
			[[Category:Normative]]
			[[Category:Non conformism]]

Admin at 12:41, 9 August 2015

2015-08-09T12:41:19Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 12:41, 9 August 2015
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	‎[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|right\|Homemade tape-~~based units m / f~~ "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky.]]Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref>		‎[[File:Magnitizdat.jpg\|400px\|thumb\|right\|Homemade tape-recording unit "Voice" (MAG-59M), which belonged to M. B. Krizhanovsky, a Soviet engineer known for his underground recordings.]]Magnitizdat was the unofficial practice of (re-)recording uncensored music or speech onto cassette tapes, which were then redistributed throughout the Soviet Union. The term ''Magnitizdat'' is etymologically composed of two words – ''magnit'' (derived from Russian ''magnitifon'' [tape-recorder]) and ''izdat'' (meaning ‘to publish’) and was exploited in the early 1960s onwards to record ''avtorskaia pesnia'' (poetic songs by Bards) and later, rock music. Alongside the growing consumerist culture and technological developments within the Soviet Union, ''Magnitizdat'' became the natural replacement of ''Roentgenizdat'' – the adequately cheap x-ray disks and temporary solution to unofficial post-war music recording. As Kolya Vasin suggests - ‘Enterprising young guys ran around the streets of our town with show boxes filled with recordings ‘on the bones,’ but their time would not last long […] the era of tape recorders began.’ <ref>Igor Buser, Mark Linnik and Dmitry Zaitsev, Soviet Rock: 25 years in the underground + 5 years of freedom (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1990) [Account by Kolya Vasin], p. 31</ref>

	The first tape recorders (the EL’fa-6, the Dnepr-3 and the Spais) slowly emerged into the market by the late 1950s, but ‘their production was limited.’<ref>Timothy Ryback, Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union, p.44</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was steadily increasing the production of tape recorders throughout the 1960s; 128,000 cassette recorders were in circulation by 1960, which had risen to 4.7 million by 1985.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> While an estimated fifty million Soviet citizens bought these Soviet-made tape recorders, many thousands of Japanese recorders were equally smuggled into the Soviet Union by Soviet sailors and were either sold in second hand shops or passed on through informal networks.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> However, with the sudden increase of tape recorder sales and the influx of foreign tourists, these products were soon being exploited to re-record and multiply unofficial Western music records or songs by Soviet bards (singer-songwriters such as Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vyisotskii, and others who used poetry and music to express political commentary), which allowed artists and other amateur enthusiasts to become more accessible to a larger audience. Their music, which was initially restricted to small numbers gathering in private apartments, was now being circulated via underground networks to an increasing number of listeners. As Timothy Ryback states:		The first tape recorders (the EL’fa-6, the Dnepr-3 and the Spais) slowly emerged into the market by the late 1950s, but ‘their production was limited.’<ref>Timothy Ryback, Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union, p.44</ref> Nevertheless, the Soviet Union was steadily increasing the production of tape recorders throughout the 1960s; 128,000 cassette recorders were in circulation by 1960, which had risen to 4.7 million by 1985.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> While an estimated fifty million Soviet citizens bought these Soviet-made tape recorders, many thousands of Japanese recorders were equally smuggled into the Soviet Union by Soviet sailors and were either sold in second hand shops or passed on through informal networks.<ref>Alexei Yurchak, ‘Gagarin and the Rave Kids’ in Barker (ed.), Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society Since Gorbachev, pp. 82-83</ref> However, with the sudden increase of tape recorder sales and the influx of foreign tourists, these products were soon being exploited to re-record and multiply unofficial Western music records or songs by Soviet bards (singer-songwriters such as Aleksandr Galich, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vyisotskii, and others who used poetry and music to express political commentary), which allowed artists and other amateur enthusiasts to become more accessible to a larger audience. Their music, which was initially restricted to small numbers gathering in private apartments, was now being circulated via underground networks to an increasing number of listeners. As Timothy Ryback states: