Difference between revisions of "Roentgenizdat (USSR)"

The support and agency of the ''stiliagi'' (commonly referred to as the ‘hipsters’ in western literature) was primarily responsible for the increasing demand of ''roentgenizdat''. Part of a subculture in the Soviet Union from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, the ''stiliagi'' represented a rejection of official Soviet musical styles, fashion and behaviour, and became the advocates of a new westernised model. They sported suits with striped silk shirts, multi-coloured and patterned ties, complemented with waxed quiffs and comb-over hairstyles comparable to John Travolta in the film ''Grease'' <ref>Dotsenko, Artem, ‘Chuvaki Na Khatakh’ in Rodina, No.7, (2005), Accessed Online: http://www.istrodina.com/rodina_articul.php3?id=1618&n=86 (24/01/2013).</ref>. Dance also became a key mode of their expression, rejecting the ‘approved’ dances (waltz, polka and quadrille) for the frowned upon alternatives (the tango, foxtrot, boogie-woogie and jitterbug) <ref>Troitsky, Artemy, Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia (London: Faber and Faber, 1987).</ref>. X-ray discs would be obtained via the ‘second economy’ (underground studios or ''blat'' networks) and disseminated at the ''stiliagi’s'' main ‘hang out’ meeting points (known as Broadway or “Brod” for short) – Gorky Street (Moscow) and Nevskii Prospect (St. Petersburg), and private dance hall parties <ref>Fürst, Juliane, Stalin’s Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).</ref>. According to Juliane Fürst, the stiliagi culturally confronted the system on a ‘new, unfamiliar and ''non-textual''’ level which left the Communist Party struggling to deal with the phenomenon <ref>Fürst, Juliane, Stalin’s Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).</ref>. These artistic and non-verbal forms of dance, westernised clothing and jazz music ‘on bones’ all played an exceptional role in the ''stiliagi'' subculture.  

The support and agency of the ''stiliagi'' (commonly referred to as the ‘hipsters’ in western literature) was primarily responsible for the increasing demand of ''roentgenizdat''. Part of a subculture in the Soviet Union from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, the ''stiliagi'' represented a rejection of official Soviet musical styles, fashion and behaviour, and became the advocates of a new westernised model. They sported suits with striped silk shirts, multi-coloured and patterned ties, complemented with waxed quiffs and comb-over hairstyles comparable to John Travolta in the film ''Grease'' <ref>Dotsenko, Artem, ‘Chuvaki Na Khatakh’ in Rodina, No.7, (2005), Accessed Online: http://www.istrodina.com/rodina_articul.php3?id=1618&n=86 (24/01/2013).</ref>. Dance also became a key mode of their expression, rejecting the ‘approved’ dances (waltz, polka and quadrille) for the frowned upon alternatives (the tango, foxtrot, boogie-woogie and jitterbug) <ref>Troitsky, Artemy, Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia (London: Faber and Faber, 1987).</ref>. X-ray discs would be obtained via the ‘second economy’ (underground studios or ''blat'' networks) and disseminated at the ''stiliagi’s'' main ‘hang out’ meeting points (known as Broadway or “Brod” for short) – Gorky Street (Moscow) and Nevskii Prospect (St. Petersburg), and private dance hall parties <ref>Fürst, Juliane, Stalin’s Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).</ref>. According to Juliane Fürst, the stiliagi culturally confronted the system on a ‘new, unfamiliar and ''non-textual''’ level which left the Communist Party struggling to deal with the phenomenon <ref>Fürst, Juliane, Stalin’s Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).</ref>. These artistic and non-verbal forms of dance, westernised clothing and jazz music ‘on bones’ all played an exceptional role in the ''stiliagi'' subculture.  

[[File:Andrei Zhdanov.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Soviet state and party figure Andrei Zhdanov.]] A number of structural developments helped cement the position of ''roentgenizdat'' as an underground informal practice. One cause was the Soviet ban and subsequent clampdown on jazz music. In August 1946, articles denouncing jazz concerts appeared in the official Soviet newspapers ''Pravda'' and ''Izvestiia'': Andrei Zhdanov (director of post-war cultural policy) voiced his concern with the dangers of ‘high culture’ and ‘foreign influence’ in art, and ruled that anything other than mass song or folk-styled socialist realist composition was ‘ideological diversion’<ref>Pilkington, Hilary, Russia’s Youth and its Culture: A Nation’s Constructors and Constructed (London: Routledge, 1994).</ref>. By the end of the decade, many jazz musicians such as Eddie Rosner, Igor Piatigorskii (a jazz band leader) and A. G. Alekseev (a Moscow-based jazz musician) were either imprisoned or sent to Siberian prison camps (Gulag)<ref>Ryback, Timothy W., Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). </ref>. The official Soviet press, through their attacks on the ''stiliagi'', also helped reinforce the position of ''roentgenizdat'' as a subversive informal practice. The term ''stiliagi'' appeared for the first time in the Soviet satirical magazine ''Krokodil'' in 1948, and consistently satirised the movement for their supposed bad taste in fashion. On 10 March 1949, ''Krokodil'' declared that ‘the most important part of their [''stiliagi''] style of clothing is not to resemble normal people,’<ref>Yurchak, Alexei. "Gagarin and the rave kids: transforming power, identity, and aesthetics in post-Soviet nightlife." Consuming Russia: Popular culture, sex, and society since Gorbachev (1999): 76-109.</ref> and in another article by ''Pravda'', the ''stiliagi'' were described as a mixture of ‘parasitism, hooliganism and banditism’<ref>Johnson, Timothy, Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life under Stalin 1939-1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).</ref>. It also became common practice to compare the ''stiliagi'' with monkeys or other wild animals, seemingly because they resembled the style of Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan films<ref>Johnson, Timothy, Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life under Stalin 1939-1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).</ref>.  

[[File:Andrei Zhdanov.jpg|400px|thumb|left|Soviet state and party figure Andrei Zhdanov.]] A number of structural developments helped cement the position of ''roentgenizdat'' as an underground informal practice. One cause was the Soviet ban and subsequent clampdown on jazz music. In August 1946, articles denouncing jazz concerts appeared in the official Soviet newspapers ''Pravda'' and ''Izvestiia'': Andrei Zhdanov (director of post-war cultural policy) voiced his concern with the dangers of ‘high culture’ and ‘foreign influence’ in art, and ruled that anything other than mass song or folk-styled socialist realist composition was ‘ideological diversion’<ref>Pilkington, Hilary, Russia’s Youth and its Culture: A Nation’s Constructors and Constructed (London: Routledge, 1994).</ref>. By the end of the decade, many jazz musicians such as Eddie Rosner, Igor Piatigorskii (a jazz band leader) and A. G. Alekseev (a Moscow-based jazz musician) were either imprisoned or sent to Siberian prison camps (Gulag)<ref>Ryback, Timothy W., Rock Around the Block: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and The Soviet Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). </ref>. The official Soviet press, through their attacks on the ''stiliagi'', also helped reinforce the position of ''roentgenizdat'' as a subversive informal practice. The term ''stiliagi'' appeared for the first time in the Soviet satirical magazine ''Krokodil'' in 1948, and consistently satirised the movement for their supposed bad taste in fashion. On 10 March 1949, ''Krokodil'' declared that ‘the most important part of their [''stiliagi''] style of clothing is not to resemble normal people,’<ref>Yurchak, Alexei. "Gagarin and the rave kids: transforming power, identity, and aesthetics in post-Soviet nightlife." Consuming Russia: Popular culture, sex, and society since Gorbachev (1999): 76-109.</ref> and in another article by ''Pravda'', the ''stiliagi'' were described as a mixture of ‘parasitism, hooliganism and banditism’<ref>Johnson, Timothy, Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life under Stalin 1939-1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).</ref>. It also became common practice to compare the ''stiliagi'' with monkeys or other wild animals, seemingly because they resembled the style of Johnny Weissmuller in the Tarzan films<ref>Johnson, Timothy, Being Soviet: Identity, Rumour, and Everyday Life under Stalin 1939-1953 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).</ref>.  

‎[[File:Roentgenizdat 2.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Actors from the film 'Stiliagi' about youth counterculture in 1950s Moscow.]]  

‎[[File:Roentgenizdat 2.jpg|400px|thumb|right|Actors from the film 'Stiliagi' about youth counterculture in 1950s Moscow.]]