Mark Alan Smith Formatted Dissertation

The Dissertation Committee for Mark Alan Smith Certifies that this is the approved version of the following Dissertation:

To Burn, To Howl, To Live Within the Truth: Underground Cultural

Production in the U.S., U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia in the Post World War

II Context and its Reception by Capitalist and Communist Power

Structures.

Committee:

Thomas J. Garza, Supervisor

Elizabeth Richmond-Garza

Neil R. Nehring

David D. Kornhaber

To Burn, To Howl, To Live Within the Truth: Underground Cultural

Production in the U.S., U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia in the Post World War

II Context and its Reception by Capitalist and Communist Power

Structures.

Mark Alan Smith.

Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin May, 2019 Dedication

I would like to dedicate this work to Jesse Kelly-Landes, without whom it simply would not exist. I cannot thank you enough for your continued love and support.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my dissertation supervisor, Dr. Thomas J. Garza for all of his assistance, academically and otherwise. Additionally, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, Dr. Neil R. Nehring, and Dr. David D. Kornhaber for their invaluable assistance in this endeavor. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the vital support of Dr. Veronika Tuckerová and Dr. Vladislav Beronja in contributing to the defense of my prospectus.

v Abstract

To Burn, To Howl, To Live Within the Truth: Underground Cultural Production in the U.S., U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia in the Post World War II Context and its Reception by Capitalist and Communist Power Structures. Mark Alan Smith, PhD. The University of Texas at Austin, 2019

Supervisor: Thomas J. Garza

This dissertation considers the synchronicities of underground cultural production following World War II in the U.S., U.S.S.R., and Czechoslovakia. All three of these chronotopic locations served as the backdrop for underground literary and musical cultural movements that challenged the dominant power structures of their respective countries. The cultural production of the Beat Generation in the US, the “New Wave” of Russian literature in the U.S.S.R., and the members of literary and musical underground movements in Czechoslovakia, attempted to open a dialogue with existent power structures in an effort to express the human experience in a manner that fell outside of the purview of hegemonic societal and governmental forces. In analyzing the work of Vasily Aksyonov, Allen Ginsburg and Egon Bondy, amongst other members of their respective movements I will demonstrate the viability of underground cultural production as a means of speaking truth to inherent power structures, as well as its ability to function as a galvanizing force that enables individuals who normally vi fall outside of the purview of dominant discourse to coalesce in a meaningful way. I also consider the responses of entrenched capitalist and communist power structures including cooptation, commoditization, manipulation, normalization and repression as means of removing agency from dissenting voices. In applying the Bakhtinian theories of the chronotope, the dialogic, and the grotesque in tandem with the Habermasian theories of the public sphere and lifeworld, a picture begins to emerge that informs the formation and relevance of underground cultural movements. Moving into the 21st century I contend that vibrant and relevant forms of underground cultural production must continue to endure in order to challenge entrenched power structures, as well as to explore alternative avenues of expression that can benefit the progression of humanity. The relevance of underground culture in the modern context is demonstrated by its continuing viability the US, UK, and Russia, amongst many other countries. Moving forward I will apply the same theoretical parameters to modern variants of cultural production, as well as examine the impact of the Internet, in order to establish the role of underground cultural production and its reception by dominant power structures.

vii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction; the Emergence of Underground Cultural Production in the Post World War II Context ...... 1

Chapter 2: All Things Bakhtin: A Chronotopic Discussion of Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Prague and Western Popular Culture Theory Takes a Peek Behind the Iron Curtain; Dialogism. Polyphony and Habermas’ Public Sphere and Lifeworld ...... 30

Chapter 3: Vasily Aksyonov,The Burn, and the “New Wave” of Russian Literature; the Stilyagi Movement and Underground Culture in the Soviet Union ...... 79

Chapter 4: “Howl” and the Beat Generation; Movement and Mobility as Kerouac and Aksyonov Hit the Road ...... 122

Chapter 5: The Philosophy and Writings of Ladislav Klíma and Egon Bondy, Prague Spring and the Birth of the Czechoslovak Underground ...... 157

Chapter 6: Politicization, Cooptation, Commodification, and Repression of Underground Cultural Production in the Capitalist and Communist Systems .. .190

Chapter 7: Conclusions, Forecasts, and Moving Forward ...... 225

Bibliography ...... 266

viii

Chapter 1: Introduction; the Emergence of Underground Cultural

Production in the Post World War II Context

Youth, underground and subcultural movements have played a large role in shaping the overall discourse of the 20th century. Following the ravages of the

Second World War these movements, which traditionally sat outside of the purview of mainstream hegemonic forces, began to emerge globally across all political, geographic, cultural and social spectrums. The output of these underground groups resulted in new perspectives on engaging and managing the realities of emerging possibilities inherent in the new world. Underground cultural movements arose in cities as far-flung as San Francisco, Moscow, New York and

Prague as well as all points in between. For many who experienced World War II first hand, or for those who came of age during its aftermath a dramatic political, social and cultural shift had occurred; the roles of traditional society, in both the capitalist and communist variants, no longer offered solace or opportunity for all citizens. It is common convention that these subcultural movements began in earnest in the 1960s. And while it is true that these movements reached critical mass in the 1960s, and particularly in the watershed year of 1968, it is important to note that the seeds for these underground cultural groups were planted in the

1950s. The decade saw the full emergence of the Beat Generation in the U.S., the новая волна (New Wave) movement of Russian literature in the U.S.S.R. and the Půlnoc edice (Midnight Edition) movement in Czechoslovakia. As Inger

Thorup Lauridsen and Per Dalgard posit

It has recently become more and more clear that beneath the cold McCartyhite surface of postwar America something was happening […] Something was growing and taking shape in the domains of subculture. The subculture was turning into the powerful counterculture of the sixties. The Beat Generation as the artistic reflection of American urban youth […] took form and burst noisily onto the cultural scene with a vigor that made the academic walls of the literary establishment tremble. (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 14)

Lauridsen and Dalgard go on to state “In the Soviet Union it all started in the fifties too. Stalin’s death in 1953 and Khrushchev’s denunciation of his authoritarian regime at the Party Congress in 1956 changed the climate completely. The period which followed became known as the Thaw” (Lauridsen,

Dalgard, 14).

For those in the Soviet Union the death of Stalin served as a shift that resulted in the emerging new realities that became possible following

Khrushchev’s Secret Speech. This monumental speech was made to the 20th

Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 (McCauley, 42). In it Khrushchev denounced Stalin and his policies, ushering in the historical time period known as the Thaw. The need to experience life on one’s own terms, irrespective of societal norms became a defining characteristic of youth and underground movements that spread across the globe following the Second

World War. To reiterate, this underground cultural phenomenon cut across political, social and geographic boundaries; literary, musical, cultural and societal traditions that reflected the values of the hegemonic forces of the world were in a state of flux and were no longer treated as the sole means of expression by those

connected with these underground movements. Again Lauridsen and Dalgard convey:

In many ways the New Wave resembled the Beat Generation, both having emerged as the voice of a generation that had experienced the horrors of the war and the cold war generating an awareness of the possibility of mutual nuclear destruction. It was in both countries a generation which was sick and tired of being manipulated by the blind materialistic values of the two […] capitalist/communist societies. Both movements engaged in an anarchistic and romantic revolt against this. In their “reevaluation of values” they rejected the notion that society, state and institutions come first; instead they found the real values and the real reality in the inner life of man. (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 15)

There is another special significance to the relationship between the Beat

Generation and the “New Wave” literary movements. Lauridsen and Dalgard reiterate that “The extraordinary thing about the two phenomena is that the

Americans and Russians in the beginning did not have the slightest idea about each other’s existence. The two movements emerged independently, they did not influence each other, and yet they exhibited many similarities” (Lauridsen,

Dalgard, 15). Therefore, this new generation of writers, on both sides of the political divide, strove to create fresh forms of artistic production that focused on exposing and contemplating the realities of the life that they faced in the post

World War II context. To that end almost simultaneously across the globe, literary, musical and cultural movements sprang up in various political contexts in an effort to aid those operating outside of the purview of hegemonic forces to navigate and make sense of the modern world.

Thus the postwar world experienced the burgeoning of the Beat

Generation in the United States. The literary movement was heavily influenced by the hard-bop variant of jazz. According to Jennie Skerl

The Beats were an avant-garde arts movement and bohemian subculture that led an underground existence in the 1940s and early 1950s, gaining public recognition in the late 1950s with the publication of Howl (Allen Ginsburg 1956), On the Road (Jack Kerouac 1957), [and] Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs 1959)… (Skerl, 1)

The writers of the Beat movement would go on to have a major impact on the course of U.S. cultural production in the years to come. Concurrently in the Soviet

Union, the “New Wave” of Russian literature also began to enjoy cultural and literary significance. Lauridsen and Dalgard relate that “The New Wave, was in many ways, a heterogeneous group of writers, singers, sculptors, painters and filmmakers […]. They all shared the same goal of expressing the artistic and cultural aspirations and the youthful yearning for freedom of the postwar generation with which they identified themselves” (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 15). The members of this literary movement were also known as шестидесятники

(shestidesiatniki: the people of the Sixties) and their writings were also influenced by the bop variant of jazz. The “New Wave” of Russian literature movement in turn encompassed the стиляги (stilyagi “the stylish ones or “style hunters”) in the Soviet Union. The stilyagi were the first recognized subculture in the U.S.S.R., acting as cultural trailblazers for those that followed. The stilyagi were diametrically opposed to the members of the Komsomol (All-Union Leninist

Young Communist League) politically and socially. Members of the Komsomol

were strict adherents of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist doctrine, and any deviation from these norms was seen as treasonous in their eyes. Members were fully committed to the building of communism and engaging in activities that would aid and abet in this process. Simply stated, the stilyagi were not interested in such pursuits. Therefore the appearance of stilyagi in Soviet cities initiated running street battles with the state backed Soviet youth organization, demonstrating the first clash of cultural forces in the U.S.S.R.

The stilyagi movement consisted of jazz enthusiasts of the highest order, who openly embraced Western forms of style and culture. Jazz music acted as an entry point to the larger world of Western culture in general. Additionally, music in general, and jazz in particular, carries other markers of form and content that were troubling for those looking to maintain tight control over their respective societies. According to Detlef Siegfried:

[…] music exhibits individually specific characteristics of form and content that are loaded with assigned meanings by fans and critics, governmental bodies, and the media: these assigned meanings include political ones that vary according to point of view and circumstance. The assigned meanings can yield information on the shifting values and standards of particular social groups. In the 1950s, jazz music frequently carried connotations of democracy, civil society, and anti-racism among its followers […]. (Siegfried, 57)

It should be apparent that the shifting of values that Siegfried refers to were happening much more quickly in the younger generations than those of older generations, who were much more solidly placed within the existent hierarchy of mainstream society. Therefore, the appearance of these Western-leaning style merchants on the streets of Soviet cities following in the wake of the Second

World War was seen as prevarication in the communist context, and as proof positive that proper Soviet ideals were in danger of being overrun or ignored altogether. The writings of the shestidesiatniki also signaled a shifting of values within the intelligentsia that began to focus on more humanistic and inclusive forms of artistic production that no longer strictly adhered to the state mandated tenets of Socialist Realism. This new outlook would have a part to play in the culture wars that took place during Khrushchev’s regime. Kozlov and Gilburd state:

Just as the Thaw itself, the word shestidesiatniki had literary origins […]. The decade was still ahead, and the term was by necessity suggestive rather that descriptive. It announced the arrival of a new kind of literary hero and, characteristically for Russian culture that never radically separated literature from reality, a new kind of people as well…The term was also retrospective…the name shestidesiatniki originated in the nineteenth century. It was borrowed from, and directly referred to, the 1860s, thus modeling a generation on the image of the radical intelligentsia of the Great Reforms era – who were also known as shestidesiatniki. (Kozlov, Gilburd, 53-54)

In yet another alignment of countercultural movements, the writers of the

Midnight Edition group in Czechoslovakia also began to flourish at this time. The members of this group employed an explicitly political set of characteristics to their writings. They are as follows:

1. creation of an independent culture without any contact with the establishment; 2. radical rejection of any pressure; 3. abandonment of an obligatory program; 4. emphasis on authentic lifestyle; 5. emphasis on authenticity in artistic work (e.g., realism, slang, defiance of social, and cultural taboos); 6. critical attitude towards the establishment and its frozen value system; and 7. deflection from social norms. (Rauvolf, 182)

It goes without saying that these terms and conditions could be applied to the artistic production of the U.S. Beat Generation and the “New Wave” of Russian literature as well. These writers from the Czech lands were in synchronicity with

Western forms of underground cultural production, and in turn were to influence an underground musical movement in Prague, including the psychedelic musical collective, the Plastic People of the Universe. All three of these underground movements were to have a profound effect on the cultural, musical, literary and political landscapes of their respective countries, in effect acting as the vanguard of the worldwide cultural upheaval that was to characterize the1960s.

Chronologically speaking, it is important to note that these examples of new forms of literary production began appearing at approximately the same time, across all three historical chronotopic settings, highlighting both the simultaneity and similar nature of these movements. For instance, Allen

Ginsburg’s “Howl” was published in 1956, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road was published in 1957, Vasily Aksyonov’s seminal young prose road novel Звёздный

билет (A Ticket to the Stars) was published in 1961, and Czechoslovak writer

Josef Škvorecký’s first novel Zbabělci (The Cowards) was published in 1958. All of this evidence points to the fact that the postwar world offered opportunities for modes of expression that would have hitherto been unthinkable, if not downright illegal. Additionally, this new form of literature signals that writers around the world recognized and were able to articulate a shift in mainstream thinking that

enabled these new forms of expression to come into existence and to flourish.

The result was an avalanche of literature and other forms of cultural production that helped to change the modern world, and which culminated in the much larger political, artistic and social upheavals that were to take place 1960s. In effect the early works of the Beats, shestidesiatniki, and Půlnoc movements, published in the late 1950s and early 1960s can be seen as a preamble to the main event that culminated in the year 1968. 1968 was the year of the infamous

Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the year of Prague Spring and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the year of the formation of the Plastic People of the Universe. Political and social unrest amongst youth was coalescing into a worldwide phenomenon. As Lauridsen and Dalgard point out

“The movements of the sixties have been seen all along as international. Student revolts took place in San Francisco, Paris, London, Copenhagen, Prague, Sofia, and Belgrade (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 14). Ginsberg was quick to point out the similarities between the increasingly agitated actions of youth, and the harsh response of authorities on both sides of the Iron Curtain. As Raskin states:

In 1969, after the police riot at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and the Soviet military invasion of Czechoslovakia, [Ginsberg] was even more convinced of the idea of two evil superpowers. Russia and America were both “police states,” [and] Both dig the same hot cold war.” Communists and capitalists could change places and nothing would be different. And both countries were antagonistic to genuine poets and poetry. (Raskin, 95)

Ginsburg’s statement is a damning indictment on both the capitalist and communist variants of governance. Despite seemingly differing forms of ideology, the goal of both systems was to remain in power, and both regimes resorted to

similar tactics in order to do so. Additionally, these comments function as yet another link in the chronotopic chain that binds the underground movements of the U.S., Czechoslovakia and the U.S.S.R. Importantly, Vasily Aksyonov chronicles the fallout from the hopes, expectations and excesses of 1968 in his fantastical jazz-inflected and inspired novel Ожог (The Burn,) written with hindsight and nostalgia for the bygone Thaw era in 1975. These new forms of cultural expression provide tangible verification that chronotopically speaking, a special era was approaching in regards to non-standard artistic production that was recognized by writers, musicians, artists and students in both the communist

East and the capitalist West.

Understanding the literary, cultural, and youth movements of the past is integral to understanding these movements in the present and future. By developing an understanding of underground and subcultural movements and their political and theoretical ramifications we can come to understand the impact that larger political events will have on modern culture and how that impact will shape both underground cultural production and the output of mainstream society in the years to come. The fact that the movements in question all began to coalesce following the Second World War and were all attempting to wrestle with the same questions regarding the navigation of cultural production in the modern context lends overall significance to these movements as a whole. Writers from the Beat, “New Wave,” and Půlnoc literary movements, though separated by political ideology and geography, pursued many similar literary and cultural

themes in an effort to come to terms with and to try to make sense of their respective societies in the post World War II context. The deliberate shift away from mainstream cultural production served as an attempt to push forward the human experience in a way that was more meaningful in terms of cultural production and understanding, as well as giving a voice to the disenfranchised sections of these respective societies.

The similarity of the themes explored by these geographically and politically disparate literary and cultural movements are multi-faceted, ranging from reliance on literary devices such as the Bakhtinian theories of the grotesque, the carnivalesque, the chronotope and dialogic discourse, and

Habermas’ theories concerning the public sphere and “lifeworld.” In particular, a chronotopic analysis of the major locations of these underground cultural movements will prove beneficial in coming to an understanding of the literary and cultural output. Although the chronotope and the public sphere are traditionally applied to capitalist countries, I believe that a discussion of these theories will prove extremely productive in the communist context. It is apparent that the post

World War II expansion of liberalizing cultural forces in Soviet society, exemplified by Khrushchev’s denunciation of cult of personality that surrounded

Stalin, offers a unique opportunity to explore the Russian literary chronotope. The expansion of the Soviet chronotope led to new avenues of expression and subject matter that had heretofore been forbidden. The focus on chronotopes becomes relevant when one considers that at the concurrent time the U.S.

variant was narrowing in terms of scope as the country returned to the conservative, isolationist principles that governed in the pre-World War II context.

Thus with the widening of the Soviet chronotope, and the narrowing of the U.S. chronotope in terms of cultural norms and expectations, a unique situation arose in which the artistic production of these diametrically opposed nations actually began to mirror each other in terms of underground cultural outlook. In effect, the two sides met in the middle, yielding substantially similar bodies of work in the process. When the Bakhtinian theory of the chronotope is combined with

Habermas’ contentions concerning the public sphere and the lifeworld, a picture begins to emerge that aids in the discussion concerning the formation of youth and subcultures and the overall impact on mainstream society as a whole that these movements were able to exert. It is important to remember that viable subcultural movements did occur behind the Iron Curtain. Participants in the

Russian “New Wave” and Czech underground communities did possess a modicum of agency in terms of how and with whom they chose to spend their time. The very fact that these underground cultural movements existed within communist contexts attests to the idea that something resembling a public sphere was able to exist under these conditions.

From a literary standpoint, I will focus on the work of the Soviet writer

Vasily Aksyonov and the American, Allen Ginsburg, while incorporating other analogous authors from the “New Wave” and Beat movements, including, Andrei

Voznesensky and Jack Kerouac respectively. Aksyonov, as a member of

shestidesiatniki, helped to chronicle the Soviet jazz underground movement in

The Burn. The novel depicts the chaotic nature of Moscow and its inhabitants during the aftermath of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 with a style and sense that often mirrors the U.S. Beat movement in literature. With “Howl,”

Beat luminary Ginsberg was embarking on a journey, not just to change the face of poetry, but more importantly, to change the role of dialogue and communication itself. He did this by utilizing the monologic form of poetry in a dialogic manner in such works as “Howl” and “America.” Ginsberg was of the opinion that the current cultural discourse of mainstream society was patently unacceptable and in fact, was actively working against the better nature of human beings and against the overall progress of society in the U.S. as a whole.

Ginsburg said as much in a letter to his father:

People keep seeing destruction or rebellion in Jack’s writing, and Howl, but that is only a very minor element, actually; it only seems to be so to people who have accepted standard American values as permanent. What we are saying is that these values are not really standard not permanent, and we are in a sense I think ahead of the times […] . When you have a whole economy involved in some version of moneymaking – this just is no standard of values. That it seems to offer a temporary security may be enough to keep some people slaving for it. But meanwhile it destroys real value [… ]. Only way out is individuals taking responsibility and saying what they actually feel – which is an enormous human achievement in any society. (Ginsburg, qtd in Campbell, 223-234)

Consequently, “Howl” acted as a work of affirmation, as well as a form of resistance against the hegemonic forces operating in the U.S., which focused on profit rather than feeling and personal responsibility. The poem served as a rallying cry for all like-minded individuals to resist mainstream, postwar U.S.

ideals, and crucially, to demand something more inclusive. Ginsburg’s demand included a cessation of the Cold War and its attendant political machinations and power plays. In detailing an analysis of these works, a distinct picture begins to emerge that gives insight into the very nature of underground cultural movements, as well as providing a literary and theoretical framework concerning the study and understanding of these subcultural movements and artistic production and their overall impact on mainstream society as a whole.

The “New Wave” of Russian literature and the Beat movement, as exemplified by Aksyonov and Ginsburg, both exhibit an adherence to underground musical movements, primarily the hard-bop variant of jazz as personified by such leading lights as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

Consequently, jazz music and its attendant culture came to play a significant role in both literary movements. In the Russian context, the adherence to jazz was exemplified by the stilyagi, a group of Western-leaning style enthusiasts whose very appearance openly flouted Soviet societal conventions. In the U.S. context, jazz acted as a catalyst that opened up new avenues of expression and alternative methods of operating outside of societal norms. The rhythms of jazz became a lingua franca that the writers of the Beat Generation and the “New

Wave” employed as a literary device in prose and poetry. This revelation of language created new literary rhythms that helped to expand the possibilities of the written word, thereby creating a new type of literature in the process. The role

that Kerouac in particular played in creating this new argot was important, as

James Campbell states:

The improvisatory technique which Kerouac had evolved while revising On the Road […] “sketching,” he called it – was shaped by his liking for jazz, his belief that jazz was the essential American art form, and his feeling that no one else before him had seen the potential scope of a jazz prose. Kerouac’s model for this new and self-consciously American melody line was adopted from the tenor man […]. (Campbell, 139-140)

However, it is telling, as Campbell relates, that Kerouac was, perhaps willfully, unaware of previous works by African American poets and authors such as

James Baldwin, Sterling Brown and Langston Hughes “who incorporated the rhythms of jazz and blues into their work, and, correspondingly, the rhythms of lives lived in time to the beat of the music (Campbell, 141). This lack of recognition rightfully left Kerouac and other members of the Beat Generation open to criticism regarding cultural appropriation. And though outside the scope of this work, the fact that men dominated all three of these literary movements and the music that accompanied them is another major cause for concern.

An equally important role was played by the way in which these writers responded to the over-reliance on consumerism, occurring on both sides of the

Iron Curtain, that began in earnest following World War II. In an effort to keep the postwar economy booming, manufacturers and large corporations in the U.S. began churning out more and more consumer goods designed to make life easier and to make it appear more prosperous for the average citizen. The Soviet variant initially lagged behind its Western capitalist counterpart due to many factors, including the need to rebuild much of the country following the Nazi

invasion and occupation, and Stalin’s paranoiac refusal to participate in the

Marshall Plan in 1947 (Parrish, Narinsky, 1). However, by the mid-1950’s more and more Western consumer goods were becoming available in the U.S.S.R, and particularly to Communist Party elites. Social programs developed under

Khrushchev, such as the Virgin Lands campaign, exacerbated this emerging reality. Students were mobilized and the Soviet state paid them to undertake agricultural and industrial work in an effort to aid in the building of communism. In her book concerning the societal changes that occurred following the fallout from

Khrushchev’s Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress, Kathleen E. Smith recounts the tale of one such Leningrader who was assigned to work at a secret chemical plant: “In the morning, we, who were just schoolgirls the day before, got our first money. Of course, we ran around to the stores buying everything – felt boots, pots and pans, galoshes, cereal, guitars. We acquired things in such quantities as if we were planning to move to a deserted island (Smith, 203, 204).

Unfettered access consumer goods such as these would have been unthinkable in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the Soviet Union. The ability for citizens of the U.S.S.R. to access luxury and consumer goods signaled another indication of the widening of the Soviet chronotope following the death of Stalin, and acted as another factor linking the postwar situations in the U.S.S.R. and U.S.

The writers of the “New Wave” and Beat Generation also exhibited a preternatural predilection for the sensation provided by movement in its various guises. For these writers, movement is manifested in the newfound postwar

ability to travel simply for the sake of it, in the form of cross-country trips by car or train, as exemplified by On the Road or Aksyonov’s Звездный билет (A Ticket to the Stars). Access to movement in the Soviet context is perhaps more meaningful than its U.S. counterpart in that it is linked to the greater good. The generation of 1956 was able to travel to the hinterlands of the U.S.S.R. in search of the opportunity to help in state building and agricultural projects, as well as to engage in the Soviet practice of “tourism.” As Smith explains, “With international borders essentially closed to them, adventurous Soviet young people had to make do with internal travel.” These internal “tourist” activities included hiking, cross-country skiing, and camping (Smith, 157). This desire to participant in the active building of communism is present in the protagonists of A Ticket to the

Stars. Movement in Beat and “New Wave” literature also pertains to the unfettered gyrations that jazz so often brings forth from the listener. Additionally, and most importantly, both groups of writers, as well as the Půlnoc writers in

Czechoslovakia were interested in finding some new sort of truth and ways of communicating this newfound truth to the powers that be. Consequently, the characters featured in the work of Aksyonov, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Voznesensky and Czech writer Egon Bondy can be cast as modern variants of the traditional

Russian literary trope of the юродивый (Holy Fool). The main role of the Holy

Fool in Russian literature is to speak truth to power with little regard for personal consequences; истина (truth) is all that matters. The trope of the Holy Fool is particularly relevant in a totalitarian context. In searching for alternative forms of

expression and different means of navigating their respective societies that run counter to conventional thought, these authors are attempting to speak truth to power. Crucially, writers from all three movements also aligned the Holy Fool with the Bakhtinian trope of the grotesque as a means to separate their protagonists further from mainstream society as well as adding another layer of authenticity.

The modern variant of the Holy Fool relied on movement, alcohol, speed, jazz, scatology and a life lived outside the norm of societal expectation, rather than conventional religious beliefs, to achieve the aim of speaking truth to power as well as to attempt to “live within the truth.”

The writers of the Russian “New Wave,” the Beats and the Půlnoc writers were all subjected to persecution and politicization by the respective regimes under which they labored. The Beats were imperiled by the whims of

McCarthyism, HUAC, censorship, and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, as exemplified by the seizure of Ginsburg’s Howl and Other Poems for violating obscenity laws by authorities in San Francisco in 1957 (Black, 27). The politicization of the Beat movement ultimately served as a precursor to the much larger political movements of the 1960s that centered on opposition to the Vietnam War. The

Soviet variety of persecution and politicization was of course more extreme and many writers and artists were subjected to both internal and external exile

(Škvorecký, 107). Expulsion from Writer’s and Musician’s Unions, as well as losing the “right” to publish or publicly perform if they did not submit to heavily beaucratized screening processes set up by the communist state to ensure the

acceptability of the content were other forms of punishment meted out by Soviet authorities (Starr, 265). Writers from the Czech lands were likewise subjected to all manner of persecution, including the process of normalizace (normalization,) the loss of jobs, rights to education, internal and external exile, as well as debilitating censorship laws following Prague Spring (Bren, 29-30). Therefore, I also intend to look at capitalist and communist models for dealing with forms of culture that lie outside of the purview of mainstream society. The capitalist model primarily consists of watering down underground cultural production in order to coopt and commoditize it. This process in turn makes these movements more consumable, and therefore more profitable for the well entrenched culture industry. Thus, these underground movements inherently become more palatable to mainstream society, with the effect being the removal of any political agency from the producer. Thus culture is reduced to middle-of-the-road production devoid of challenging characteristics. Later examples include the more politically controversial punk movement of the 1970s being coopted into the more listener friendly “New Wave” or “New Romantic” genre, and the more confrontational

“Riot Grrrl” movement of the 1990s being reduced to the bland commercial slogan “Girl Power!” These examples, and there are many more, are indicative of the methods of exploitation employed by the entrenched culture industry in the capitalist context.

The traditional communist model of the subjugation of countercultural movements consisted of outright repressive tactics, up to and including

imprisonment of exile, or the process of normalization, again with the effect of diluting the overall tone of cultural production. However, in the communist variant of cultural manipulation, the goal is to make cultural production more palatable to the interests of the regime, with no interest in commodifying or capitalizing monetarily from the end result. The outcome is similar to that of the Western capitalist model, namely middle-of-the-road cultural production devoid of any political, artistic or challenging characteristics whatsoever. The communist process of normalizing cultural production is analogous to Theodor Adorno’s ideas pertaining to the top-down, culture industry led standardization of popular music that occurred in the capitalist context. In speaking on this phenomenon,

Dominic Strinati states: “Standardization defines the way the culture industry squeezes out any kind of challenge, originality, authenticity or intellectual stimulation from the music it produces […]” (Strinati, 58). The result is akin to normalization: middle-of-the-road cultural production devoid of any challenge to the listener or to the powers that be. It is therefore my intention to build upon previous scholarship regarding these literary and musical phenomena by exploring elements of Western popular culture theory concerning youth and underground cultural movements, their symbolism, and their ultimate cooptation and commodification, normalization, and or repression by the powers that be in an effort to gain a larger understanding of the mechanisms behind these politically and geographically disparate, yet culturally analogous literary movements and the music that supplemented them. I also explore the reasons

behind the important fact that forms of underground cultural production continue to exist to this day and fulfill many of the same functions as subcultural movements that came before. I also argue the necessity of the continuance of underground cultural production into the 21st century, and the roles that the current worldwide political situation, as well as emergent technologies such as the Internet and social media play in manipulating it.

In an effort to broaden the scope of analysis I also include a critical examination of the impact of the underground musical movement, as well as its concurrent persecution and politicization, that was to play such a prominent role in the world of post-Prague Spring Czechoslovakian politics. In conjunction with this analysis, I also include a literary examination of the work of prominent authors from the Czech lands, including Ladislav Klíma and Egon Bondy. Bondy provided lyrics for the underground musical group, the Plastic People of the

Universe, a renowned member of the underground culture in Prague in the late

1960s. In their music, style of performance, and overall lifestyle, the Plastic

People mirrored and expounding upon Western cultural production. Additionally, and importantly the group were also searching for their own brand of truth, which coincides with the analogous search by the Beats and the “New Wave” of

Russian authors. This search for truth necessarily illuminates and reflects the

Havelian idea of “Living within the Truth” expounded upon in the article, “The

Power of the Powerless” in 1985. Bondy was, in turn, inspired by the work of

Czech philosopher Klíma, whose influence played a vast role in the formation of

what came to be a considered a classic example of defiance in the Czechoslovak context regarding social consciousness and defiance against totalitarianism.

Bondy incorporates elements of Klíma’s world view into his poetry in an effort to both explain and make sense of the inherent absurdity of living under a totalitarian regime. Bondy utilizes Bakhtinian notions of the grotesque by depicting bodily functions, inebriation as an escape mechanism and the idea of willfully becoming nothing more than a non-person. Bondy employed these concepts in an effort to make sense of the senseless world in which the citizens of Czechoslovakia found themselves following the shift to communism in 1948.

Bondy, working with the precepts of Klíma’s philosophy, produced a modern variant of postwar writing that simultaneously reflected his position towards living and creating in a totalitarian state, as well as capturing the zeitgeist of the 1960s.

His writing is completely in line with the literary production of the Beat and “New

Wave” movements.

It is equally important to consider that the work of Klíma, Bondy and the

Plastic People adds another chronotopic dimension to the discussion of the events in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in the post World War II context. A chronotopic comparison allows for a more in-depth level of analysis from all three underground cultural perspectives. The Czechoslovak chronotope acts as a refraction point for the U.S. and Soviet variants, sharing traits of both, while possessing its own unique characteristics, such as the wider availability of

Western cultural production that was the result of the Czech lands geographical

proximity to the capitalist countries of Western Europe. The relentless communist persecution and politicization of underground musicians, authors, playwrights, and other intelligentsia in the Czechoslovak context also mirrors events and political trials that occurred at various times in the U.S. and U.S.S.R. This persecution ultimately led to an alliance of like-minded intellectuals, including future president, playwright Václav Havel, prominent author Ludvik Vaculík and actor Pavel Landovský, which coalesced to form Charter 77 (Charta 77) (Bren,

94). In the words of the document itself:

Charter 77 is a loose, informal and open association of people of various shades of opinion, faiths and professions united by the will to strive individually and collectively for the respecting of civic and human rights in our own country and throughout the world—rights accorded to all men by the two mentioned international covenants, by the Final Act of the Helsinki conference and by numerous other international documents opposing war, violence and social or spiritual oppression, and which are comprehensively laid down in the U.N. Universal Charter of Human Rights. (Charter 77, 4)

Charter 77 was not necessarily interested in tearing down the existent system, but rather was insistent that the Czechoslovak communist regime was to be beholden to the international treaties that it had signed. Charter 77 and its signatories were to play a prominent role in Czechoslovak politics until the fall of the communist regime in the late 1980s.

When considering cultural movements that lay outside of the purview of entrenched power structures it is important to contemplate the etymology of the term “underground” in relation to the Czech, Russian and English languages.

Typically the use of the word “underground” as a description of cultural

production is indicative of a country’s dominant political structure. In the context of the U.S., the term tends be used in cultural terms relative to capital. That is to say underground cultural production tends to be dismissed as irrelevant to mainstream society due to its rather limited impact on overall culture, which in turn connotes a lack of overall profitability. There, of course, have been exceptions to this, when underground cultural production infringes into the consciousness of mainstream society and is deemed to be exploitable by the culture industry. An example is the exploitation of Nirvana and the grunge movement in the 1990s in the U.S., in which this once underground scene became the most popular form of music in the country, through manipulation and exploitation from the entrenched culture industry. This eventually culminated in inferior cultural production, which ultimately reduced the entire movement to nothing more than a profit-making venture. Another exception occurs when

“underground” culture is regarded as subversive to Christian ideals or harmful to children, such as the notorious “satanic panic,” linked with heavy metal music that occurred in the 1980s in the U.S. This panic resulted in a backlash from mainstream society, again leading to inferior versions of cultural production, bereft of agency or authenticity, and which in turn led to more stringent censorship including the labeling of record albums as obscene.

The Russian word for “underground,” подполье (podpol'ye) carries a more politcally charged meaning. The word literally means “under the floor” and is synonymous with the word “cellar.” This connotation suggests something that

has been intentionally removed from sight, something that needs to be hidden away, perhaps even something that society needs to be protected from. This contention is borne out by the fact that the word нелегальный (nelegal’ny, illegal) is a synonym for “underground.” Therefore the word carries an implicit political denotation in the context of the Russian language. To be labeled as

“underground” was to be labeled as a criminal, or as враг народа (vrag naroda, an enemy of the people) in the Soviet context.

The word for “underground” in Czech, podzemí, carries similar political overtones. The word literally means “under the earth,” again suggesting something that needs to be removed from sight, literally buried, for the benefit of society. In the Czech language, the word is synonymous with ilegální (illegal), again suggesting something criminal and therefore inherently non-communist in nature. The manager of the Plastic People and noted member of the Prague intelligentsia, Ivan Jirious referred to the “underground” movement simply as druhá kultura (second culture) due to the fact that it did not correspond to official culture, nor was profit the motivation for the artistic creation behind the movement. It is significant that the term “underground” was used in all three movements as a descriptor of cultural production. The linguistic function of the term in the respective languages of Czech, Russian and English also sheds light on the challenges faced by the producers of underground culture across social and political structures.

The underground youth subcultures that emerged in the post World War II

United States, Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, share many important similarities. All of these movements were concerned with a form of expression that could aid and abet in the navigation of the modern world. They were interested in opening a dialogue with existent power structures in order to make sense of the postwar world. Whether responding to the newfound possibilities available after the war in the U.S.S.R., the return to hardline communism in post-

Prague Spring Czechoslovakia, or reacting against the return to a conformist, isolationist form of society in the U.S., the “New Wave” of Russian literature, the

Czech underground, and the Beat Generation were attempting to forge a path for themselves in complete disregard of societal norms. These underground cultural movements were initially unaware of the existence of each other, which makes the similarities between these three disparate groups all the more remarkable.

And while this did change in the mid-1960s, when Ginsburg met Aksyonov and

Voznesensky, as well as travelling to Prague, the simultaneity and similarity of these movements in terms of outlook, form, function and temperament cannot be underestimated.

It is important to mention that Beat literature did become available in the

Soviet Union in the 1960s. Western books with no political interest were allowed to be published in the wake of Khrushchev’s Thaw, including portions of

Kerouac’s On the Road (Friedberg, 103). The availability of Beat texts in the

Soviet Union had a profound impact amongst members of the “New Wave” and

served as proof positive that the movements shared many liked minded individuals embarking upon a common quest. Similarly the writings of the Beat

Generation were to have a profound effect on Czechoslovak authors as well. As

Rauvolf relates “Another writer influenced in his later writing by Beats is, perhaps surprisingly, Bohumil Hrabal, mentioned above in connection with Midnight

Edition. In interviews, Hrabal compared his characters to Ginsburg’s […]”

(Rauvolf, 192). Hrabal himself is on record about the influence of the Beats, saying

I’d say I think even more so than anyone could guess. People like Kerouac or Ginsburg definitely fertilized our generation. I’m fascinated by Kerouac and Ginsburg, and Ferlinghetti, by these dharma bums who felt very strongly that the writer should be as far as possible poor, simple, and down to look up. He should be educated and found of Eastern wisdoms…I was with them in their group at a distance. (Kličky qtd in Rauvolf, 192)

Again, this is palpable evidence that writers from all three literary movements were on the same creative wavelength, as well as strengthening the overall claim that the chronotopic settings of all three nations were coming into alignment. All three of these literary and musical movements existed outside of, and in reaction to more traditional conservative communist and capitalist ideals. As a consequence all were reviled or misunderstood by the hegemonic forces of their respective societies. All three of these underground cultural movements also heralded the much larger social upheavals that were to occur in the 1960s, culminating in the globally tumultuous year of 1968. Detlef Siegfried posits:

Rock bands, vinyl records, live music clubs, magazines, and radio stations: the whole material ensemble of pop culture could only emerge

because the golden years of economic prosperity had broken out in the mid-twentieth century. This worldwide swell in prosperity peaked in the long 1960s, accompanied by a cultural revolution. In Europe, this era began in the 1950s and ended with the economic crisis of the mid-1970s. Cultural and political upheavals came to a worldwide peak in 1968, not only because of global shifts of power but also because internal social changes were building up an enormous potential for conflict and forcing a decisive change of course. Beat, pop, and rock music emerged directly from these altered living conditions. (Siegfried, 58)

I would add jazz music and the literature that celebrated it to this list of contributing factors. Therefore it is apparent that artists in all three of these chronotopic settings shared a myriad of connections, be they cultural, economic or political. As a consequence these various connections provide the opportunity for multifaceted analyses across many levels be they literary, musical, societal, or theoretical.

Underground cultural production plays a large role in shaping the world for many people. It acts as a lightning rod for those disaffected, disenfranchised or simply disgusted by hegemonic societal and governmental forces. The continued existence of underground forms of cultural production, be it literary, musical, filmic or fashion oriented, is essential for societies to push forward towards a more inclusive form. Firstly, underground culture provides a platform for those who might not otherwise have an outlet. Through the formation of lifeworlds, groups of like-minded individuals can coalesce in an attempt to orientate themselves into the world around them that does not adhere to the domination of mainstream society. The sense of community within underground movements is palpable, and as such provides a sense of family that might otherwise go

unfulfilled. Secondly, underground cultural production has the ability to act as a safeguard against hegemonic forces. The lengths to which many regimes over time have gone to limit, repress, or manipulate underground movements, be they politically or economically motivated attests to this claim. Throughout history, dissenting voices have been essential to the progression of society. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, underground cultural production has the ability to employ the Bakhtinian theory of the dialogic, both in terms of individuals conversing with each other and with the disaffected speaking out to existent power structures. If carried out effectively, dialogue has the ability to push forward cultural, political and social understanding, and as such is integral for the progress of human existence. The Beat Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature and the Czechoslovak underground have all carried out the functions described above. These movements have created a blueprint that others, such as the punk and hardcore movements of the 1970s and 1980s, have followed in an effort to continue the dialogue already begun. More recently, Russia’s punk collective Pussy Riot has engaged in continuing the viability of underground cultural production. They have also demonstrated the fear of underground cultural production is still very much alive and well in the 21st century. The challenges facing current and future producers of underground culture are myriad and will be interplayed with emerging technologies to a high degree. The ability to continue to produce viable forms of culture that fall outside of the purview of entrenched power structures must continue and the pathway blazed by the Beat

Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature and the Czechoslovak underground is clearly marked for all who wish to follow it.

Chapter 2: All Things Bakhtin: A Chronotopic Discussion of Moscow, New

York, San Francisco, and Prague and Western Popular Culture Theory

Takes a Peek Behind the Iron Curtain; Dialogism. Polyphony and

Habermas’ Public Sphere and Lifeworld

Due to historical and political factors outside of his influence and control, the life and work of noted Russian critic and theorist Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin necessarily occupies a liminal space, somewhere between the East and the

West, somewhere between Russia’s communist past and its capitalist future. The liminal space of his theoretical and critical output is represented in the reception and interpretation of his work by the critical world at large. The extent of the work that Bakhtin undertook during his lifetime is large and diverse in scope and topic.

He analyzed and worked in and with a profusion of topics, fields, theories and authors, as well as under authorial disguises, that have further served to elucidate and complicate his standing in the literary world on both side of the Iron

Curtain (Clark, Holquist, 3). Through his explorations of the carnivalesque, the chronotope, polyphony and dialogism, Bakhtin has left a body of work that continues to remain impactful for those looking to make sense of the overall human experience in the modern context. Realistically, it can be stated that

Bakhtin and the work that he undertook offers something for nearly every faction of critical thinking, from the neo-humanist to the philosopher of religion, from the

Russian nationalist to the nostalgic exponent of traditional Marxist-Leninist thought (Emerson, 17). Employing the Bakhtinian notions of the chronotope, the

carnivalesque and dialogism towards an understanding of the underground cultural production of the Beat Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature and the work of Czech writer Egon Bondy will help to give insight into the goals and aspirations that the constructors of these disparate movements hoped to achieve. Additionally, employing Bakhtinian theory in this manner will provide a framework with which to analyze the synchronous nature of these various subcultural movements. Beginning with the chronotope and moving on through to dialogism, and polyphony in the coming pages I will relate Bakhtin’s theories to

Habermasian notions concerning the public sphere and the lifeworld in an attempt to shed light on the contexts in which the various works were produced, the impact that they were to ultimately have on each other as well as on society as a whole, and their roles in the formation of underground cultural movements.

The Chronotope and Cultural Movements of Dissent

In his seminal essay “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel:

Notes Towards a Historical Poetics,” Bakhtin puts forth his views concerning the application of the mathematical term “chronotope” to a literary context. By way of an introduction to the term, he contends, “The process of assimilating real historical time and space in literature has a complicated and erratic history, as does the articulation of actual historical persons in such a time and space”

(Bakhtin, 84). Bakhtin is stating that historical representations of time and space in literature have a complex relationship in conjunction with actual history. This complicated relationship is borne out by the literary output of the Beats, Russian

“New Wave” and Egon Bondy in relation to the political, economic and social realities under which it was produced. Thus, the chronotope functions as a means to help navigate these difficulties. To that end, he goes on to comprehensively define the term stating:

We will give the name chronotope (literally, ‘time space’) to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature…What counts for us is the fact that it expresses the inseparability of space and time…We understand the chronotope as a formally constitutive category of literature…In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history. This intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope. The chronotope in literature has an intrinsic generic significance. It can even be said it is precisely the chronotope that defines genre and generic distinctions, for in literature the primary category in the chronotope is time. The chronotope as a formally constitutive category determines to a significant degree the image of man in literature as well. The image of man is always intrinsically chronotopic. (Bakhtin, 84-85)

Succinctly stated, the time and space in which cultural production is created is necessarily informed and influenced by the time and space in which it is created.

The historical, political, economic and cultural situation of a time and space all influence and infuse cultural production. This claim is supported by noted French dramatist Romain Rollard who stated “Any work of art that lives was created out of the very substance of its times. The artist did not build it himself. The work describes the sufferings, loves and dreams of his friends” (Škvorecký 3). When one applies the chronotope to the cultural production of New York City, San

Francisco, Moscow, or Prague in the post World War II context, a picture begins

to emerge that helps to unify these disparate literary and cultural movements.

The unity and synchronicity of these movements ultimately shines a light on the inherent political, social and cultural factors that helped to shape and define the types of literary and artistic production that were conceived in these various times and spaces following World War II.

Broadly speaking the Second World War had an immense impact on subsequent cultural production around the world, regardless of political, social and historical ramifications. In the United States this impact was signaled by a return to the pre-World War II concept of cultural and political isolationism. Many in the political realm wanted the country to retreat from the problems of the outside world and focus on the “traditional” U.S. values of family, religion, capital and the “pursuit of happiness.” A house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, and a penchant for consuming the latest consumer good to roll off the production line became the goal for many following the Second World War. For hegemonic political and social forces operating in the United States the problems of Europe were an ocean away, and were better left there. The U.S. political position pertaining to the world at large led to staid, safe and middle of the road societal conditions and cultural production that merely championed hegemonic values and did nothing whatsoever to challenge or progress society as a whole. When this stolid state of affairs is coupled with the advent of rampant consumerism, the burgeoning military industrial complex, McCarthyism, the House un-American

Activities Committee and the intensification on the Cold War, as represented by

the Red Scare, which collectively began in earnest at this time, a bleak picture emerges that demonstrates the narrowing of the chronotope in the American context. The goal of life in the U.S. was essentially reduced to the well-known mantra of a prefab house built in the suburbs, a shiny new car rolling off converted war material production lines, and an abundance of children, born into a sparkling new world full of the promise of opportunity. While, the reality of life in the post World War II U.S. was significantly different from this idealized point of view, this became the dominant discourse of mainstream America. Prevailing

Cold War narratives reinforced the postwar suburban ambition of mainstream thought as Leerom Medovoi contends:

Cold War discourse proclaimed the new suburbs as the apotheosis of American freedom, a utopian space of national abundance in which people could at last fully realize their individuality by making consumer choices that expressed and satisfied their inner wants. From this perspective, Americans who questioned or opposed the promise of suburbia could be constituted as the internal enemies of American freedom, who like the external Soviet enemy, needed to be prevented from acting out their subversive intentions. (Medovoi, 19)

For many, the thought of a typical and seemingly state enforced suburban existence that merely reinforced the hegemonic views promoted by media, advertisements and politicians were less than stimulating to say the least. To members of minority groups, be they social, racial, cultural or economic, there was no room for growth, improvement or opportunity under this system. To conform became synonymous to the idea of success in the American context and this was represented in most forms of cultural production and social discourse.

However, when the rejection of this form of American life, as expressed by the writers of the Beat Generation is explicitly linked with un-American, pro-Soviet behavior, the picture becomes much more sinister in nature and serves as a tangible example of the paranoiac mood encapsulating the U.S. in the Cold War era. Succinctly stated, anything that did not adhere to the normalized American model of opportunity, expression and conservative values was viewed with the utmost suspicion and derision. This suspicious mood also became the norm in terms of assessing the viability of all things American, and in particular, cultural production in the postwar context in the United States. Somewhat ironically considering the stance of the United States regarding communism, the repression, coercion and control that surrounded mainstream cultural production in postwar America came to resemble forms of state-mandated cultural production that represented the norm behind the Iron Curtain. The writers of the

Beat Generation, as well as such films as The Wild One, (1953) and Rebel

Without a Cause, (1955) was hoping to counter these circumstances by challenging and ultimately rejecting the state proscribed and reinforced narrowing of the American chronotope.

When gauging the situation from the post World War II perspective of the of hegemonic discourse in the U.S. it becomes apparent that the chronotope was narrowing in terms of cultural scope and representation; that is to say that acceptable forms of cultural production were reduced to only those that represented and reinforced these hegemonic forces and the political power that

supported and reinforced it. Rampant consumption became the objective and the sole means of expression for millions of Americans, whether they were aware of it or not. This rampant form of consumption was exacerbated by the global situation that the United States found itself in following World War II. As Mitch

Yamasaki states:

The United States was the only industrial power to emerge from it relatively unscathed. Germany and Japan were defeated and in ruins. England, France and the Soviet Union, while victorious, were economically devastated. Until these nations recovered, America dominated the world economy. Another reason for the boom was the pent-up consumerism of the American people. Americans held off on purchases during the Great Depression. Rationing and other regulations limited consumption during World War II. The pent-up consumerism exploded after the war with unprecedented purchases of homes, cars, clothes and appliances. America’s gross national income (GNP) increased 250 percent from 1945 to 1960. Unemployment, which averaged between fifteen percent and twenty-five percent during the Depression, remained under five percent throughout the 1950s. The net result was the United States, with six percent of the world’s population, controlled over fifty percent of its wealth. (Yamasaki, 186)

This excessive consumerism combined with the stifling cultural situation led artists such as those of the Beat Generation to rebel against the narrowing chronotope of mainstream culture in the U.S., producing iconic literature in the process. However it must be noted that the cultural production of the Beat

Generation did indeed find a willing and attentive audience. As Yamasaki goes on to contend, a new demographic segment of the population was appearing in

1950s America that inherently rebelled against the top-down narrative of the

status quo. This individual came to be known as the teenager.1

It was difficult for youngsters growing up in their secure suburbs to comprehend the gravity of events such as the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. They could not understand their parents’ obsession with material and spiritual security…Generation gaps are nothing new in history. What was new, and unique to America in the 1950’s was the birth of the teenager. Historically, adolescence meant adult work and responsibilities for all but the wealthiest Americans. America became rich enough in the 1950s to give all its youngsters longer childhoods…This extended childhood gave birth to a youth culture – based on group identity, material prosperity and the prospect of a nuclear holocaust hanging over their heads. For some teenagers, group identity was not enough. They rebelled…Rebellious teenagers also emulated the Beats, such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg, who satirized America’s materialistic, conformist and homogenous culture. (Yamasaki, 187)

This characterization of U.S. youth following the Second World War is eerily reminiscent of Priscilla Meyer’s characterization of post World War II Soviet youth. They too now had a wide range of possibilities open to them in terms of education and employment. This newfound choice led to a form of suspended adolescence that led many to question the system under which they lived. Youth in the postwar U.S. were looking for something different than what was on offer from mainstream purveyors of the cultural production. The work of the Beats addressed these needs. For many, the need to live an unconventional life could also be achieved by relocation to the cultural and social hotbeds of New York

City and San Francisco. In the coming decades, these cities came to represent and facilitate countercultural forms of discourse and cultural production.

1 This term was coined in the 1920s and signals a new form of designation between child and adult. The term grew in usage following World War II. The rise of the automobile greatly impacted the teenager, giving them the ability to both gather socially, outside the control of their parents, as well as allowing them to find employment. As a result, teenagers had money, and demonstrated an emerging demographic that entrenched market forces rushed to capitalize on, producing culture and goods directly targeting teens.

In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, New York City was many things to many people. Like San Francisco, the port city served as a re- entry point for the many millions of US servicemen and women returning from the various theaters of war. Soldiers and sailors from all over the country flooded into the city. New York City served as a melting pot within a melting pot as it were, and the amount of culture, experience and life on display must have been overwhelming to the returning servicemen and women. Into this euphoric postwar stew sauntered the writers that would come to be known as the Beat Generation.

Concerning this phenomenon, Bill states: “Kerouac and Cassady […] were travellers and they gravitated to two places: New York City, where Kerouac and

Cassady met while Kerouac was a student at Columbia University, and San

Francisco, the two centres of the Beat counter-culture in the United States” (Bill,

409). It is no coincidence that both of these locations were large port cities, that were by definition much more open to cultural influence and experience that came from outside the parochial purview of mainstream American society. In fact, port cities and capital cities are made up of multicultural components, and all of the cities under discussion – Prague, Moscow and New York City – fall under this categorization. This fact comprises yet another link between these subcultural movements. It is also worth noting that by and large, the two influential port cities of New York City and San Francisco that bookended the country maintained a gritty, urban feel to them that did not adhere to the mainstream American narrative of a safe, suburban existence. It is no wonder that the writers of the

Beat Generation and other artists gravitated to their respective cultural meccas in order to pursue their artistic visions. The Beats, and other members of subcultural groups were reacting to the conservative and reductionist aspects of mainstream society and the forms of culture that it produced. They were struggling to open new lines of communication and ways to express the human condition in a meaningful way, in the post World War II context that was not dependent on simply consumerism alone. In discussing the notions of discourse and communication in an altering public sphere Habermas contends that these shifts are

[…] a motivating force behind most alternative projects and many citizens’ action groups – the painful manifestations of deprivation in a culturally improvised and one-sidedly rationalized practice of everyday life. For this reason, ascriptive characteristics such as gender, age, skin color, neighborhood or locality, and religious affiliation serve to build up and separate off communities, to establish subculturally protected communities supportive of the search for personal and collective identity. The revaluation of the particular, the natural, the provincial, of social spaces that are small enough to be familiar, of decentralized forms of commerce and despecialized activities, of segmented pubs, simple interactions and dedifferentiated public spheres – all this is meant to foster the revitalization of possibilities for expression and communication that have been buried alive. (Habermas, 395.)

It is expressly the notion of the revitalization of forms of expression and communication in the staid cultural period following the Second World War that compelled the Beat Generation to put pen to paper in an effort to demonstrate that a life that did not conform to the hegemonic discourse of the U.S. was nonetheless a life worth pursuing.

The appearance of the teenager in cultural products of the period,

reinforced by the emergence of film stars such as Marlon Brando and James

Dean in the United States, mirrors the cultural situation in the aftermath of World

War II in the Soviet Union. Aksyonov so poetically chronicles the period of time in

A Ticket to the Stars (1961). As in the United States, the possibility of a longer, suspended adolescence also became apparent in the Soviet context, and coupled with the burgeoning tenets of Thaw era politics, contributed to the widening of the Soviet chronotope in terms of acceptable cultural production, as well as the ability for the public at large to access this cultural production. The

Moscow Youth Festival that occurred in 1957, as well as the massive popularity of poets such as Yevgeny Yevtushenko and actor and bard Vladimir Vysotsky reinforced this notion. Moreover, throughout the Thaw era, U.S. and other

Western films deemed by the state to be apolitical, and thus non-threatening to dominant Soviet ideology, such as the series of Tarzan films, began to be regularly shown in Soviet cinemas across the country. While films such as these may not have necessarily been politically influential in terms of content, they were incredibly influential in terms of the depiction of style. Many young Soviets began to grow their hair long, mirroring the look of the Tarzan character. This early implementation of U.S. forms of style can be viewed as a precursor to Soviet youth adopting and adapting other forms of the expression of Western style, including the fashions that surrounded jazz and rock ‘n’ roll music.

When considering the notion of the chronotope in the Soviet context, a discussion of typically totalitarian discourse is required so as to note the

significance of the social and cultural changes that occurred following World War

II. Alexei Yurchak contends

[…] that because of the performative shift of authoritarian discourse and the subsequent normalization of that discourse, the post-Stalinist period between the mid-1950s and mid-1980s became thought of as a particular period with shared characteristics, which is here called late socialism. In some of the literature addressing this period, the thirty years are divided into two shorter periods…the thaw..., the period of Khrushchev’s reforms, and the stagnation…, Brezhnev’s period. The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia is often considered the symbolic divide between the two. (Yurchak, 31)

It is within this period between the Thaw and Prague Spring in 1968 that much of the influential writings of the “New Wave” of Russian literature managed to come to light in the U.S.S.R. In the case of The Burn (1975) by Aksyonov, the events surrounding Prague Spring acted as a driving catalyst behind the creation of the very novel itself. Yurchak provides a rationale for the broadening of the Soviet chronotope. He contends:

The presence within the Soviet universe of spatially and temporally distant worlds was manifested by the explosion in the 1960s in various cultural and intellectual pursuits based on the experience of a faraway ‘elsewhere’ – foreign languages and Asian philosophy, medieval poetry and Hemingway’s novels, astronomy and science fiction, avant-garde jazz and songs about pirates, practices of hiking, mountaineering, and going on geological expeditions in the remote nature reserves of Siberia, the Far East and the North. (Yurchak, 160)

The sudden availability of intellectual pursuits in the 1960s that had heretofore fallen afoul of the tenets of Socialist Realism, in turn suggests a symbiotic relationship between the reforms of the Thaw era and the cultural production and

socially minded activities now open to Soviet citizens living in this time and space. The Thaw allowed for a wider range of experience for the average Soviet citizen, which in turn engendered a more expansive form of cultural production to exist, therefore fostering a more open and inclusive atmosphere. These two factors worked in concert to challenge the stringent state mandated doctrine of

Socialist Realism. Kathleen E. Smith provides another telling example of the broadening of the Soviet chronotope following Khrushchev’s Secret Speech at the 20th Party Congress in 1956. She states:

[J]azz musician Leonid Utesov offered a series of concerts entitled ‘Around Europe for 3.80 [3 rubles and 80 kopeks].’ The price referred to the average cost of a ticket to listen to Utesov as he performed foreign melodies and his own compositions – a cheap thrill compared with a trip to Paris. Utesov’s jest captured a relaxation of official hostility toward Western artistic products, one that allowed a large number of Soviet citizens to learn about and connect with other cultures without leaving home. Soviets had long enjoyed a small selection of Western ‘trophy films’ acquired during World War II, but in 1956 urbanites could stand in line to see exhibitions of Western art and vie for tickets to shows by the touring American Everyman Opera or the Boston Symphony. Owners of televisions – a new luxury available only in some cities – could catch first time broadcasts by foreign ambassadors (Smith, 229).

Smith goes on to assert, “The possibilities of meeting foreigners also rose as the number of incoming travellers increased. 1956 saw 487,000 foreign tourists arriving in the U.S.S.R. – more than quadruple the number from 1955 […]”,

(Smith, 229). The ability for ordinary Soviet citizens to meet, fraternize and exchange cultural experiences with foreigners from a multitude of countries coalesced with the World Festival of Youth and Students that enveloped the

Soviet capital in 1957, exposing the normally sheltered inhabitants of the capital

of communism to forms of cultural expression that were heretofore inaccessible to the normal citizen.

The rationales for the convergence of the American and Soviet chronotopes were not always necessarily positive. Political, cultural and social conventions were often shattered in the postwar context on both sides of the Iron

Curtain. Illusions about national identity and inherent possibility for all often took a back seat to a more pragmatic viewpoint regarding social and political realities.

In a detailed discussion between Tolya and Thunderjet, Aksyonov comments on this situation in The Burn:

Вздор это все! Никакой загадочной славянской души, как и никакой великой американской мечты, в нынешнем мире нет. Есть только два чудовищных спрута, гигантские мешки полуживой протоплазмы, которая реагирует на внешние толчки только сокращением или поглощением. Поглощать ей, конечно, приятнее, чем сокращаться. (Аксёнов, 107)

“It’s all nonsense! There’s no such thing as the ‘mysterious Slav soul,’ just as there’s nothing left of the ‘great American dream’ in today’s world either. There are just two monstrous octopuses, two gigantic bags of half- dead protoplasm, which can only react to external stimuli in two ways: by contraction or by absorption. And it finds absorption, of course, much more pleasant than contraction.” (Glenny, 123)

This conversation gives insight into the artist’s perspective that the cultural, political and social relevance of both nations was on the wane, and it was perhaps even completely irrelevant in the modern context, irrespective of any perceived notions that writers from these chronotopes were experiencing a particularly creative and innovative period. Additionally, this conversation puts

forth the idea that the leaders of these respective political spheres were aware of this issue and were actively seeking to counteract the ramifications of this reality.

Simply stated, the old rules no longer applied in this brave new world. Aksyonov is highlighting the destructive, anti-humanist, cyclical pattern that faces all superpowers at some point in their existence. He is also commenting on the bloated nature of both the United States and the Soviet Union that inherently swallows up and absorbs everything within its sphere of influence regardless of any negative cultural, political or social ramifications.

The perception that the United States and the Soviet Union functioned as entities that mindlessly absorb all around them also reinforces the idea of control mechanisms put in place by the powers that be. In the Western capitalist context, the entrenched culture industry routinely coopts and commoditizes the artistic production of underground and subcultural movements with the primary intention of profit, coupled with the secondary, more opaque intent of state mandated control. Here it is important to introduce the notion of the public sphere as expounded upon by Jürgen Habermas, whose thoughts on the matter have played a large role in shaping the discourse concerning relevant forms of communication and social interaction in the 20th and 21st centuries. He defines the term thusly: “The public sphere is seen as a domain of social life where public opinion can be formed” (Habermas, 398). Unlike Bakhtin, Habermas is not concerned with time, and he does not take it into account. Rather, Habermas is interested in space and the way that it functions in the civil society of a given

country. As Susen states: “The constitution of the modern public sphere in capitalist societies is paradoxical due to its a priori openness as a “civic” realm oriented towards political inclusion and its de facto closure as a “bourgeois” realm based on social exclusion” (Susen, 48). In other words, the reality of the modern public sphere in the capitalist context, is not exactly what is printed on the tin.

The model is one of distraction, often through the form of consumer goods, middle of the road cultural production that does not promote thinking or analysis, and the utterly American concept of “keeping up with the Joneses.” This inequality between the advertised goal of the public sphere and the actual implementation of said goal is the paradox that the cultural production of the Beat

Generation was attempting to address and rectify. In the communist variant of controlling the public sphere, normalization, repression and cooptation were employed to absorb and render harmless any cultural production or movements that fell outside of the purview of state mandated norms regarding artistic, or indeed any form of non-state issued creation. The model of the various communist regimes was therefore less nuanced, and when viewed in a certain context, more honest in its overall intentions of control of the masses. Simply stated, the communist model did not offer the illusion of choice in the matter.

One characteristic of the public sphere that cannot be disputed is its manipulation by the powers that be that occurred in both the capitalist and communist contexts. In the capitalist West, market forces, in collusion with the

state manufactured focus on rampant consumption, were employed to this effect.

As Chebankova relates:

Adorno and Horkheimer argued that no area, public or private, was left untouched by the ceaseless production of unnecessary goods, trashy films, simplified music, and commercial advertising. The newly emerged “culture industry” obtained a logic of its own, and, operating as an increasingly independent force, colonized the public sphere becoming an instrument of political domination. (Chebankova, 318-319)

These are the exact forces that the artistic production of the Beats, “New Wave” of Russian literature, and the underground movements in Czechoslovakia were battling against. The focus on rampant consumerism, and the complacency that developed, politically, culturally, and morally as a result of the endless pursuit and acquisition of the next consumer good that became available engendered purveyors of underground culture to rebel against a morally bankrupt system that placed consumer goods and their acquisition over all other concerns and left no room for dissent. Additionally, the focus on consumer goods and trite cultural production provided and provides the government with a disguised distraction that enables them to effectively work in the shadows towards an agenda that does not take the wishes of the people into account, but instead focuses on the dual goals of maintaining control and acquiring ever increasing amounts of wealth. This method of distraction is the modern day equivalent of the Roman tactic of “Bread and Circuses” to placate and domesticize the population.

However, in many ways this modern variant is more deceptive, as well as more

morally and spiritually bankrupt, as the powers that be employ a well rehearsed form of sleight of hand to achieve their goals. As Horkheimer contends:

Consumers are the workers and employees, the farmers and lower middle class. Capitalist production so confines them, body and soul, that they fall hopeless victims to what is offered to them. As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed of them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology, which enslaves them. (Horkheimer, 133-134)

While in the communist context, repressive government tactics were employed to steer communication and its effectiveness, which in turn enabled the respective regimes to control the direction, tone and nature of the overall narrative of social discourse. This fact explains the sense of awe that descended on the Soviet

Union following Khrushchev’s decision to allow Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the

Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962) to be published, signaling the beginnings of the

Thaw. The Thaw did not, and perhaps could not run a smooth course, as Karl

Loewenstein recounts: “In reality, Khrushchev vacillated throughout the period, causing uncertainty and confusion. It is through this confusion that challenging works appeared in the press” (Loewenstein, 480-481). For many in the upper echelons of power in the Soviet Union, the very conception and implementation of the Thaw was a catastrophic political miscalculation that was not to be repeated. When the policy of the Thaw was coupled with the concept of de-

Stalinization, the writing was on the proverbial wall for the Soviet Premier.

Khrushchev was forcefully ousted by the CPSU in 1964 following the on again, off again implementation of the controversial liberalization program.

Expanding on the notion of the public sphere, Wessler and Freudenthaler relate: “Modern research on the public sphere was sparked by the German social theorist Jürgen Habermas’s seminal study, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere…,published in German in 1962 and translated into English, rather belatedly, in 1989” (Wessler, Freudenthaler). Wessler and Freudenthaler go on to state:

The ‘public sphere’ is generally conceived as the social space in which different opinions are expressed, problems of general concern are discussed, and collective solutions are developed communicatively. Thus, the public sphere is the central arena for societal communication. In large- scale societies, mass media and, more recently, online network media support and sustain communication in the public sphere. The English term ‘public sphere’ is a translation of the German öffentlichkeit. The term translates into two related terms: ‘the public,’ or the collective of speakers and listeners present in the public sphere, and ‘publicness,’ or the state of being publicly visible and subject to scrutiny by the public… The term carries both a descriptive and a normative connotation. Normative theories of the public sphere usually specify ideal characteristics of public communication, as well as conditions conducive to their realization, and help to evaluate critically existing communication. (Wessler and Freudenthaler)

Thus, much like the notion of the chronotope, it is instructive to think of the public sphere as a macro-expression of communicative and collective norms for a given society. These communicative norms are formed over generations due to mitigating factors, such as political system, dominant religious affiliation, as well as cultural and societal norms that dictate the formation and maintenance of the status quo.

The public sphere of any given state is beyond the control of the individual. And while change to an existent public sphere is possible, this change is necessarily slow and often controlled and dictated from above. For all intents and purposes, one is simply born into an existing form of public sphere. The communicative and societal norms governing the public sphere necessarily and understandably manifest themselves in differing formats depending on the political, religious, cultural and social systems within which they operate. Thus the notion of the public sphere in the capitalist West is constructed rather differently than in the communist East. In fact, many argue that the concept of the public sphere cannot exist within the communist framework, as access to information and free communication that lead to the formation of an informed public opinion is stringently controlled by the government. However, the difference between the realization of the public sphere in the capitalist and communist contexts are not quite so black and white. As Susen contends:

The exercise of…”public” sovereignty, however can be “private” if the internal public structures of the state are systematically concealed by the state itself. This applies, first and foremost, to authoritarian, dictatorial, and totalitarian states, but also, at least to some extent, to liberal and democratic states. Whatever the ideological bent of a particular state apparatus, the long-term functioning of an efficient and resourceful state rests on the coexistence of visible and concealed power structures produced and reproduced by the political elite of a given society. (Susen, 42)

Therefore, in the capitalist context, the manipulation of market forces, to the benefit of existing power structures, plays much the same role in governing and

controlling public sovereignty, discourse, opinion and direction as the repressive, authoritarian tactics of communist regimes in the East. Susen continues:

[…] there are two systemic realms that have decisively shaped the transformation of the public sphere: the state and the market. The former turns the public sphere into a social realm that is partly regulated by the functionalist logic of bureaucratic administration. The latter converts the public sphere into a social realm that is partly driven by the functionalist logic of capitalist commodification. The ubiquity of functionalist rationality poses a challenge to the possibility of human autonomy. In a world that is largely governed by the utility-driven power of functionalist rationality, the critical potential of a communicatively created public sphere is undermined by the steering capacity of a regulating state and a commodifying market. The systemic rationality spread by a regulating state and a commodifying market can degrade the critical potential of the public sphere to a decorative appendage of a disenchanted world. If reduced to a peripheral element of systemic steering processes, the public sphere degenerates into a state-regulated market sphere. (Susen, 50)

The capitalist variant of manufactured manipulation of the public sphere through market control is a form of soft power that functions to maintain and reinforce entrenched hegemonic forces. Again Susen argues, “Different societies produce different forms of public and private life… Different societies produce different discourses about the nature of public and private life…Different conceptions of the world create different meanings of the world” (Susen, 39). However, both systems of government have similar aims in relation to controlling and dictating acceptable forms of the public sphere that reinforce the dominant aims of mainstream political, social, and cultural society.

Collective Identities and Lifeworlds

Regarding the notion of an active public sphere in the communist context,

I contend that the very existence of underground and subcultural movements

within this framework demonstrates that at least some form of a public sphere was in operation in the communist environment with the caveat that the private sphere also played a role. Speaking to this, Thomas Cushman states:

The lack of what Jürgen Habermas refers to as a ‘public sphere’ of freely circulating cultural information served to push many people toward the development of private spheres of cultural communication. It was through these private spheres that, ironically, many Russians ended up being quite well-informed. What was lacking in formal opportunities for cultural communication was made up for by the evolution of informal networks of communication. The existence of distinct, alternative, informal patterns of communication in the Soviet Union forces us to rethink the forms and processes of cultural creativity and communication within this social space. (Cushman, 34)

The importance of a different form of social, communicative network within the communist framework is supported by the Russian concept of общественность

(obshchestvennost’.) Speaking to this term, Loewenstein states:

“Obshchestvennost’ is a very difficult word to translate, but can be seen as ‘the public,’ ‘public opinion’ or ‘civil society.’ Obshchestvennost’ is defined as both a collective identity and a set of values that encompasses those who choose that identity” (Loewenstein, 474). In many ways this concept is similar to the notion of the lifeworld, as it is something that individuals can choose to engage and participate in. Crucially, obshchestvennost’ is something tangible that people can identify and align themselves with. Additionally, it is extremely telling that

Loewenstein’s definition of obshchestvennost’ stresses the collective aspect, which is a common theme of communist societies. The use of term collective also demonstrates that reform rather than rebellion was the aim of those engaging in this practice. It is also important to note that discussions concerning notions and

forms of the public sphere were a topic of debate amongst Soviet journalists, writers and intellectuals following the Second World War. Once again the concept of obshchestvennost’ applies to the writings of the “New Wave” of Russian literature and to the expanded forms of expression that were initially allowed under Khrushchev’s Thaw. Loewenstein goes on to state that

Writers believed in the idea of building a consensus within their organization and then having that discussion respected beyond its boundaries. They needed the assurance that all but the most recalcitrant authors within the union agreed, but were also driven by the idea that writers might help better shape the future of the Soviet Union. They were profoundly aware of both their complicity with the system and their assigned role as the forward-thinking part of society. This fits the definition and practical concept of obshchestvennost’. Members of the Writers’ Union were not individually subversive, but hoped to create space to criticize and shape the new course for the Soviet Union. (Loewenstein, 480)

The role of obshchestvennost’ leads to interesting parallels with the writings and goals of the Beats, as well as the Czechoslovak underground movements. Like the movement in the U.S., Soviet writers were looking to shift the conversation to a more productive and more egalitarian form of communication that could ultimately benefit the citizens living within the stringent confines of a repressive communist form of government. However, the Soviet writers did not simply want to eradicate the entire system. They merely hoped to reform it from within. The hope for reform rather than the removal of the existent system necessarily mirrors the initial aims and goals surrounding Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia that came to be known as “Socialism with a Human Face.” The hopes of this movement also centered on the reform of the Czechoslovak brand of

communism from within. It wasn’t until Warsaw Pact tanks rolled in to the Prague city center on the night of 20 August 1968 that members of the Czechoslovak underground began to consider and implement a “parallel polis, ” or an unofficial form of public sphere, in an attempt to simply ignore the communist society that enveloped and controlled them. Thus, the existence of these politically, socially and geographically disparate underground movements exhibits the idea that like- minded individuals, operating outside of the purview of mainstream society, who were interested in cultural production from the capitalist West, were able to find each other and communicate these interests to each other, and in turn to produce cultural production of their own that showcased their hopes and expectations for the future. The formation of a lifeworld is accentuated by movements, such as those in communist Czechoslovakia, that attempted, and succeeded for a short time, in setting up and maintaining their own form of parallel polis.

Much akin to the notion of the chronotope, when the Habermasian conception of the “lifeworld” is associated with the public sphere, new possibilities emerge, which allow for the formation of underground, subcultural artistic production. The lifeworld functions as a micro-expression within the macro framework of the public sphere to allow for more distinct forms of communication, consumption and artistic production that fall outside of the bounds of mainstream society, and thus outside the strict control of official government narratives.

Habermas put forth the lifeworld as a means of expressing the communication

and social goals of a group of specialized individuals. In discussing human interaction Habermas states:

Linguistic communication that aims at mutual understanding – not merely at reciprocal influence – satisfies the presuppositions for rational utterances or for the rationality of speaking and acting subjects. We have also seen why the rationality inherent in speech can become empirically effective to the extent that communicative acts take over the steering of social interactions and fulfill functions of social reproduction, of maintaining social lifeworlds. The rationality potential in action oriented to mutual understanding can be released and translated into the rationalization of the lifeworlds of social groups to the extent that language fulfills functions of reaching understanding, coordinating actions, and socializing individuals; it thereby becomes a medium through which cultural reproduction, social integration, and socialization take place. (Habermas, 86.)

Music, being a form of human communication, also plays a large role in the construction of Habermas’ concept of the lifeworld. When the conception of the lifeworld is placed in the context of Bakhtin’s notion of the chronotope, an interesting picture begins to emerge. It is my contention that the chronotope and the lifeworld coalesce to produce underground cultural movements. Members of these movements are reacting to the chronotope and form of public sphere into which they are born. They combat the overarching realities into which they are born by choosing to surround themselves with people that share their social, aesthetic, cultural and political aspirations. The choosing of one’s own group to navigate domineering and repressive societies has been surprising similar, whether these groups have coalesced in the U.S., the Soviet Union, or in

Czechoslovakia. In contemplating the role of the lifeworld, regarding the form and function of musical expression, Cushman states:

Music communicates a variety of experiences of being in the world. The communication of experience is a form of mediation which serves to establish common bonds between similarly situated actors…Any phenomenological approach to music must be balanced by a view which takes into consideration the structural and historical circumstances which occur in the outside world – specifically, patterns of political and economic organization – which give rise to and, in a sense, ‘fill’ the lifeworlds of individuals. Music is a meaning-making and meaning-sharing activity which allows for the formation of ‘affective alliances’ among social actors. Yet music is also a cultural activity which is situated within particular social-structural conditions and which responds to and is affected by such conditions. (Cushman, 9-10)

The structural and historical circumstances in the outside world to which

Cushman refers can be interpreted as the chronotope. Succinctly stated, like- minded groups of disaffected individuals have frequently banded together in reaction to the set of political, historical and social constructs of the time and place they inhabit. The resulting collectives constitute the notion of the lifeworld.

The lifeworld is a organic construction that sits outside the dictates of the dominant discourse of a given society. In contrast, the chronotope functions as a top-down construct that is outside of the control of the individual citizen. It is shaped by the generations that have come before. One could say that the chronotope is simply inherited by the citizens of a given society; however, the lifeworld can be termed a voluntary construct that enables the individual to align themselves with similarly motivated and like-minded people in order to create a world, a space, a movement that is more in line with their cultural, political or social aspirations, irrespective, and often in defiance of the expectations of mainstream society. Therefore, it might be helpful to consider the chronotope as a macro-expression of a given time and space that spans generations that is

dictated and controlled by hegemonic forces. The lifeworld can be defined as a micro-expression of a like-minded group of people in a given chronotope operating outside of the constraints of mainstream society within in the larger construct of the public sphere.

In certain ways, the chronotope of Czechoslovakia in the post World War II context is an amalgamation of the situations in the United States and the Soviet

Union. The events of Prague Spring acted as a dividing line that demarcated the

Dubček era of reform from the era of the Soviet enforced era of normalization.

Regarding the Plastic People of the Universe and their motivations, Webb maintains:

The band formed shortly after the Prague Spring, a brief period of liberalism brought in by Communist Czechoslovakia’s reformist leader Alexander Dubček. State censorship of newspapers had ended and rock ’n’ roll could be heard in the streets of Prague. It didn’t last long. Fearing a breakup of the Eastern Bloc, Czechoslovakia’s neighbours decided to act. On the night of 20th August 1968, 200,000 troops and 2,000 tanks from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary invaded and a process of “normalisation” began. (Webb, 1-2)

The Plastic People of the Universe, Ivan Jirous, and the other artists and bands with which they surrounded themselves, serve as a pertinent example of a group of like-minded individuals attempting to construct their own lifeworld within the larger chronotope. By extension the formation of lifeworlds also approximates their own form of a public sphere, in the context of a larger political and social construct that was not only beyond their control, but ultimately hostile to their very existence. In an effort to circumnavigate the chronotope and public sphere into

which they were born, the Plastics and their community set to create their own reality, which they referred to as a “parallel polis,” in an effort to ignore the broader construct of political and social reality of communist Czechoslovakia.

Discussing this idea at length, Webb states:

Jirous […] became increasingly outspoken against the status quo. He believed that the ‘first culture’ of the Communist regime offered nothing of value and set about creating a ‘second culture’ in which people would be free to express themselves. Jirous believed that the freedom of this second culture, or ‘Parallel Polis’, would ultimately undermine the totalitarian system, and that the music of the Plastic People would show the way. Jirous and the band found themselves under increasing scrutiny by the state, and after an altercation in a bar Jirous was arrested and sentenced to ten months in prison: he would spend nine-and-a-half of the next 16 years inside. (Webb, 4)

In attempting to create a form of second culture that operated completely independently from the official culture of the communist regime, Jirous and the

Plastic People were attempting to construct their own form of public sphere. And while they were ultimately unsuccessful in the short-term, they accomplished much regarding societal and political change in the long-term. As Paulina Bren states:

Eventually, most dissidents agreed that the parallel polis could realistically develop only in the spheres of art and literature. But if so, then this was hardly an innovation, for samizdat publishing was already thriving, and the cultural underground’s reigning philosophy, of which the Plastic People of the Universe were an important part, has always been to live as if government repression and Communist Party ideological domination did not exist. (Bren, 101)

This refusal to kowtow to the cultural and society demands of the state is borne out by the fact that the music, lyrics, poetry and prose that were created under

the communist system have outlived the very system that they were combating and are still readily available to this day. This is an important fact in relating notions of the public sphere, artistic production and forms of communication in the communist context. Writers and artists might have been “writing for the desk drawer” as it were, but ultimately much of the culture produced under these stringent circumstances eventually and inevitably came to light, outliving and out- influencing the repressive tactics of communist regimes in which they were created.

Another example of the chronotopes of the United States, the Soviet

Union, and Czechoslovakia aligning in the post World War II context, is the matter and expression of style amongst the youth. Young people in communist

Czechoslovakia began to express style in much the same fashion as their

Western counterparts, in an expression of solidarity with the shifting times and as a display of dissatisfaction with the current state of their lives. As Bren relates in describing youth in Czechoslovakia:

Indeed, much of youth behavior during the 1960s was more about style than politics as young people began for the first time to carve out their own identities as generationally separate form those of their parents. In this, they were most certainly on the same wavelength as their Western counterparts…[T]he jeans and the beards were not, as least initially, a political thesis as much as the expression of a basic discontent to which the members of this generation, the first to have grown up under communism, believed they had a unique right. (Bren, 18)

This fact demonstrates the worldwide synchronicity that occurred amongst members of youth and underground cultures in their respective chronotopes. This

synchronicity was reinforced by the similar themes and aims of the forms of culture produced by these various movements.

The Language of Dissent and Dialogism

When assessing the language and dialogue employed by the members of the Beat Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature and Egon Bondy, the

Bakhtinian construct of interpreting dialogue and the role that dialogue plays in literary production in the overall shaping of discourse is instructive. Additionally,

Bakhtin’s notions concerning the nature of dialogue give insight into what informed his thoughts regarding the chronotope. In his book dedicated to the

Bakhtinian model of dialogism, Michael Holquist states: “Dialogue is the master key to the assumption that guided Bakhtin’s work throughout his whole career: dialogue is present in one way or another throughout the notebooks he kept from his youth to his death at the age of 80” (Holquist, 15). Thus, it will be useful to examine the Bakhtinian notion of dialogism, and discuss its reception, interpretation and influence in relation to the writings of the Beats, the “New

Wave” of Russian literature, and Egon Bondy.

For Bakhtin, the dialogic functions as an influence and runs through and informs all levels of discourse. The dialogic includes colloquial language used in the public and private spheres, as well as literary forms of communication, such as prose and poetry. The level of dialogue that is prevalent and permissible in a given society gives indicators as to the type of chronotope and public sphere that is operating in that given country. For instance, a prevalence towards top-down

monologic discourse, or discourse that is shrouded in doublespeak or distraction indicates a communist society, whereas a prevalence toward a more prose orientated discourse that is more open and concerned with communication as a means to facilitate understanding most likely indicates a more open, capitalist society. It also worth stating that Bakhtin was in no way interested in power, political or otherwise. Rather, his philosophy started “with the assumption… that genuine knowledge and enablement can begin only when my “I” consults another

“I” and then returns to its own place, humbled and enhanced” (Emerson, 26). The reliance and need for communicative and collaborative interaction with others in order to understand better and push forward human expression is central to both

Bakhtinian thought in general, and to dialogism in particular. Communicative and collaborative interaction also provides a salient example of the lifeworld that these various underground movements were striving to create in order to combat a debilitating and non-inclusive public sphere and chronotope.

The yearning for human connectivity plays a prominent role in the writings of the Beat Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature, as well as the work of Egon Bondy. At this point it is necessary to discuss what Bakhtin actually writes about the designation “dialogic.” According to the Bakhtinian notion of dialogism, speech can be characterized as the

[…] contrast [between] the unitary, single-voiced speech of the monologue, where only one person is speaking, [and] the idea of dialogue, where two or more voices engage with each other from different points of view. Monologue… is associated with the idea of a centralized power system, a single voice speaking the only truth that can exist, without challenge or interplay. Dialogic speech, on the other hand, always involves

a multiplicity of speakers and a variety of perspectives; truth becomes something negotiated and debated, rather than something pronounced from on high. Monologic speech seems to come from God or nowhere; it is dissociated from the speaker who originates it, and from the social relations in which that speaker is embedded. Dialogic speech acknowledges sets of social relations between and among speakers, and is thus more descriptive of historical and cultural realities. (Bloomsbury Literary Studies)

This distinction is important in the world-view of Bakhtin, as communication, and the ramifications of communication played an essential role in allowing him to navigate the venomous political and social climate that he, and other Soviet intellectuals were forced to inhabit. When discussing the Bakhtinian notion of dialogue, it can be further stated that

Bakhtin uses the concept of dialogism in discussing the distinction between novels and poetry as literary forms. In poetry, Bakhtin argues, words are used monologically, as if they have no connection to social or historical relations; a word has meaning only in reference to language itself. In prose fiction, by contrast, words are used dialogically, as having both etymological meaning and social meaning. (Bloomsbury Literary Studies) The distinction between monologic and dialogic discourse is especially relevant when placed in the context of Stalinist reality in terms of political and cultural discourse, in which Bakhtin began his career, and which continued until

Khrushchev’s reforms during the Thaw. In this Kafkaesque, totalitarian reality, the function of language in a daily context took on the aspects of doublespeak. That is to say that people would say and think one thing in the public sphere and often think and communicate quite differently in the private sphere or amongst close family, friends and colleagues. This practice is reinforced by the traditional uses

of satirical Aesopian language by Russian authors and intelligentsia that stretches back to Tsarist times of the 19th century.

Historically, Russian authors utilized Aesopian language in an effort to bypass or subvert state censorship. The informed Russian, and later Soviet reader, was aware of this phenomenon and inherently knew to read between or beneath the lines in order to ascertain and understand the underlying meaning of the author’s printed words. The use of Aesopian language was an overtly accepted concept within Russian literature, which necessitated a deeper analysis on the part of the reader in relation to many contemporary Russian texts. As

Emerson states, Aesopian language was a

[…]hermeneutic device perfected by Russia’s intelligentsia. Designed to work under combat conditions, Aesopianism assumes that the world is allegory, that no one speaks or writes straight, and that every officially public or published text (by definition, censored) has a ‘more honest,’ multilayered, hidden subtext that only insiders can decode. Ever since the birth of modern Russian literature in the eighteenth century, Russia’s greatest writers have been alert to the dangers of Aesopian thinking and at the same time fatally drawn to indulge in it. (Emerson, 8)

Thus it can be postulated that Bakhtin’s differentiation between the poetic and novelistic uses of discourse have a background in and function as a response to the inherent realities that existed in the Soviet (i.e. communist) political reality.

Succinctly put, poetic or monologic speech mirrors the speeches and dictates of Stalin himself, that is to say his words were to be interpreted as being delivered from “on high,” as if spoken by God himself, and therefore indisputable and implicitly true. To defy the dictates of Stalin was a perilous venture, as the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) replaced religion in the USSR.

Stalin, and by extension the CPSU operated in a top-down fashion. As such, these speeches, declamations and other forms of state propagated propaganda necessarily allowed no external room for interpretation or refusal, neither in terms of cultural nor political contexts. This lack of interpretation is reinforced by the fact that Marxism, and its elucidation by Lenin and later Stalin was the only acceptable form of outlook available for understanding and clarifying the world.

The state mandated reliance on Marxism as the only available lens through which to the view the world functioned as a top-down monologic construct, meant to control the population rather than to inspire it. As a direct corollary, it can then be inferred that the inherent dialogic nature of the novel runs counter to the agenda and political messages of a top-down totalitarian state, and therefore must be deemed by ruling powers to be that most dangerous of words in the

Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Soviet discourse – those of the counter-revolutionary.

Ultimately in the Soviet context, fear of forms of discourse that did not adhere to

Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist doctrine led to the creation and implementation of the doctrine Socialist Realism in an effort to channel this discourse into avenues that directly benefitted the state and its inherent, pre-conceived notions of itself.

Due to the liberalization of the norms regarding artistic production during the Thaw era, the writers of the “New Wave” of Russian literature were able to eschew Aesopian language and doublespeak to varying degrees. The shifting times allowed for a more straightforward and earnest form of literature that

employed dialogue that sought to connect people through common experience rather than common political beliefs. Therefore, authors such as Aksyonov were able to construct narratives concerning themes that were heretofore unacceptable to Soviet power structures that contained impassioned dialogue about passionate ideas from impassioned protagonists that discussed new forms of political and cultural expression that did not adhere to wishes of the state or

Soviet family structures. Much of the dialogue of Galia, Dimka, Yurka, and Alik in

Ticket to the Stars (1961) bears out this contention.

An exchange among the young, idealistic quartet, after they have decided to deviate from the path set forth for them by both state and family demonstrates this new form of dialogue in the Soviet milieu. In order to elaborate fully on dialogic discourse and its role in Thaw era Soviet literary production, I quote the passage at length:

– Что это вы задумали? – сердито спрашивает Галя и, как Долита Торрес, упирает в бока кулаки.– Сказать ей? – спрашивает Алик.– Ладно уж, скажи, а то заплачет, – говорит Юрка. Димка кивает.– Мы уезжаем. – Что?– Уезжаем.– Куда?– В путешествие.– Когда?– На днях.– Без меня?– Конечно.– Никуда без меня не поедете.– Ого!– Не поедете!– Ха-ха!– Ты без меня поедешь?– Видишь ли, Галя…– А ты?– Я?– А ты, Димка, без меня поедешь?– А почему бы и нет? Ошеломленная Галка все-таки действует с инстинктивной мудростью. Расчленив монолитный коллектив, она отворачиваются, топает ногой и начинает плакать. Ребята растерянно ходят вокруг.– Мы будем жить в суровых условиях.– В палатке.–Питаться только рыбой.– Хочу в суровые условия, – шепчет Галка, – в палатку. Рыбой питаться хочу! Мне надоело здесь. Мама при всех губы стирает. Какие вы хитрые, без меня хотели уехать!– Постой, а как же театральный факультет? – спрашивает ее Алик.– А вы как решили с экзаменами?– Мы решили не поступать.–Как?– А вот так. Подбросили монетку, и все. Хватит с нас! Мы хотим жить по-своему.

Поступим когда-нибудь, когда захотим.– Я тоже хочу жить по- своему!– Ладно, – говорит Димка, – берем тебя с собой… (Аксёнов, 198-199)

“What are you up to, fellows?” Galia wants to know and, her arms akimbo, takes a stance typical of Lolita Torres. “Shall we tell her?” Alik asks. “O.K., let her have it or she’ll start crying,” Yurka says. Dimka nods his head. “We’re leaving.” “What?” “Leaving, going away.” “Where you going?” “On a trip.” “When?” “One of these days.” “Without me?” “Of course, without you.” “You aren’t going anywhere.” “Is that so?” “I tell you, you’re staying right here.” “Ha!” “You’re not going!” “Ha-ha!” “You say you’ll go without me?” “But you must understand, Galia – “ “I’m asking you, Dimka, did you say you were leaving without me?” “Who, me? Sure, why wouldn’t I?” Galia is quite stunned but instinctively does the right thing. Having sown a seed of disagreement in the monolithic group, she turns away, stamps her foot and then bursts into tears. The boys walk around her, looking as if they are at a loss. “We’ll have to rough it, you see – “ “Sleep under a tent, things like that – “ “Live on fish.” “I want to rough it too,” Galia whispers. “I want to sleep under a tent too. I want to live on nothing but fish. I’m sick of this place where my mother wipes lipstick off my lips in front of everyone. You’re real mean to leave without me!” “But what about the acting school?” Alik inquires. “And you, what’ve you decided about your exams?” We’ve decided not to go to college.” “How come?” “ We tossed a coin for it, just like that. We’ve had enough of it as it is. We want to live our own lives and take up our studies again later if we feel like it.” “Me too, I want to live my own life.” All right then,” Dimka says, “we’ll take you along”…(Aksyonov, 22-23)

This impassioned exchange amongst intimate colleagues demonstrates several factors regarding the Bakhtinian notion of dialogue, as well as the shifting norms regarding the Soviet chronotope and realities of a burgeoning public sphere following the exertions of the Great Patriotic War. The quartet also demonstrates the idea of the lifeworld, as this group has chosen each other as a social unit.

The conversation among Galia, Dimka, Yurka, and Alik takes place in public, in the courtyard of the housing estate that the four young people inhabit. This

conversation demonstrates dissent against the state mandated and parentally reinforced path systematically laid out for Soviet youth at this time. This conversation also demonstrates the humanity and compassion that is inherently present amongst a chosen peer group within the larger confines of a shifting chronotope. This type of conversation would have been simply unthinkable under the Stalinist regime, and demonstrates a new expression of life, and the altering goals of young people in the Soviet context.

The Bakhtinian theory of dialogism also plays a prominent role in the writings of the Beat Generation. In his poem “America,” (1956) Allen Ginsberg intervenes with the traditional notion of monologue and dialogue within the framework of conventional poetic verse. Ginsburg forms his poem, which is typically a monologic form of expression, as a dialogue between himself and a personified America. In effect, he is seeking to engage in a conversation with those who have differing social, political and cultural views in an effort to find common ground and to come to some kind of an understanding regarding the human condition in the Cold War era. Ginsburg is seeking answers to universal questions to help him understand and navigate the American variant of the chronotope in which he finds himself. The tone of the poem is irreverent and confrontational. It asks uncomfortable questions to an uncomfortable audience. In many ways the text of “America” can be read in the spirit of the holy fool.

Ginsburg is speaking truth to power in order to shake up and change what he views as the immoral and irreligious behavior contained in the political, social and

cultural policies of the American chronotope. Throughout the piece Ginsburg keeps firing questions and accusations at a personified form of America, in order to elicit some form of rational, honest, humanistic response. Over the course of the poem Ginsburg states:

America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing […] America when will you end the human war? [...] America when will you be angelic? [...] When will you take off your clothes? [...] America why are your libraries full of tears? [...] Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke? [...] It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again […]America you don’t really want to go to war […] America this is quite serious […] America is this correct? (Ginsberg, 39-43)

Ginsburg also employs the narrative device of placing himself within the context of America. In stating that he himself is America he is in effect engaging in a dialogue with himself, and maintaining that the problems and outlooks of the country are indeed the problems and outlooks that inherently exist within him. He speaks to the persecution that he has faced as a homosexual Jewish man with a history of mental illness, as well as for the content of his writings, worldview and the lifeworld that he has assembled around himself. Ginsburg speaks to the entrenched puritanical, protestant outlook of the country that seeks to limit rather than expand the human experience; he further challenges the country to be truly benevolent through its actions and policies, rather than merely through empty words extolling Christian values. He also questions the intelligence of America, implying that the sinister actions of the country are due to a lack of thought or concern rather than through inherently sinister political and social policies. The

questioning nature of Ginsburg’s words regarding the motives of U.S. actions harkens back to the conversation between Thunderjet and Tolya in The Burn, which characterizes the U.S. and U.S.S.R. as lumbering behemoths crushing all before them, intentionally or not. Ginsburg is also stating his belief that a country, such as the U.S. that characterizes itself as a Christian nation should hold itself to a higher set of ethical standards if it wants to remain in a position where its citizens can maintain their belief in its greatness. It is Ginsburg’s contention that it is only possible for people and by extension, society, to come to an understanding with others, with themselves, and with the world at large by engaging in earnest and straightforward dialogue, by opening lines of communication that strive to highlight inherent similarities, rather than inherent differences.

For Bakhtin the notion of the dialogue runs through and informs all facets of human communication and existence, and therefore runs contrary to state mandated forms of expression. As Holquist states:

[…] all Bakhtin’s writings are animated and controlled by the principle of dialogue. It is becoming increasingly evident that Bakhtin’s lifelong meditation on dialogue does not have a place solely in the history of literary theory, capricious as the borders of that subject have recently become. It is now clear that dialogism is also implicated in the history of modern thinking about thinking. (Holquist, 15-16)

Thus, it is apparent that the Bakhtinian concept of dialogism has far reaching consequences and implications that extend far beyond the scope of literary or cultural theory and must implicitly and categorically impact the very notion of

communication itself. Within this framework it is important to take into consideration Bakhtin’s central premise that

[…] each word contains within itself diverse, discriminating, often contradictory ‘talking’ components. The more often a word is used in speech acts, the more contexts it accumulates and the more its meanings proliferate. Utterances do not forget. And by their very nature, they resist unity and homogenization... Understood this way, dialogue becomes a model of the creative process. It assumes that the healthy growth of any consciousness depends on its continual interaction with other voices, personalities and worldviews. (Emerson, 36)

This fact takes on drastic properties when placed in the Stalinist political context, and in the realm of the creatively stifling policy of Socialist Realism. Therefore it is clear that the Bakhtinian notion of dialogism works on a practical as well as literary level. It relays the necessity for creativity, both in terms of artistic and academic integrity, as well as in terms of social culpability and connection. Peter

Jones posits as much in his article linking the punk movement in Great Britain to the concept of the Bakhtinian carnival when he states:

There are correspondences […] with Bakhtin’s notion of ‘dialogism,’ a complex shifting concept which may be basically defined as the articulation and interplay of ‘other voices.’ Essentially, these are voices in opposition to, excluded by, and excluded from monologic official discourses. Carnival is framed in dialogism. Punk opened-up a carnivalesque dialogic space for the voices of the disaffected and marginalized, whether working-class, local, regional or female. (Jones, 28)

This sentiment can be applied to many underground subcultures and, as such, it rings true concerning the Soviet stilyagi, the U.S. Beat Generation, and the

Czechoslovak Půlnoc edice movements. Regarding the carnival, Jones further posits:

The carnival for Bakhtin essentially represented a utopian impulse marked by the oppressed’s contestation and momentary release form the strictures of the established order […] The liberation and articulation of utopian or egalitarian ideals is accompanied by the subversion and demystification of the conventions, symbols, and values underpinning the established order…The carnival is thus an anarchic semiotic and somatic realm. It also represents an oppositional culture which emerges and operates at the interface of frictions and periodic collisions between official and popular discourses […]. (Jones, 26.)

In reveling in alternate forms of communication, be they literary, sonic or semiotic, members of underground movements were engaging in a form of dialogue, both in terms of communicating to like-minded individuals searching for common ground and experience, in creating there own lifeworld and parallel polis, and to the powers that be in terms of expressing dissent and displeasure at dominate forms of discourse. The works produced by these various underground movements also served the function of relating the lives and experiences of those who were not normally represented in mainstream cultural production. The representation of members of fringe groups or those who fell outside the norms of a given society served the purpose of letting members of these groups know that they were not alone, socially, politically or aesthetically.

In order to elaborate on his use of the dialogic, Bakhtin wrote extensively on the extant distinctions between discourse in poetry and discourse in prose. In an effort to convey his thoughts on the topic, I will cite at length from his work,

“Discourse in the Novel”:

In the poetic image narrowly conceived (in the image-as-trope,) all activity – the dynamics of the image-as-word – is completely exhausted by the play between the word (with all its aspects) and the object (in all its

aspects.) The word plunges into the inexhaustible wealth and contradictory multiplicity of the object itself, with its ‘virginal,’ still ‘unuttered’ nature; therefore it presumes nothing beyond the borders of its own context (except, of course, what can be found in the treasure-house of language itself.) The word forgets that its object has its own history of contradictory acts of verbal recognition, as well as that heteroglossia that is always present in such acts of recognition. For the writer of artistic prose, on the contrary, the object reveals first of all precisely the socially heteroglot multiplicity of its names, definitions and value judgments. Instead of the virginal fullness and inexhaustibility of the object itself, the prose writer confronts a multitude of routes, roads and paths that have been laid down in the object by social consciousness. Along with the internal contradictions inside the object itself, the prose writer witnesses as well the unfolding of social heteroglossia surrounding the object, the Tower-of-Babel mixing of languages that goes on around any object; the dialectics of the object are interwoven with the social dialogue surrounding it. For the prose writer, the object is a focal point for heteroglot voices among which his own voice must also sound; these voices create the background necessary for his own voice… (Bakhtin)

Therefore, by its very nature the novel and, by extension the author behind it, is necessarily dealing with and tapping into the use of language in a wider, more socially aware and connected context. That is to say, the prose writer must take the form and interpretation of words, ideas and concepts into account, and must do so with his or her very use of language itself. Therefore the social and cultural contexts, which help to define a word, or the perceived notion of that word itself, must be taken into account in order to connect to a larger meaning in terms of human communication and experience. The contexts which help to anchor language are demonstrated by various existent definitions of the word

“underground” in its English, Russian, and Czech forms as highlighted above.

The social and cultural context of the use of language becomes extremely important when one places them in the context of underground literary

movements. The writers of the Beat Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature, and Egon Bondy were engaging in the documentation and depiction of new forms of characters, living new forms of life in their respective chronotopes and public spheres. In these depictions and documentations the authors of these movements employed new words, phrases, and slang, as well as interpreted old words in new ways in an effort to convey the experiences of burgeoning youth cultures that began to percolate in the post Second World War II context.

Bakhtin’s thoughts on the nature of discourse also convey the notion that the various voices that make up society itself, and which lend themselves to the interpretation of dialogue, are a necessary and vibrant component of communication itself. Put another way, for a prose writer’s voice to be recognized as societally valid, it in turn needs to recognize the voices of others, to enter into a dialogue that helps to shed light on the human condition. When viewed in this context, one can see that Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism can be considered to be influenced by and akin to Hegel’s thoughts on the self-consciousness, concerning the need for the mutual recognition and acknowledgment of others in order for self-consciousness to form properly (Hegel, 111).

Polyphonic Voices

An important counterbalance and component of dialogism is Bakhtin’s notion of polyphony, a narrative device that he initially noticed in the works of

Dostoevsky. Robert Clark has stated that, “The polyphonic novel is defined in

Bakhtin's account by the quality of the relationship between narrator and

character, in that the former allows the latter right to the final word - the character's voice is never ultimately submerged by that of the narrator” (Clark.)

That is to say that the characters in Dostoevsky’s work are in the position of knowing as much as the author knows and as a consequence can be considered as being on equal footing with the author in terms of plot elaboration and development. When seen in this light, polyphony can be equated with the literary device known as free indirect discourse so skillfully employed by the likes of Jane

Austen and Virginia Woolf. Emerson elaborates on the Bakhtinian notion of polyphony, stating that:

[…] Bakhtin claims [that] Dostoevsky designs as the hero of his novels not a human being destined to carry out a sequence of events – that is, not a carrier of some pre-planned ‘plot’ – but rather an idea-hero, an idea that uses the hero as its carrier in order to realize its potential as an idea in the world. The goal then becomes to free up the hero from the ‘plot,’ in both the sinister and humdrum sense of that word: from all those epic like story lines that still clung to the novel with their routinized, and thus ‘imprisoned,’ outcomes, and also from events in ordinary, necessity-driven, benumbing everyday life […]. Instead of events, Dostoevsky invites his heroes and his readers to experience the richer, more open-ended discriminations and proliferations of the uttered word, in a context where all parties are designed to talk back. In choosing to structure works in this way, of course, the polyphonic author is still authoring heroes and still ‘writing in’ their stories. But by valuing, above all, an open discussion of unresolvable questions, such an author writes them into a realm of maximal freedom. (Emerson, 127-128)

This world of maximal freedom comprises an intrinsic part of making sense of the world in general, and in terms of negotiating and clarifying human cognition and speech, regardless of political systems. Perhaps, rather utopically stated, communication is inherently human and cannot ultimately be supplanted by repressive measures. Put another way, Bakhtin posits that

Dostoevsky’s texts contain a plurality of unmerged consciousnesses that are not completely subordinated to unified authorial intentions. Each character’s voice is equally as important and ‘fully weighted as the author’s own […]. The result is an endless, unscripted clash of ‘unmerged souls,’ involving the architectonic construction of a multiplicity of diverse yet continuously interacting ideological worlds. Bakhtin feels this is a principle that inheres in every element of the polyphonic text – indeed, it is constitutive of social life itself. (Gardiner, 122)

The result of this is that Dostoevsky’s characters necessarily tap into a larger sense of human experience and as a result, are able to impart a larger sense of truth and experience to the reader and to the community at large.

This same notion of polyphony can be applied to the characters of the

Beats, the “New Wave” of Russian literature and the lyrics of Bondy. Polyphony is readily apparent in Kerouac’s depiction of his narrator, Sal Paradise and his relationship with Dean Moriarity, in On the Road (1957). Paradise is an unabashed sort, in search of understanding and meaning in the human experience. Moriarity personifies the rowdier aspects of Kerouac’s outlook on the world. Together, Sal and Dean functions as idea-heroes that operate as a transmitter of Kerouac’s own psyche, and through them the author imparts his literal and figurative thoughts on the pursuit of maximal freedom in the American context. Sal and Dean are operating in and attempting to communicate to a hostile ideological world that is suspicious of both the way that they live, and the reasons behind choosing to live in this manner. Thus, in On the Road, and in the discourse surrounding its appearance, there is a simultaneity of points of view and voices on display.

In many ways the entire purpose of the novel revolves around Kerouac’s attempt to conduct an open and honest discussion of questions meant to push forward ideas, thoughts and modes of life that fall outside the purview of mainstream culture. This endeavor is depicted in the manner of discourse in the novel as much as by the manic movement and other forms of lifestyle on display that do not adhere to traditional American archetypes. Dean’s philosophical, mystical rant, and Sal’s confused, though intrigued response at the beginning of the novel personify the idea of a simultaneity of viewpoints contained within both the narrative and within Kerouac himself:

‘God exists without qualms. As we roll along this way I am positive beyond doubt that everything will be taken care of for us – that even you, as you drive, fearful of the wheel […] the thing will go of itself and you won’t go off the road and I can sleep. Furthermore, we know America, we’re at home; I can go anywhere in America and get what I want because it’s the same in every corner, I know the people, I know what they do. We give and take and go in the incredibly complicated sweetness zigzagging every side.’ There was nothing clear about the things he said, but what he meant to say was something made pure and clean. (Kerouac, 100)

Dean’s proclamation can be interpreted in several ways. Firstly, it functions as an expression of faith that Sal and, by extension Kerouac himself does not seem to share. Through the voice of Dean, Kerouac puts forth ideas that he would like to believe and implement, but ultimately does not, perhaps due to the puritanical bent of discourse in the U.S. Dean lives his life in a manner that is confusing, frustrating, and often at odds with those in his inner circle. It is the speech of a true believer, espousing his version of the truth, not necessarily any form of truth that is applicable to the dominant discourse in the U.S. However, in a way, Dean

is positing that it could be, if the parameters of acceptable pathways in American life were to change. Secondly, and to that end, Dean’s words act as an olive branch to the status quo, seeking to engage mainstream society in the U.S. in a conversation concerning what is really important in life. Through Dean, Kerouac is demonstrating the new pathways in life that he felt were available following the

Second World War. The fact that these pathways were not readily apparent, attractive or acceptable to mainstream society is another testament to the narrowing of the dominant American chronotope that the Beats were battling against.

The impact that the thinking of Mikhail Bakhtin has had on the literary and theoretical world cannot be underestimated. His notions of, and expositions on such various themes as the chronotope, the carnivalesque, and polyphony have been hugely impactful in literary and cultural criticism globally. When Bakhtin’s integral and influential notion of dialogism, which runs through and informs all of his theories and has helped to engender an on-going philosophical, literary and cultural dialogue is included, the scope of his theoretical achievements become apparent. The fact that his theories have simultaneously identified, interrogated, and forwarded the concept of dialogue in the context of the human condition would not have been lost on Bakhtin. His work can be viewed as another link in the dialogic chain that functions as a continuing effort to understand and expand the nature of human communication and as a consequence, the very nature of human existence itself.

When the Bakhtinian notion of the chronotope is applied to various world literatures, a pattern emerges that helps to give an understanding to the underpinnings of underground cultural production. In identifying the time and space in which a work of art is produced, one is identifying an underlying code that explains and elucidates the framework of that cultural production. The works that the Beat Generation, the “New Wave” of Russian literature and the members of the Czech underground produced could have only come to the surface in these respective times and spaces. The fact that many of the conclusions reached in these works are similar in nature speaks to the fact that they contain universal truths regarding human cognition, experience, social goals and use of language.

The political, social, and cultural influences on these chronotopes, though coming from different perspectives and with varying motives, all pushed and pulled these movements in a universal direction.

The same can also be said for the respective public spheres that were operating in these particular chronotopes. The existence of the public sphere necessarily impacts possible angles of discourse on a given society, and within that society, the types of cultural production that is generated. When the public sphere, at the behest of hegemonic forces, was deemed to be inadequate by these underground movements, they sought to create their own platforms of discourse through the twin concepts of the lifeworld and the parallel polis. The lifeworld functions as a response to the dominant forms of chronotope and public sphere within a given society. The lifeworld is integral to the formation of

underground cultural production, as its existence opens up new avenues of expression, from those outside of the purview of the status quo that allow for a broader, more inclusive form of communication to be possible. The lifeworld and the people that make up its ranks allow for a dialogue to be opened that simultaneously engages new forms of communication, and holds the dominant form of discourse responsible for its actions. The output of these respective underground movements resulted in unique forms of cultural production that sought to engage in a dialogue with mainstream forces, with the goal up opening up new lines of perspective on the human condition. As a consequence, seminal forms of artistic production were created that endure and inspire to this day.

Chapter 3: Vasily Aksyonov,The Burn, and the “New Wave” of Russian

Literature; the Stilyagi Movement and Underground Culture in the Soviet

Union

Vasily Pavlovich Aksyonov was born in Kazan’, U.S.S.R. on August 20,

1932 during the time of Stalin’s reign. Stalin would rule the Soviet Union with an iron fist from the early 1920s until his death in 1953. The author’s father Pavel

Vasiliyevich Aksyonov was a well respected communist and his mother,

Yevgenia Semyonovna Ginzburg was a history teacher at Kazan’ University at the time of his birth. The young Aksyonov suffered a tumultuous childhood brought about by the arrest of his mother. Ginzburg was arrested “under Article

58” (concerning enemies of the people) after she was falsely accused of being a

Trotskyite sympathizer, and conspiring against the Stalinist regime (Kustanovich,

94). Ginzburg was sentenced to the infamous camp at Kolyma, and she eventually went on to chronicle her ordeal in the Soviet Gulag system with the much-respected memoir Крутой маршрут (translated in two volumes as

Journey Into the Whirlwind and Within the Whirlwind respectively in English.)

Here it is important to define exactly what the word Gulag means and the psychological and physical terror that it represented for the average Soviet citizen. Noted historian Anna Applebaum describes the term thusly:

Literally the word GULAG is an acronym, meaning Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei, or Main Camp Administration. Over time, the word “Gulag” has also come to signify not only the administration of the concentration camps but also the system of Soviet slave labor itself, in all its forms and varieties; labor camps, punishment camps, criminal and political camps, women’s camps, children’s camps,

transit camps. Even more broadly, “Gulag” has come to mean the Soviet repressive system itself, the set of procedures that prisoners once called the “meat grinder”: the arrests, the interrogations, the transport in unheated cattle cars, the forced labor, the destruction of families, the years spent in exile, the early and unnecessary deaths…The Gulag had its own laws, its own customs, its own morality, even its own slang. It spawned its own literature, its own villains, its own heroes, and it left its mark upon all who passed through it… (Applebaum, xv-xvii)

In the Soviet context, the word “Gulag” draws forth all of these connotations and would become synonymous with the Stalin’s brutality towards his own people. It was into this “…country within a country…” (Applebaum, xvi) that Aksyonov was thrust as he moved from Kazan’ to the town of Magadan near Kolyma in Siberia to be closer to his imprisoned mother (Johnson Jr., 32). This experience stigmatized Aksyonov and labeled him as враг народа (enemy of the people.)

The designation “enemy of the people” carried serious connotations in Soviet society that essentially branded one as an enemy of the state that was not fit to participate in daily life. The term personified the classic Stalinist dichotomy of an

“us versus them” mentality and the designation placed Aksyonov firmly on the outside of proper Soviet society. Additionally being labeled an “enemy of the people” had the potential under the Stalinist regime to severely limit opportunities for higher education, as well as any meaningful possible future employment. The appellation враг народа was to stay with Aksyonov for the remainder of his life and afforded him unwanted attention from the KGB and other branches of Soviet authority. Crucially, the unwanted background of “enemy of the people” is also shared by one of the central characters in Aksyonov’s masterpiece, The Burn,

Tolya Von Steinbock.

Tolya is a “child of the purges, [and] an adult of the “Thaw” refrozen”

(Johnson Jr., 47). This designation is an important one as оттепель (the Thaw) played an important role in the artistic production of Aksyonov and the other members of the “New Wave” of Russian literature. As Kozlov and Gilburd state:

The epoch that was born when Joseph Stalin died in March 1953 was a time of great expectations. Contemporaries described these years as a moment of awakening. With metaphors of air, freshness, and light, writers and filmmakers created an image of dawn. And the fiery publicist Ilya Ehrenburg (1891-1967) gave his otherwise inconspicuous novella the title that has demarcated the Soviet 1950s and 1960s. Ehrenburg titled his book The Thaw. (Kozlov, Gilburd, 18)

This poetical demarcation took on political ramifications as time progressed, and as Khrushchev’s reforms ebbed and flowed according to which way the political winds were blowing at any given time. Kozlov goes on to relate that the Thaw

[…] produced crucial shifts in policies, ideas, artistic practices, daily behaviours, and material life. The immense diversification of culture and language undermined the outward semblance of stability, uniformity, and coherence that had existed under Stalin […]. As never before, the social, cultural, and intellectual processes in the USSR began to parallel those in the West, particularly in Western Europe. (Kozlov, 3)

The Thaw signaled an opening up of cultural production in the Soviet Union that came to mirror much of what was happening artistically and socially in the U.S. and Czechoslovakia. This again is further evidence of the chronotopes of these respective countries beginning to exhibit characteristics of synchronicity.

However, that is not to say that Khrushchev’s ideas concerning cultural

production were consistent. As we shall see, the Thaw blew hot and cold and many writers, artists and musicians were caught out in this cold when

Khrushchev would abruptly change his mind regarding cultural policies. Or as

Martin McCauley stated: “Khrushchev’s relationship with writers and artists was like a piece of barbed wire, smooth in parts but lacerative in others” (McCauley,

45). Polly Jones characterizes this period thusly: “For much of the Khrushchev era, the Soviet regime’s default preference was for a conservative interpretation of Socialist realism and Soviet literature” (Jones, 235). Therefore the fact that literature such as Aksyonov’s could come into being in the Soviet context so close to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 also attests to the hot and cold nature of Khrushchev’s Thaw, both culturally and politically.

Winston Churchill famously warned of a metaphorical Iron Curtain descending on Eastern Europe in a speech he delivered in Fulton, Missouri on

March 5,1946 (Applebaum, 192). This metaphorical wall had now become a physical reality dividing a city in principle and a continent in political actuality. In many ways the psychological barrier that the construction of the Berlin Wall represented was far more damaging to the psyche of world politics than the actual physical wall itself. This artificial border would shape the political and cultural discourse of the world for the next three decades. The literary and artistic efforts of the Beats, shestidesiatniki, and Půlnoc movements served as an effort to transcend both the imaginary wall dividing East from West, and the literal wall cruelly snaking through Berlin. Works from all three of these movements sought

to make sense of the modern world in the postwar context and strove to find commonalities in the human experience rather than to focus solely on differences. The fact that literature of this sort was able to be produced in the

Soviet and Czech contexts at this time is further substantiation of the notion that the chronotopes of these respective countries was indeed becoming broader as well as exhibiting synchronicity between the countercultural movements occurring in the U.S., U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia. Aksyonov was to demonstrate the synchronicity between these various locales in his phantasmagorical masterpiece

The Burn.

Tolya’s experiences as a youth in Magadan are the central catalyst of The

Burn. In a unique literary device Aksyonov splits the perspective and personality of the young man among five separate characters, each of whom represent different aspects of Soviet society that in turn personify the moral and structural decline of the country in general and of the intelligentsia in particular. In no specific order, Tolya’s personalities are: Samson Apollinarievich Sabler, musician; Aristarkh Apollinarievich Kunitser, scientist; Gennady Apollinarievich

Malkolmov, doctor; Radius Apollinarievich Khavastishchev, sculptor; and Pantelei

Apollinarievich Pantelei; writer. It is important to note that all of these characters share the same patronymic. As Cynthia Simmons has noted; “Though distinct personalities, all these characters metamorphose one from the other, share the same past (that of Tolia) and, as it happens, the same future. The multi- personalitied narrator has been interpreted […] as representing five possible

future courses of the adolescent hero Tolia (Aksyonov)[…]” (Simmons, 31).

Crucially, all five Apollinarieviches are also members of the Soviet intelligentsia.

This is an important designation as this appellation conveys a different connotation than its Western counterpart in the Russian language. Historian

Richard Pipes relates his definition of the term:

The word “intelligentsia” entered into the English vocabulary in the 1920s from the Russian […]. It soon went out of fashion in the West, but in Russia it acquired great popularity in the second half of the nineteenth century to describe not so much the educated elite as those who spoke and acted on behalf of the country’s silent majority – a counterpart of the patrimonial establishment (bureaucracy, police, the military, the gentry, the clergy) […]. Only those qualified who committed themselves to the public good, even if they were semi-literate workers or peasants. In practice, this meant men of letters – journalists, academics, writers – and professional revolutionaries […]. The popularity of the word derived from the fact that it made it possible to distinguish social “activists” from passive “intellectuals.” (Pipes, 122-123)

The five Apollinarieviches represent the paths in life that the young member of the intelligentsia ultimately could have taken, but did not. This technique is

Aksyonov’s unique way of commenting upon the possibilities now available in the widening chronotope of postwar Soviet reality. Priscilla Meyer elaborates:

One of the consequences of all this was the creation of a new expanded urban intelligentsia, and it is this class which produced the authors of Young Prose. Their experience directly mirrored their middle class, small nuclear family origins: on finishing high school they were not forced to go to war or do hard labor, but rather had a wide range of possibilities open to them. The main force acting on them was the pressure to individual achievement typically produced by nuclear families. Growing up under circumstances analogous to those of youth in the United States, they had similar problems choosing professions and life styles, and therefore took longer to mature than did their parents. (Meyer, 447)

These newfound choices act as a catalyst for the spiritual, cultural and often morbid and depraved quest that the central characters of The Burn embark upon in the search for ways to make life palatable under a totalitarian regime. The fact that Soviet youth had more opportunities following the advent of the Thaw is an important one that demonstrates both the new reality in the Soviet Union and also acts as another connection to the burgeoning Beat movement in the U.S.2

Additionally, the fact that an expanded urban intelligentsia was able to flourish at this time is a palpable attestation to the reality that the Soviet chronotope did indeed broaden, allowing for greater and more diverse opportunities for youth following the political upheavals in the wake of the death of Stalin.

The Burn takes place after the initial enthusiasm that surrounded the

Khrushchev years and the Thaw. It is the dawn of the stagnant period of

Brezhnev and a return to a much more stifling hardline form of communism. The

Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 heavily informs the background of the novel. As Konstantin Kustanovich posits in The Artist and the Tyrant:

…The Burn captures the sense of a clear demarcation between the atmosphere of the optimistic sixties and the stagnant early seventies…In The Burn despair and hopelessness have replaced the cheerful challenge to the authorities…and the artists have withdrawn into an esoteric idiom instead of staging an open rebellion against the regime. (Kustanovich, 93)

Aksyonov makes the sense of loss and regret due to the collapse of Thaw era reforms explicit throughout the narrative of the novel. A case in point is the remorseful recollection from one of the Apollinarieviches:

2 Aksyonov also explores this theme in his early work A Ticket to the Stars.

Я смотрел на пустую улицу, на покатый мертвенный асфальт и на трубку фонаря и ничего, ничего, ничего не помнил из своей жизни.

Все же вспомни хотя бы «золотые пятидесятые» и свинговый обвал и соло под сурдинку – дулу-дулу-бол-бал – и толпу девушек в глубине зала и пустое пространство навощенного паркета за минуту до начала бала, вспомни же! (168)

I looked at the empty street, at the blank slope of asphalt, and at the lamppost, and I remembered nothing, nothing, nothing that had ever happened in my life.

Even so, I did remember the “golden fifties,” the swing craze, the solos for muted saxophone – boop-boop-boop-a-doop – and the crowd of girls at the back of the hall and the empty expanse of waxed parquet a minute before the start of the ball. Remember? (Glenny, 194)

In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the rolling back of more liberalizing reforms, these heady times of yore seem as nothing but a distant and impossible dream. It is telling that all he can remember is the music and the effects and feelings that jazz stirred in him. The sense of loss is palpable and denotes the danger of collective memory loss concerning the way things were and the way that things might have turned out to be. Written with the nostalgic hindsight of the intervening years, this passage is Aksyonov’s attempt to place The Burn and the Thaw in dialogue with each other in the hopes that the future will be more promising for forthcoming generations. Many on the fringes of

Soviet society felt cheated by the rollbacks of Khrushchev’s reforms. In many ways the stilyagi, jazzmen and writers of this supposed new era had been shown a glimpse of the promise land, only for it to be ripped away from their expectant grasp. They inherently knew that once these liberal reforms were removed, they would take generations, to return again if at all. And in fact Brezhnev did roll back

many of Khrushchev’s cultural reforms and many of the writers and artists on the cultural fringes were silenced or forced into immigration, as Aksyonov himself was in 1980. As cultural historian Solomon Volkov recounts,

One of the last highly cultural-political cases of the Brezhnev era was Metropol, a samizdat literary almanac compiled in 1979 by a group of writers headed by Aksyonov; for this attack on the state monopoly, one boss of the Writers’ Union called Aksyonov a CIA agent and another recommended applying wartime laws to the overly independent writer – that is, put him up against the wall. In 1980, Aksyonov wisely chose to leave for the West, which at the time suited both sides. (Volkov, 257)

The feeling of hopelessness and the urge to kowtow to the repressive nature of the Soviet regime is borne out by the actions of the Apollinarieviches themselves, as well as the renegade American wanderer and all-around raconteur, Patrick Thunderjet. The aptly named American personifies all the decadence, debauchery and excesses of the West that the Soviet authorities found so deplorable. At one point early in the novel he even declaims Ginsburg’s

“Howl” suggestively into the ear of a female companion (Aksyonov, 92).

Thunderjet is highly intelligent, and well traveled, yet he is also a raging alcoholic with a tenuous grip on reality and an ethical code that can best be described as lax. Thunderjet’s arrival in Moscow helps to facilitate the most drunken adventures of the entire novel. In many ways Thunderjet is the spiritual descendent of Jack Kerouac’s character Dean Moriarty, from On the Road. He is forever in motion and always seeking new, depraved adventures to embark upon.

Thunderjet’s priorities revolve solely around the procurement of alcohol and women. His only concern is living life to the fullest and let the consequences be

damned, and he spares no thought for those that get in his way. The decadent

American also serves as a flagrant illustration of Soviet fears, showcasing what the path of Western excess can lead to. Thunderjet functions as a warning to the current wave of the Russian intelligentsia if they don’t turn away from alcohol and other distractions and instead focus their attention back to the political realities of the U.S.S.R. Unfortunately, the Apollinarieviches embraces his example, and he is held up as an exemplification of how to behave. As a result of this and many other factors, these one time dissidents at the artistic, scientific and cultural vanguard of Soviet society now solely seem interested in alcohol and the fairer sex as they endlessly carouse and wander drunkenly through the long, cold

Moscow nights. This descent into cultural and moral decline brings up another link between the works of these various literary movements. Like the works of

Klíma and Bondy, elements of the grotesque are fundamental to the work of

Aksyonov, particularly in The Burn.

In the novel “it is the grotesque that functions as the primary vehicle for the escape from and, possibly, destruction of, one reality and the quest for and creation of an alternate one” (Simmons, 43). Russian critic, Asya Kupriyanova contends that:

В аксёновской прозе конца шестидесятых годов карнавальная стратегия абсурдности и гротеска набирает всё большую силу. Для героев становится характерным антиповедение – нарушение порядка вещей. В…«Ожог» писатель активно использует принцип гротеска, в частности гротескного тела…Цель карнавала – достижение избытка бытия. Этим объясняется большое количество пиршественных образов. Аксёнов воспроизводит основную антиномию европейской культуры с древних времён до наших дней: аполоническое и дионисическое как две стороны одного явления, первоисточники искусства. Герой Аксёнова, творческий

человек, пребывает в экстатическом состоянии, для него характерен энтузиазм, вдохновение. (Kupriyanova, 16-17)

In Aksyonov's prose at the end of the sixties, the carnival strategy of the absurd and the grotesque is gaining even more strength. For the characters, anti-behavior is becoming characteristic, and is violating the order of things. In The Burn, the writer actively uses the principle of the grotesque, and in particular grotesqueness of the body. The objective of the carnival is the attainment of excess in life. This explains the large quantity of banquet images. Aksyonov reproduces the basic antinomy of European culture from ancient times up to our day. The Apollonian and the Dionysian are like two sides of one phenomenon, culminating in the origin of art. Aksyonov's hero, an artistic person, resides in an ecstatic state, for him enthusiasm and inspiration are characteristic.3

The writer himself readily acknowledges these guiding principles and has gone on the record specifically about his use of this feature, stating, “Without the grotesque, I just can’t work” (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 24). There are numerous examples of its usage in The Burn that tend to revolve around the twin “safety valves” of alcohol and sex, as evidenced by the behavior of Thunderjet and the

Apollinarieviches. Many characters in the novel display an almost religious devotion to alcohol, or as Simmons relates it “[t]hey live to drink” (Simmons, 31).

Aksyonov’s use of the grotesque is particularly apparent in the ill-fated excursion to the seaside resort town of Yalta. This section of The Burn is significant in the overall narrative, as many important themes interweave and are juxtaposed into a coherent, though alcohol drenched whole. Aksyonov explores the degradation of the intelligentsia, both from self-inflicted wounds, and from attempting to operate under the crushing pressure of living under a totalitarian regime. In an attempt to escape from this crushing reality Pantelei and Thunderjet employ the

3 Russian translations are my own unless otherwise noted.

safety valve of alcohol hoping to transcend responsibility and feelings of guilt concerning their political inaction in the wake of the Soviet led invasion of

Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, they hope to break through to a form of consciousness where outrageous actions have some sort of meaning, both in terms of political agency, as well as in term of social resonance. Unfortunately for our intrepid heroes, inebriation is a short term fix, and when one awakens from it, be it the next day, the next week or the next month, one will find that the Soviet authorities are still firmly in place. Additionally, it is telling that Aksyonov chooses

Pantelei, the writer’s iteration of Tolya, to accompany Thunderjet on this drunken journey. Aksyonov is detailing his own guilt at the overall failure of the intelligentsia to stand up as a whole against the policies of the Soviet regime.

To the residents of the sleepy resort town of Yalta, Thunderjet and

Pantelei must seem as if they are from a different planet. Aksyonov’s heroes are barefoot, boorish and inebriated to the point of ridiculousness, and they mock and deride all that comes before them. No one is safe from the satirical nature of the author’s pen as the protagonists hit Yalta like the proverbial bomb. As a consequence chaos ensues everywhere that they venture. Pantelei and

Thunderjet bombard passersby with flowers and money and wander drunkenly around in various stages of undress. They scandalize a local military commander, using their extreme inebriation as an excuse to openly voice their displeasure concerning the Soviet led invasion of Czechoslovakia. In this they function as modern day “Holy Fools” using alcohol simultaneously as a truth

serum and an excuse for their behavior. In many ways the drunken spree in Yalta evokes scenes from Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita and in particular the pandemonium that ensues during the chapter “Black Magic and its Expose.”

Meyer elaborates: “Like the merriment in Bulgakov’s Variety Theater during

Stalin’s purges, the Yalta scenes are a feast during the plague, set against the background of the invasion of Czechoslovakia” (Meyer, 522). The citizens that witness the performance of Woland and his entourage quickly abandon supposed Soviet ideals at the first time of asking. They willingly display greed, bloodlust and consumerist attitudes, putting paid to the notion that Homo

Sovieticus is indeed a new form of humanity. This notion of a feast during a plague is also evident in the behavior of Pantelei and Thunderjet as they drunkenly carouse while the death knell of the Thaw that crushing of Prague

Spring came to represent is loudly sounding. Both of these scenes represent aspects of the carnivalesque. They function as a “safety-valve,” enabling the characters to ignore the daily reality of living through the Great Terror and the invasion of Czechoslovakia respectively through the abandonment of Soviet societal constraints in one case and by means of extreme inebriation in the other.

For these violations Pantelei and Thunderjet end up in people’s court on a bevy of petty charges. Aksyonov utilizes the opportunity to lampoon the Soviet judicial system and several allusions are made to the harsh sentences meted out for innocuous offences that were the norm during Stalin’s reign. However, these are more benign and stagnant times, and the majority of those waiting to be

sentenced are guilty only of minor crimes committed under the influence of alcohol. They receive a mere slap on the wrist as the presiding judge has enough sense to understand the value that alcohol has in acting as a safety valve on

Soviet society. This entire section of The Burn alludes to the fact that the world’s first communist country and the supposed torch bearer for the triumph of worldwide socialism, upholding the rights of the proletariat everywhere, has simply devolved into a nation of hopeless alcoholics, incapable of building anything, let alone socialism.

In addition to the grotesque, Aksyonov also employs use of the carnivalesque as posited by Bakhtin in The Burn. Ilya Popov states that:

Кроме того, спецификой «западного» подхода к творчеству В. Аксёнова было исследование его в свете учения М. Бахтина о роли карнавальности в культуре Средневековья и Возрождения. (Попов, 3)

In addition to the specific character of the “Western” approach of V. Aksyonov to creativity, he was studying it the light of the teaching of M. Bakhtin concerning the role of the carnival in the culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Aksyonov’s combination of Western ideas and modes of expression with his own unique Russian style, in conjunction with grotesque and carnivalesque attributes, helped him to create a rich linguistic and cultural tapestry that was in turn able to transcend the sum of its parts. Aksyonov utilizes a Dionysian approach to literature, and utilized the grotesque and the carnivalesque in an attempt to transcend the mundane reality of life under a totalitarian regime, as well to highlight the attendant absurdities encountered in daily life under such a regime.

The scenes in The Burn depicting alcohol abuse also fit nicely into the dynamic of highlighting these realities. Cynthia Simmons elaborates in Their Fathers’ Voice:

In The Burn, Aksyonov employs certain (often carnivalesque) devices and motifs…elements of the picaresque, transitional locales, chronological or psychological adolescence. However… it is the grotesque that functions as the primary vehicle for the escape from and, possibly, destruction of, one reality and the quest for and creation of an alternate one. (Simmons, 43)

The phenomenon is reflected early in The Burn during the readers’ first introduction to the saxophone playing iteration of Tolya, Samson Apollinarievich

Sabler. The erstwhile jazzman is preparing to return to play at the local nightclub in Moscow where he first made his name as a youth many years ago. As he is getting ready to leave for his upcoming performance, Sabler engages in a hallucinatory conversation with his beloved saxophone. Aksyonov intones:

Вскочив с постели, я крепко приложился к бутылке, потом, на ходу выскакивая из дневных деловых брюк, пробежал по квартире, плюнул в экран телевизора, где все еще соревновались в отредактированном остроумии какие-то там «физтехи», вытащил из груды белья вельветовые джинсы «леви'с», из груды старой обуви свою «альтушку», дунул в нее… Саксофон обиженно завыл;– Ты меня совсем забыл, лажук!– Кочумай! – виновато ответил я. – Сегодня погуляешь! Инструмент плаксиво канючил: – Думаешь, ты один такой умный, да? Тоже мне гений! Говно! Бросил товарища в вонючий угол, где кошка твоя ссыт! У меня клапана от ее мочи ржавеют. Некрасиво это, лажук. Еще Ромен Роллан сказал: «где нет великого характера, там нет великого человека»…– Неправильно цитируешь и вообще не наглей, – пробурчал я. – Давай-ка лучше раскочегаримся! Он тут радостно завопил петухом, заблеял, загоготал, как молодой, в предвкушении вечерней вакханалии. (Аксёнов, 22-23)

Leaping out of bed, I took a healthy swig from the bottle; then, jumping out of my workaday pants as I went, I ran around the apartment, spat at the television screen, where some idiots were still competing in an exchange

of carefully censored jokes, pulled my velvet Levi jeans out from the pile of dirty clothes, extracted my old alto sax from a heap of old shoes and blew into it. In whining tones the saxophone complained: You’ve completely forgotten about me, you jerk.” “Can it!” I replied guiltily. “You’re going on a spree today!” The instrument moaned tearfully, “Think you’re so clever, don’t you? Some genius you are! You’re just shit! Threw your old pal into that stinking corner where your cat pisses! My valves are all rusty from cat’s piss. That’s no way to act you slob. Romain Rolland said, ‘Where there is no greatness of character, there can be no great man.’” “You’ve quoted that wrong, and anyway stop being impertinent,” I growled.” Come on, let’s get going!” At this, it crowed joyfully like a rooster, bleated and giggled like a teenager in anticipation of an evening’s bacchanalia. (Glenny, 25)

In this phantasmagorical scene, Aksyonov, through the guise of the saxophone, is castigating the Russian intelligentsia for its lack of vigilance in the face of the rolling back of Thaw era reforms. He is accusing the intelligentsia, and by extension himself, of ignoring what was once deemed to be of peak significance to the shestidesiatniki. The voice of the saxophone represents Sabler’s own conscious nagging at him for these failures. He is condemning the overreliance that the intelligentsia have placed on alcohol, as well as other forms of distraction, that have crippled the political and cultural agency of the group as a whole. The fact that this whole episode begins with a large quantity of alcohol should not go unnoticed. This conversation can be interpreted as the product of

Sabler’s inebriation, the inner dialogue of a uneasy and uncertain mind, unsure of the correct course for the future, and lamenting the failures of the past.

Additionally, as seen by Sabler’s sharp and self-justifying replies to these accusations, it can be construed as the author’s rationalization that the safety valve of inebriation serves as a valuable defense mechanism that will allow the

intelligentsia to navigate the totalitarian regime under which they suffer. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, this compromise is not a mechanism that is going to bear political fruit under totalitarian circumstances, and perhaps it was Aksyonov’s intension to convey this reality all along.

The result of the rather copious drink that Sabler imbibes at the beginning of this scene is very similar stylistically and in content to the writings of the Beats as well as Egon Bondy. Aksyonov describes the effects:

«Белая лошадь» толчками продвигалась по кровотоку, глухо стучало сердце, предметы привычно менялись, теряли свой непонятный устрашающий смысл, приближались и сладко тревожили, как в юности. Дух юности, вечер ожиданий – вот первые подарки алкоголя. (23)

The drink pulsated through my bloodstream, my heart beat with a muffled thump, objects changed their usual form and lost their frightening, mysterious significance, came closer, and created the delicious feeling of anxiety that you get when you’re young. The spirit of youth, an evening of expectations – those are the first gifts of alcohol. Glenny, 25

For Sabler, the possibilities of youth and the promise of alcohol, creativity, adventure, and the pulse of the very night itself, all show the new potential that was once achievable in the widening chronotope of Khrushchev’s Thaw. In this scene, alcohol serves as the device that will enable Sabler to maximize the experience of playing jazz in front of a live audience again. Additionally, alcohol presents the musician with the nerve to pursue an activity that does not fall within the parameters of normative Soviet society. For even though this was the time of the Thaw, the political winds could shift at any time and plunge the country back into a time when jazz music and culture were deemed to be socially

irredeemable. Another essential aspect of Aksyonov’s introduction to Sabler is the style and language that he employs. The tone is almost playful in nature, but it is also tinged with a tangible desperation to live, to experience, and to find salvation. Sabler is relishing the reality that he is simply alive and this fact is borne out by the language and imagery Aksyonov employs. Phrases such as

“frightening, mysterious significance,” and “The spirit of youth, an evening of expectations – those are the first gifts of alcohol,” suffuse this section of The

Burn with an intensity and a vitality that was in no way representative of official

Soviet cultural production as personified by state mandated Socialist Realism. If this passage were to be taken out of context, many would find it hard to believe that this section depicts a character living under the auspices of a totalitarian regime at the height of the Cold War.

In The Burn, Aksyonov demonstrates the push and pull of daily life in the

Soviet Union. For even the most astute citizens, life in the U.S.S.R. must have been a confusing, isolating and crippling experience. While the Apollinarieviches can be said to be on a quest for truth, experience and artistic, scientific and spiritual fulfillment, it can also be said that they often turn a blind eye to the better characteristics of human nature in an effort to reach these goals. This is yet another consequence of the use and abuse of alcohol. All of them are members of the intelligentsia during the stagnant era of Brezhnev and have lived through the even more repressive era of Stalin, as well as the “hot” and “cold” extremes of the Thaw under Khrushchev. These once learned men have been beaten

down by the system and inherently understand that they must take part in a delicate, and ultimately dangerous dance with the authorities to remain on their collective quest and yet, simultaneously remain under the radar of the state. It would become increasingly difficult to maintain this liminal position as the period of застой (stagnation) under Brezhnev continued. Aksyonov recreates the historical scenes in which Khrushchev called several writers and artists, who he felt took advantage of the liberalization in the arts characteristic of the Thaw, to testify before him and other members of the Soviet politburo. Aksyonov, who was summoned himself, describes the reality of the times through his depiction of

Khrushchev’s inner monologue during the volatile assembly:

Злой битник всегда был в свитере, очках и бородке, любил шумовую музыку-джаст и насмехался над сталинистами. Сталина и сам Глава очень сильно ненавидел и понемногу выпускал из покойника кишки, но одно дело Сталин, а другое – сталинист: эдак злой битник и до нашей культуры доберется, подточит ядовитыми насмешками ствол нашей культуры, и вообще... попэред партии в пэкло нэ лезь! Пока не поздно по зубам им надо дать, подрубить корешки, а то уж в воздухе дымком стало потягивать, венгерской гарью. Так референты говорят, а ведь они почти все с высшим образованием и классовым чутьем не подкачали. (Аксёнов, 101-102)

The wicked beatnik always wore a sweater and glasses, had a little beard, loved noisy “jast music,” and laughed at Stalinists. The Boss himself detested Stalin too and was gradually knocking the stuffing out of the dead monster, but Stalin was one thing and Stalinists were quite another: The wicked beatnik might not stop at our culture, might undermine the very foundations of our culture with his venomous sarcasm. In general, give them an inch and they’ll take a mile! They must be given a kick in the teeth before it was too late, they must be rooted out; there was already a whiff of smoke in the air that had an uncomfortably Hungarian smell to it. So his officials told him, and almost all of them had a university education and their class instincts never let them down. (Glenny, 116-117)

This section perfectly encapsulates the emotional rollercoaster that artists in the

Soviet Union underwent during the Thaw era. Optimism for a bright and uncensored future was swiftly swept under the rug as Khrushchev back peddled on liberal reforms. Aksyonov captures the political and artistic tension of the

Thaw from his perch in 1975. The Burn is an exercise in the well worn adage, “if only I had known then what I know now.”

The Hungarian Revolution played a significant role in the decision to role back reforms in the U.S.S.R. This uprising was in part brought about by

Khrushchev’s speech denouncing Stalin and Stalinist practices at the 20th

Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In October of 1956

Hungarians all across the nation took to the streets, demanding an end to the

Marxist-Leninist regime imposed by the Soviet Union. In response “[t]he Soviets invaded with overwhelming force. The Hungarians were brutally crushed; their capital was devastated, thousands of their people died; their country was occupied for a further three decades.” (Sebestyen, xxiii). Additionally, the liberalizing trends in art, music and literature within the U.S.S.R. itself that rejected notions of state enforced Socialist Realism, played heavily in the rollbacks. As member of the Russian “New Wave” Anatoly Gladilin put it; “As everyone knows, writers played a major role in the Hungarian revolution of 1956.

And though the Hungarian poets’ polemic with the Soviet tanks ended very fast,

“our Nikita Sergeevich” got terribly upset” (Gladilin, 86-87). The result of this was the crackdown on the acceptable parameters of Soviet artistic production.

Aksyonov’s depiction of Khrushchev’s rant also illustrates the paranoia present in the upper echelons of Soviet power, regarding underground cultural production, and further illuminates the lack of understanding that those in power had in relation to their citizens. It serves as a tangible reminder that the state is still in control over all facets of culture, art and life in the U.S.S.R., Thaw or no Thaw.

However, Khrushchev’s eventual rescinding of liberal reforms in the Thaw era was not enough to placate the remaining hardline Stalinists in the politburo, and he was eventually ousted and replaced by the more staid and traditional Leonid

Brezhnev.

Initially, many of the members of the intelligentsia welcomed the ouster of

Khrushchev and his inconsistent and often uninformed cultural policies. Many hoped that liberalizing reforms would continue under Brezhnev in a more smooth and consistent manner (Tompson, 99). Tompson goes on to elaborate that in fact, these hopes proved to be unfounded:

The first clear indication that these hopes were misplaced came later in 1965, with the arrest of the writers Andrei Sinyavskii and Yulii Daniel, who had produced satirical works critical of the regime and had published them abroad. They were tried, convicted and sentenced to prison in 1966 for ‘anti-Soviet propaganda’. Yet even then, it took some time before much of the creative intelligentsia came to appreciate fully the extent to which policy was changing. (Tompson, 99)

As the 1960s continued it became readily apparent that Brezhnev’s cultural policies would continue to be conservative in nature and the heady days of the initial stages of the Thaw were not to be repeated. Tompson states:

As time went on, Soviet literature began to pay a price for the authorities’ conservatism. Increasingly, the country’s best writers were either openly at

odds with the regime, or quietly moving into latent opposition. Many ended up in exile: while Solzhenitsyn was the best known literary figure to emigrate, many others were either forced into exile or pressured into choosing emigration, including Iosif Broadsky, Andrei Sinyavskii, Alexsandr Zinoviev, Viktor Nekrasov, Vladimir Voinovich, Vasilii Aksenov and Eduard Limonov. (Tompson, 101)

The fact that the Thaw had ultimately wilted before any real sense of reform minded ideology could take root and grow into an actual push for democratization led many to look back on it with nostalgia. According to Bittner (qtd. in Kozlov,

Gilburd:) “Some of the earliest students of the Thaw were its memoirists, and its first story was the intelligentsia’s tale of nostalgic remembrance, reinforced ex post facto by the negative perception of the subsequent Brezhnev years that made the Thaw look all the brighter” (Kozlov, Gilburd, 24). With the appointment of Brezhnev, the U.S.S.R. slid back into an isolationist and reactionary reality that placed an overreliance of resources and attention on the military and the arms race. Additionally, it resulted in the era of stagnation that crippled the Soviet

Union on economic, intellectual and cultural levels and led to a life of hardship and deprivation for the average Soviet citizen. Official Soviet cultural policy only relaxed when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the 1980s and the policies of glasnost and perestroika were implemented.

The failure of the intelligentsia in Russia and the Soviet Union has long been a topic of discussion in academic circles. In her article on Aksyonov and

Stalinism, Priscilla Meyer goes farther in her condemnation of the

Apollinarieviches and their community stating: “The members of the intelligentsia, although cast as victims, are shown to be as depraved as their

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oppressors, and hence unwittingly in collusion with them” (Meyer, 513). This is an important designation, typical of those caught behind the political realities of living behind the Iron Curtain. And while it can be quite comprehensively argued that the Apollinarieviches had no choice but to comply with their Soviet taskmasters, this line of thinking carries a large amount of historical truth.

Aksyonov himself addresses the failings of the Russian and Soviet intelligentsia:

Не виноваты? Ой ли? А кто выпустил джина из бутылки, кто оторвался от народа, кто заискивал перед народом, кто жирел на шее народа, кто пустил татар в города, пригласил на княженье варягов, пресмыкался перед Европой, отгораживался от Европы, безумно противоборствовал власти, покорно подчинялся тупым диктатурам? Все это делали мы – русская интеллигенция. (189)

Not our fault? Really? But who let the genie out of the bottle, who cut themselves off from the people, who groveled before the people, who grew fat on the backs of the people, who let the Tatars into the city, invited the Varangians to come and rule over them, licked the boots of Europe, isolated themselves from Europe, struggled madly against the government, submitted obediently to dim-witted dictators? We did all that – we, the Russian intelligentsia. (Glenny, 221)

Here Aksyonov is acknowledging the shortcomings of his class and of his characters and the effects of this admission serve several purposes. Firstly, the disclosure helps to further humanize the Apollinarieviches, their associates and the overall plight of the Soviet intelligentsia. Additionally, it also helps to place the actions and dissent of the stilyagi in a better-defined context. Kustanovich states:

“In the Soviet Union such a desire and a fear of not belonging are cultivated beginning in childhood” (Kustanovich, 93-94). Soviet youth were indoctrinated to believe that being different was not unacceptable, as well as carrying the connotation of being essentially un-Soviet. Aksyonov portrays this dichotomy with

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his depiction of Tolya’s early years when he is still living in Magadan with his exiled mother. Tolya wants to be a model Soviet youth and to be all the things that a normal Soviet boy would aspire to be. However, he is caught between worlds and must reconcile the lofty dictates of the Soviet regime with the grim reality of the unfounded arrest and exile of his mother, in addition to the daily repression faced by his stepfather for his religious beliefs. Under such a repressive society as the Soviet Union, being labeled as ‘undesirable’ could be a one-way ticket to the Gulag. Tolya yearns to break free from this contradictory confluence of these worlds that he is meant to navigate. The advent of the Thaw gives him this opportunity.

Soviet political reality following the death of Stalin was evolving as the emergence of the stilyagi and the members of the “New Wave” literary movement attests. Additionally, this process provides further evidence of the widening of the

Soviet chronotope in the post World War II context. In the introduction to his book on “New Wave” poet Andrei Voznesensky, Herbert Marshall elaborates on the overall outlook of the postwar generation:

The generation born since the war, however, does not have this built-in inhibition. Those of the older generation, though aware that de- Stalinization has taken place, still, every now and again, look over their shoulders, thinking, “But it could come back!” In the younger generation this does not exist, and they speak out quite frankly. The effect on the older generation is very much like that of a Victorian schoolteacher being talked to by a modern beatnik. This new generation wants to try and express itself in every possible way. (Marshall, xix-xx)

In many ways Voznesensky acts as link between the prose of Aksyonov and the poetry of Ginsberg. His work contains many of the components of the above

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writers, including cultural and linguistic features that serve to further strengthen the bonds between the movements. He later became a close friend of Ginsberg and traveled extensively with the American, giving readings all across the world.

The similarities between his work and Aksyonov and Ginsberg are readily apparent as a selection from Voznesensky poem «Отступление в ритме рок-н-

ролла» (“Deviation in the Rhythm of Rock ‘N’ Roll”) demonstrates:

Рок- н- ролл — об стену сандалии! Ром в рот — лица как неон. Ревет музыка скандальная, Труба пляшет, как питон! В тупик врежутся машины. Двух всмятку "Хау ду ю ду?" Туз пик негритос в манишке, Дуй, дуй в страшную трубу!... (Вознесенский)

(Rock ‘n’ roll – sandals beat against the wall! Rum in the mouth – faces like neon. The scandalous music roars, The trumpet dances like a python! Cars crash into the dead end. Two soft-boiled “How do you dos?” Ace of spades – negritos in a dickey, Blow, blow that terrible trumpet!...)4

4 This translation is my own.

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The poem reflects the dynamics of life lived during the heady times of the jazz age in the Soviet Union. It functions as a call to arms to live and experience the hedonistic joys of life, no matter the political reality. The rhythm of the language is insistent and urgent, much like the rhythm of the music and nightlife that it depicts. Terms such as “roars,” “dances,” and “blow” and phrases depicting car crashes, “undesirable” elements and sweaty jazz clubs evoke the language and scenes employed by Aksyonov and Ginsberg. These terms denote the palpable, visceral nature of the jazz music they depict. The rolling “r’s” in the original

Russian in the opening lines exacerbate the musicality of the piece. «Рок»,

«ролл», «Ром», «рот», «Ревет», «Труба» rumble through the poem like incessant triplets on a snare drum. They serve as a mantra that is the entry point into this forbidden world. In the second half of the piece Voznesensky emphasizes the “u” sound through the words «тупик»,«Двук», «всмятку»,

«Хау», «ду»,«Туз», «Дуй», «страшную», «трубу». This repetitive sound recalls an extended jazz riff played over and over again hypnotizing the listener, and serves to suck the air out of the room, mimicking the exhilaration that live music often brings in a small space to a receptive audience. The line «негритос в

манишке» (negritos in a dickey) is also an interesting and telling turn of phrase.

Voznesensky uses the word “negritos” deliberately. The term invokes something hip, something Latin, something exotic to the cold steppes and colder political climate of the Soviet Union. This in turn lines up with the way that Kerouac and

Ginsburg incorporated slang and speech patterns of African Americans and

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people from Latin America into their works. This brings up questions of authenticity and appropriation; charges that have long been leveled at the Beat generation as a whole. These charges are well founded in the American context and would require an in depth examination that is outside of the scope of this project. Suffice it to say, that in the Soviet context, these charges ring less true.

The Soviet writers and poets were emulating the sounds and emotions connoted by jazz music itself, with no real first hand knowledge of the people making it. If they were guilty of anything, it would be as imitators of the Beats. However, as has already been noted, initially, the “New Wave” authors had no knowledge of the Beat movement, or of its writings.

To be involved in jazz culture under the existent political realities of the

Cold War and under the auspices of a totalitarian regime was an extremely complicated existence, even during the Thaw. Aksyonov has spoken of the precarious nature of life for the Soviet jazz musician stating

With no hope for money or fame they played whenever and wherever they could. When times were bad, they went underground – literally, like the early Christians – playing in boiler rooms and basements, leaving when chased out and appearing without fail when sent for. (Aksyonov, 204)

The author adds additional evidence regarding the hot and cold nature of the

Thaw. The difference between the salvation that music and literature can provide, as well as the risks involved in indulging in this forbidden lifestyle screams out from the page equally from Aksyonov’s recollection and from Voznesensky’s poem. This attribute is characteristic of much of the writing from both the “New

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Wave” and Beat schools, as the titles “Howl,” The Burn and “Deviation in the

Rhythm of Rock ‘N’ Roll” more than readily suggest.

It should come as no surprise that Voznesensky was, like Aksyonov,

Yevtushenko and many other members of the Soviet intelligentsia, summoned to explain himself before Khrushchev in March of 1963 for the content of his poems.

In Zhivago’s Children Vladislav Zubok gives a detailed description of the encounter. After Voznesensky was publicly accused of undermining communist propaganda and encouraging revisionism in Poland, Khrushchev exploded at the poet in an incredible tirade, screaming such epithets as

The Thaw is over. This is not even a light morning frost. For you and your likes it will be the artic frost…We are those who helped smash the Hungarians…Your mouth is still wet from mother’s milk…Do not think you are another Pasternak…Go to the devil’s mother – join your friends abroad…Ehrenburg says that he kept his mouth shut, but when Stalin died, he loosened his tongue. No gentlemen, we will not allow it!!! (Zubok, 213-215)

It is important to reiterate that this occurred in 1963 and demonstrates the up and down, hot and cold nature of Khrushchev’s reforms, and the swiftness with which he would change his mind and therefore change official Soviet policy. In his seminal work concerning jazz in the Soviet era, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, S. Frederick Starr relates an incident that relays the inconsistent nature of the Thaw;

Just as Komsomol discovered it was not easy to lure members of the jazz avant-garde into the role of court musicians, Nikita Khrushchev launched an all out attack on jazz and modern art. “When I hear jazz, it’s as if I had gas on the stomach,” the Party leader declared on December 1, 1963. In a completely organized society, such comments can easily be translated

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into national policy. For nearly a year after the announcement, Soviet jazz was again on the defensive. (Starr, 270)

The result of these shifting policies was a splintering of the intelligentsia that decentralized and marginalized the overall impact of the Thaw. For all intents and purposes then, a generation gap (or as noted critic Artemy Troitsky dubbed it in a nod to Turgenev’s great classic of Russian literature, “the problem of fathers and children”) [Troitsky, 24], appeared in the postwar Soviet Union that was vey much akin to the gap that developed in the United States with the coming of age of the postwar ‘baby boom’ generation. Starr recounts:

[…] the early stilyagi were the inverse image of the Stalinist society of their fathers’ generation. The fathers wore baggy trousers, so the sons had theirs cut narrow; the fathers were careless in dress, so the sons waged a clean-cut protest; the fathers denounced the wicked West, so the sons embraced it; the fathers sacrificed for the future, so the sons indulged in the present. The stilyagi, in short, rebelled against the officially sponsored mass culture of the Soviet Union. They represented youth’s search for inner-directedness, an escape into privacy…(Starr, 239)

This generation gap was exacerbated by Khrushchev’s vacillating nature concerning the Thaw and the political implications that it came to personify. In the

U.S. the ‘baby boomers’ later formed the vanguard of the political and social upheaval that surrounded, and eventually came to personify the Vietnam War years, much like the children of de-Stalinization (or as Voznesensky stated “In a political sense we are children of the Twentieth and Twenty-second congresses of the CPSU” […], (Zubok, 213), came to make up the ranks of the shestidesiatniki and the jazz era in the Soviet Union.

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On the one hand, by playing within the parameters set forth by the Soviet system, Aksyonov’s characters tacitly ensure that these tactics of repression will continue into the foreseeable future. On the other hand, the characters portrayed in Beat literature are expressly kicking against the very fabric of the U.S. system itself and are trying to find an alternative means by which to live and navigate the stagnating postwar realities in the United States. The fact that the

Apollinarieviches manifest similar behavior as regards the search for truth in a stagnant and repressive society, and that they share characteristics with protagonists as depicted in much of the extant Beat literature is significant.

However, it is equally important to keep in mind the severe reprisals they could be subjected to living under a totalitarian regime. This crucial distinction helps to place the behavior of the Apollinarieviches and the Soviet era intelligentsia into a more historically accurate context. Throughout the work of writers from both the

U.S. and Soviet schools, the use and abuse of alcohol and other substances is prevalent. Still, it is important to note that this usage is not always solely for the purpose of inebriation, but rather additionally acts as a means to acquire some kind of truth, and through this truth a form of salvation from repressive conditions.

It is no coincidence that noted Czech underground poet Egon Bondy also employs the tactic of inebriation as defense mechanism in his writing. As

Simmons states “…alcohol was, until the final stages of the Soviet Union, the singular “safety valve” available to the oppressed citizen…(Simmons, 55).

Kustanovich expounds on this statement stating:

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The Soviet people had only two freedoms left: drinking and sex. Both were officially castigated but in reality were left alone, and not only because leaders of the country on all levels had weaknesses for these pleasures. They were also permitted as a safety valve, similar in a way to the medieval carnival allowed by the authorities. (Kustanovich, 138)

He concludes by stating that these pastimes “were a form of protest…against the official culture” (Kustanovich, 138). In reaction to this statement, it is important to consider that the quest for enlightenment through the use of alcohol and other forms of debauchery can be manifestly linked to the Russian tradition of the Holy

Fool. Taking up the baton from Dostoevsky, who wrote extensively on the topic, several works of modern communist literature touch on the notion of the Holy

Fool, including The Burn and Москва – Петушки (1973) [Moscow to the End of the Line] by Venedikt Erofeev, Die neuen Leiden des jungen W (1972) [The New

Sufferings of Young W] by East German author Ulrich Plenzdorf, and the

Czechoslovak novel Příliš hlučná samota (1976) [Too Loud a Solitude] by member of the Půlnoc movement, Bohumil Hrabal. The connection is yet another link with the Beat movement, which also focused on enlightenment through debauchery, combined with a need for constant movement and experience.

Kerouac’s On the Road and its protagonists, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, based on the real life member of the Beat Generation, and muse for Kerouac,

Neal Cassady, is the most pertinent example of this phenomenon in Beat literature.

The quest and need for these “safety valves,” firmly places Aksyonov’s characters within the only acceptable types of “freedom” available in Soviet

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society. However, when this type of behavior is combined with the extremes that the Apollinarieviches take it to, and is combined with their overall artistic outlook, as well as their background as members of the intelligentsia, these “safety valves” can be seen in a different light. When used in this context, substances, both illicit and otherwise, take on added significance and help those who imbibe them see life, culture and society in general, from a new and enlightened perspective. This heightened awareness in turn leads to a questioning of the overall system in which they live, which is reinforced and expanded upon by exposure to Western culture, such as jazz music and literature. Kustanovich contends that “…the world of alcoholics in The Burn offers an alternative to the rigid established rules of human morality in general” and that this is

“characteristic of the medieval grotesque” (Kustanovich, 193). And of course, jazz music itself acted in a similar fashion. Efim Barban contends that:

Crucially, jazz became a form of escapism, of flight from odious and depersonalized reality. In a world where natural and sincere manifestations of emotion were impossible, where everything was stifled by ‘social necessity’, jazz became a safety-valve, an outlet for the realization of individual life, for the manifestation of human privacy in an alienated world. (Barban, 12)

When seen in this context, it is of little wonder that authorities in the Soviet Union feared and repressed those involved in the burgeoning stilyagi, jazz and literary movements, as well as others belonging to the fringes of society.

Aksyonov witnessed the birth of the stilyagi movement firsthand and gives his depiction of this burgeoning movement in The Burn:

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Тогда в танцзале стояли плечом к плечу чуваки и чувихи, жалкая и жадная молодежь, опьяневшая от сырого европейского ветра, внезапно подувшего в наш угол. Бедные, презираемые всем народом стиляги-узкобрючники, как они старались походить на бродвейских парней - обрезали воротнички ленторговских сорочек, подклеивали к скороходовским подошвам куски резины, стригли друг друга под "канадку"... (29)

The dance hall was full of guys and chicks standing shoulder to shoulder, a pathetic and eager bunch of kids, drunk with the damp breeze from Europe that suddenly had started blowing in our direction. They were the wretched, universally despised stilyagi, with their narrow, stovepipe pants, trying to look like boys from Broadway; they would clip the collars of their Lentorg Soviet shirts, glue pieces of rubber to the soles of track shoes, and cut each others’ hair in a Canadian crew cut. (Glenny, 32)

Through the language of this depiction, Aksyonov provides the reader with an insight into both the thoughts of the average Soviet citizen, and into the world of the stilyagi themselves. To the typical Soviet citizen, the stilyagi were a despised aberration. They represented something unknown, something thoroughly un-

Soviet, and thus they were to be mocked and feared. The stilyagi saw themselves as citizens of Europe and used jazz music and fashion to express their newfound internationalism. The fashion, attitude and actions of the stilyagi were anathema to the average Soviet citizen. Therefore, Aksyonov’s work acted as a barometer of the Soviet Union. He doesn’t mince words in his depiction of the disintegration of the intelligentsia, or their slow slide into alcohol-fueled apathy, the role of the state in this demise notwithstanding, nor does he mince words in his depiction of the stilyagi. Aksyonov captures the flagrant sense of loss at the fact that the Thaw and its policies were being rolled back in favor of a return to the more traditional form of Soviet censorship. The brave new world was

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coming to an end or so it seemed to Aksyonov and the other members of the

“New Wave.” Aksyonov’s contribution to Thaw era culture and use of language cannot be understated as the introduction to part three of Aksyonov’s collected works illustrates:

Так Василий Аксёнов встал перед необходимостью создать историческое полотно краха и исхода. Потому что именно он, Аксёнов, может быть, точнее, чем любой другой советский интеллигент, своей жизнью и своим творчеством создал модель советского интеллигента. Василий Аксёнов как зеркало русского либерализма. (Генис, Вайль, 5)

So Vasily Aksyonov arose before the necessity to create an historic canvas of collapse and exodus. Because it was exactly he, Aksyonov, perhaps more than any other Soviet intellectual, with his life and his creativity, that could create the model of the Soviet intellectual. Vasily Aksyonov functions as the mirror of Russian liberalism.

Still it is important to reiterate that Khrushchev’s Thaw had many twists and turns and that cultural producers of this time had much more artistic license than their predecessors. The “New Wave” and other members of the Soviet intelligentsia were tapping into a tradition of underground jazz culture that began under the most unlikely and treacherous of circumstances, with the advent of the stilyagi.

It may come as a surprise to many that the stilyagi movement, a vibrant anti-establishment movement in youth culture, began to blossom at the tail end of the reign of Stalin. The Red Tsar himself was aware of the movement and took steps to eradicate it through the usual channels of repression, both through the apparatus of state security and through the media. It is important to note that the stilyagi did not name themselves; the Soviet press foisted the derogatory name

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on them. In fact, they preferred a different name. Gargolina and Cherkasov elaborate:

«Стиляга» - это не самоназвание; сами себя эти молодые люди либо никак не называли, либо именовались «штатниками» (то эсть горячие поклонники Соединённых Штатов. (Гарголина, Черкасов, 29)

“Style-hunter,” this wasn’t a self-designation. These young people never referred to themselves this way, but called themselves “Shtatniki.” (That is ardent admirers of the United States.)

The stilyagi movement was a direct and pointed response to the repressive cultural attitudes of the Soviet system. They were a completely self-contained entity that managed to make up for a lack of natural fashion and music related resources with ingenious solutions as regards the perennial problem of lack of supply. These intrepid souls simply made what they could not find in the state run stores. And this amounted to practically everything necessary to be a stilyaga, from ties, jackets, and shoes to the very music itself. Troitsky relates a detailed account of how the stilyagi were able to manufacture their own recordings of forbidden jazz records:

The demand for pop and jazz recordings at the end of the fifties and beginning of the sixties was already enormous, while records and tape recorders were in catastrophically short supply. This led to the birth of a legendary phenomenon – the memorable records ‘on ribs’… These were actual X-ray plates…rounded at the edges with scissors, with a small hole in the centre and grooves that were barely visible on the surface…X-ray plates were the cheapest and most readily available source of necessary plastic. People bought them by the hundreds from hospitals and clinics for kopeks, after which grooves were cut with the help of special machines (made, they say, from old phonographs by skilled conspiratorial hands.) (Troitsky, 19)

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The ingenious process, known as magnitizdat, was one of the only ways that many diehard Soviet jazz fans were able to hear, and pass on to other enthusiasts, this most rare of forbidden Western cultural production.5 The process acted as a lifeline to the many stilyagi desperate to actually hear the new sounds emerging from the West. It is not surprising that jazz was not popular among the Soviet regime and this process was highly illegal. The mere possession of unauthorized records, let alone the equipment needed to duplicate them was enough to land the offender in the Gulag, or in internal exile.

The KGB and other government organizations employed many methods, fair and foul, to suppress this Western musical ‘abomination.’ Noted Czech author Josef Škvorecký himself was a young adherent of jazz in Czechoslovakia, both during the Nazi occupation and in the period after World War II, when the country fell under the sway of communist rule. In his book Talkin’ Moscow Blues, he makes several insights into life under both totalitarian regimes. Škvorecký notes that the Nazi attitude to jazz was very much similar to the stance taken by the Soviets. The Nazi administration characterized jazz as “Judeo-Negroid music” and did everything in their power to suppress this music. They even published a ten-point set of regulations restricting such things as rhythm, tempo, key and style of lyric, among other things in an effort to suppress the jazz phenomenon. These statutes were later upheld and expounded upon by the new

5 Later, during the fledgling rock years, the process was cared out on rickety and extremely illegal reel-to-reel tape machines. Troitsky states: “Imperceptibly there developed an underground industry and a ‘black market’ – tape recordings of an LP cost three roubles, while the album itself would fetch 20 or 30 roubles.” Troitsky, 25.

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Soviet taskmasters (Škvorecký, 85-87). Later in his account, Škvorecký gives an even more succinct portrayal of the official Soviet take on jazz music:

They characterized jazz and jazz-inspired music by a rich assortment of derogatory adjectives: “perverted,” “decadent,” “base,” “lying, ” “degenerate,” etc. They compared the music to “the moaning in the throat of a camel” and “the hiccupping of a drunk,” and although it was “the music of cannibals,” it was at the same time invented by the capitalists “to deafen the ears of the Marshallized world by means of epileptic, loud- mouthed compositions. (Škvorecký, 91)

The demonization of Western music forms would continue well into the next few decades. As rock ‘n’ roll began to infiltrate beyond the Iron Curtain, the response from the Soviet authorities was just as reactionary and repressive, if not more so.

The fact that rock ’n’ roll carried on the tradition of jazz and the stilyagi, and acted as a rallying point for disaffected youth to gather around is indisputable. In his history of rock music in the U.S.S.R., Troitsky explains:

В это же время рок оказался в фокусе молодёжного движения протеста, став его культурным символом и рупором. Музыкальное новаторство и радикальные идеи рок-артистов породили феномен «подпольного рока» (андеграунда) – некоммерческого направления, фактически порывающего с развлекательными канонами популярной музыки, частью которой рок до тех пор являлся. (Троицкий, 8)

At the same time, rock proved to be the focus of the youth movement of protest, in turn becoming a cultural symbol and a mouthpiece. Musical innovation and the radical ideas of rock artists engendered the phenomenon of “underground rock,” a non-commercial school, virtually breaking with the entertainment principle of popular music, which in many ways rock was always meant to be.

The stilyagi manufactured their own clothes in much the same fashion as they manufactured their own records. Due to this fact they were able to control exactly how they portrayed themselves, down to the finest detail. In his article, “In

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Praise of Vulgarity,” Charles Paul Freund gives a concise description of the history and origins of the stilyagi movement:

Some extraordinary and totally unexpected figures appeared on the streets of Moscow in 1949 and in other major cities of the Soviet Bloc soon afterward. They wore jackets with huge, padded shoulders and pants with narrow legs. They were clean-shaven, but they let their hair grow long, covered it with grease, and flipped it up at the back. They sported unusually colorful ties, which they let hang well below their belts. What their fellow Muscovites most noticed about them, for some reason, were their shoes, which were oversized, with thick soles. There were some women in the movement as well, notable for their short, tight skirts and very heavy lipstick. Although they were Russians, they called each other by such names as "Bob" and "Joe." In Moscow, they referred to their hangout, Gorki Prospekt, as "Broadway." They chewed gum, they affected an odd walk that involved stretching their necks as they went down the street, and they loved to listen to American jazz. These young men were to become known in Russian as stilyagi, a term that is usually translated as "style hunters"… What they had turned themselves into were walking cultural protests against Stalinism in one of its most paranoid periods. (Freund, 4)

Again, it cannot be stressed heavily enough the risks and tribulations that these

Western leaning style merchants subjected themselves to. The stilyagi were an open sore on the skin of socialism and their very presence was a form of rebellion against the status quo. Nevertheless, these trailblazers continued to thrive and multiply. Troitsky’s portrayal of the stilyagi is more succinct than

Freund’s, and more loaded in terms of terminology: “Stilyagi were a scandalous, outrageous youth cult of the 1950s – the first hipsters, the first devotees of exotic music, the first advocates of an alternative style” (Troitsky, 13). The use of the term ‘cult’ is extremely interesting in this context. It carries religious connotations, as personified by the quest for truth and salvation in the writing of Aksyonov and

Ginsberg. Additionally the term calls forth “the Cult of Personality” which

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surrounded Stalin and his reign during this time. In many ways, the stilyagi movement, the literature written by and about them, and the music that they listened to, all coalesced into a new spirituality, a new church as it were, with its own rituals, language and art. In fact the stilyagi cultivated their own vernacular based on James Cagney’s performance in the film entitled The Roaring

Twenties. (Starr, 238) Starr goes on to explain;

Soon stilyagi were talking of “dudes” (chuvaki) and “chicks” (chuviki); life became “groovy” (kliovy); and food became “grub” (birlyoz). Moscow’s Gorky Street, which the stilyagi had earlier renamed “Peshkov” (Maxim Gorky’s real name), was called “Broadway” by 1950. If a chuvak was named Boris, he called himself Bob, and Ivan became John. (Starr, 238)

Considering this overt Americanization of the Russian language as well as socially acceptable forms of style and comportment in the Soviet context, it is no wonder that this movement infuriated and frightened the Soviet authorities.

The stilyagi movement openly flouted Soviet political and social conventions. As a consequence of this and other transgressions, its adherents were often made to pay a heavy price for membership. The stilyagi were routinely rousted or arrested by the KGB and the Komsomol, simply for their attitudes and attire. Stilyagi dances were thoroughly secret affairs, often held in out of the way locations, and only known to those within the movement. Nonetheless these events were often raided with an almost militaristic efficiency. The life of a stilyaga was a precarious and hazardous existence. Again Freund tells us:

It wasn’t only the authorities with whom the Stilyagi had to contend; it was everyone. Being a Stilyaga was truly isolating, and the public reaction was brutal. Their fellow Muscovites taunted them on the sidewalks and on the streetcars, loudly criticizing their appearance, hurling insults at them,

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sometimes attacking them. Obviously, the Communist press took notice of them, terming them subversive and linking them to criminal elements. Inevitably, the police also went after them. When the cops didn’t arrest them, they gave the Stilyagi impromptu street haircuts or, interestingly, slashed their clothes. (Freund, 4)

In the monochrome and turbulent age of Stalinism, to dare to be different, and to embrace openly not only colorful Western dress sensibilities, but also the universally dreaded jazz music, was to effectively mark yourself as an undesirable element and as a potential ‘enemy of the people.’ The consequences for many in the stilyagi movement, as well as the jazz musicians that dared to perform outside of state approved musical styles could be dire. Exile and imprisonment in the Gulag was not an uncommon punishment for these adherents of jazz during the waning years of Stalin’s reign.

To a large extent these persistent exiles and recriminations only came to an end once Khrushchev’s Thaw began to take effect in the late 1950s.

However, another event helped to alleviate the daily struggles of the stilyagi and the other would be purveyors of cool. Troitsky elaborates:

The breakthrough…was the Seventh International Festival of Youth And Students, which staggered the capital in the summer of 1957. Thousands of real live young foreigners flooded into virginal Moscow. Among them were jazz musicians, beatnik poets, and modern artists… (Troitsky, 18)

The festival was a watershed moment in the loosening of state control regarding cultural production. It gave the younger generation that counted Aksyonov and

Voznesensky among its numbers, hope that things really were changing for the better. It offered hope that the horrors, repressions and purges of the Stalin era were truly gone, never to return. Perhaps the most celebrated and popular poet

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of the “New Wave” movement, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, was in Moscow at time of the conference and gives his thoughts as to the importance of this historical event in his autobiography:

Now the fog was beginning to dissipate. Tens of thousands of foreign tourists were coming to us, and tens of thousands of our tourists were going abroad. The Moscow Youth Festival, when young people of every color and from every country flooded the streets, had tremendous importance. In it I saw a blueprint of the future. (Yevtushenko, 115)

As a result of this conference, restrictions on youth and youth culture began to be loosened. After these groundbreaking cultural events life marginally improved for the stilyagi and they were able to exist without the constant fear of arrest, or of other societal and political reprisals. However, it should be stressed that even before the conference all was not doom and gloom. Aksyonov has spoken at length about his experiences concerning his formative years as a young writer and the influence that the newfound possibilities of postwar reality and the widening of the Soviet chronotope had to offer in the communist context:

In my student years, our crowd was such that if we had known the phrase “Beat Generation” existed, we would have called ourselves the “Beat Generation” – but we considered ourselves to be the successors of the Russian Futurists. We lived absolutely like beatniks, with all the elements of beatnik life which they had in San Francisco. We went round in torn clothes, listened to jazz, we lived in a commune, we painted abstract pictures, we had this notebook, where we wrote all kinds of hooliganish poems, we drank, danced the “boogie-woogie,” and the girls used to come to us, creeping into the commune through the window. It was all together amazing… (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 53)

The recollection is fascinating and serves to further strengthen the bonds between the Beat movement and the “New Wave” of Russian literature, and to exacerbate the seemingly unlikely simultaneity between the movements.

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Aksyonov’s bohemian description of life could come straight from the pages of

Kerouac’s On the Road. These remarks are made all the more remarkable considering the fact that they occurred in the Soviet Union only a few short years after the death of Stalin. Unfortunately, however these newfound freedoms were subjected to the whim of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Poet Gladilin notes that “In the Course of a few months, beginning December 1, 1962,

Khrushchev literally trampled underfoot everything new that had appeared in

Soviet painting, cinema and literature” (Gladilin, 115). In the eyes of many hardline communists, Khrushchev had over stepped his bounds in the attempt to liberalize Soviet culture, and repair some of the damage done during the Stalin era. The rolling back of many of the liberties granted during de-Stalinization hit the artistic and cultural worlds hard. The political demise of Khrushchev in 1964 ushered in the much more conservative Leonid Brezhnev, and the period of stagnation as depicted and lamented in The Burn began in earnest.

And while it is true that the stilyagi movement, like the Beat movement was not overtly or explicitly political in tone, it was a form of civil protest, a form of anti-establishment behavior that tacitly rebelled against the very core set of proper, traditional Soviet values. Georgii Litvinov elaborates on this phenomenon, and also focuses, like Yevtushenko, Aksyonov, and others did, on the impact the stilyagi would have on future generations:

Но стиляжничество стало для многих школой стиля в одежде и музыке, помогло понять, что такое свобода в далеко не свободном обществе. Да, стиляги не создали чего-то своего, оригинального, но уже сам их «культурный протест» против господствующей серости и

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идеологических штампов заслуживает уважения. Кроме того, стиляжничество стало хорошей питательной средой для многих будущих писателей, художников, музыкантов. (Литвинов, 270)

But for many the quality of stylishness become a school of style in clothing and music and helped them to understand that such freedom by itself is far from meaning a free society overall. Yes, the hipsters didn't create anything original of their own, but when viewed today, their cultural protest against the prevailing dullness and ideological clichés is worthy of respect. Additionally the quality of stylishness became a good breeding ground for many future writers, artists and musicians.

It is important to keep in mind that the stilyagi movement was the first of its kind in Soviet Russia, and as such carried a significant amount of influence across all walks of artistic and cultural life. When coupled with jazz music and other forms of artistic expression, this underground movement coalesced into a significant cultural form and carried much more social relevance and cultural weight than the actual numbers that the movement possessed might have initially suggested. In turn, this newfound social and cultural significance helped to influence future generations of Soviet cultural dissidents. Under Brezhnev and later, the much more liberal Gorbachev, a significant rock 'n' roll and punk rock music scene developed to carry on what the stilyagi had strived, against virtually insurmountable odds, to create.

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Chapter 4: “Howl” and the Beat Generation; Movement and Mobility as

Kerouac and Aksyonov Hit the Road.

The Cold War and its associated consequences affected the U.S. and its writers and artists in just as profound a way as their counterparts in the U.S.S.R.

For many, the postwar years were a stifling environment of conformity and burgeoning consumerism that exhibited a frightening return to the pre-war policy of isolationism. The lingering ramifications of the “Red Scare,” the dread specter of the “Red Menace” and the advent of McCarthyism, which reared its ugly head in the postwar years, all loomed large in the collective U.S. consciousness.

These stultifying conditions necessarily effected postwar cultural production.

Nancy J. Peters states:

After World War II, the United States began to solidify its enlarged role as an imperialist power and to incorporate useful features of fascism: militarization, nationalist ideology, state support of large corporations…and the creation of enemies for purposes of social control. The mass media celebrated common sense, social adjustment, conformity, churchgoing and togetherness. The good life was defined by a house in suburbia, a new car, and synthetic products; the economics of planned obsolescence fanned the flames of market growth. (Peters, 202)

The entire goal of mainstream U.S. life following the Second World War is encapsulated in this paragraph. To consume meant to invest in the future of the

United States, to invest in the idea of the “American Dream.” Conversely to willfully not consume, or to question planned obsolescence or disposable culture, as the Beats did, became un-American, and therefore subversive in itself. This viewpoint is demonstrated by the fact that “at the 1960 Republican Convention

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warned that America’s three greatest enemies were

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Communists, Eggheads, and Beatniks” (Peters, 209). It was a stagnant time across all walks of life and consequently there wasn’t much around to fire the imagination. Politically, culturally and artistically, society in the U.S. was reaching a nadir as far as creativity was concerned.

The political landscape in the U.S. was aggravated in 1950 when an obscure Junior Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, looking to make a name for himself and seeking to take advantage of the venomous situation with regards to communism, publicly alleged that the U.S. State Department had been infiltrated by communists and communist sympathizers. McCarthy came to personify the stultifying, paranoid and inward looking mainstream political and artistic policy in the U.S. and he was able for a time to gain a significant amount of influence amongst the people in the U.S. in general, and the U.S. government in particular. Sam Roberts elaborates:

With the U.S. locked in a tense Cold War with the Soviet Union, news of McCarthy's accusation against the State Department of President Harry Truman sent shock waves across the nation. It catapulted McCarthy to national prominence overnight, and eventually made his name synonymous with a decade-long period of investigations—labeled "witch hunts" by his critics— to uncover Communist infiltration in American life. (Roberts, 1)

McCarthy’s statement produced the desired effect and the United States was plunged into a dark, dreary and paranoiac time that affected people in all walks of life and of all political stripes. It is important to mention that politically this was the time of the Rosenbergs, the beginnings of nuclear proliferation, and the dawn of the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower had warned so

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vociferously against following World War II. Things were also stagnant culturally, as it was the era of Leave it to Beaver, the family friendly and innocuous beatnik on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis and other forms of culture that merely reinforced and kowtowed to the mainstream cultural markets. There was little cultural production available that could stimulate the minds of those living on the fringes of society in the U.S., or those thirsting for alternative methods of expression, meaning or entertainment.

However, this blind cultural adherence to the mainstream market was slowly beginning to change with the emergence of writers, such as Kenneth

Rexroth, who were already in the process of eschewing and challenging mainstream culture in the U.S. Rexroth and his group acted as mentors to the fledgling Beat movement, and Allen Ginsburg sought out the anarchist poet in

San Francisco in the 1950s. James Campbell elaborates:

By the time the war ended, Rexroth was at the centre of an intellectual group whose member were, in different degrees, disobedient in politics, experimental in verse, and mystical in religion…Rexroth…took to the stage with musicians and read aloud to jazz accompaniment. As well as being aesthetically testing in itself, this fulfilled two functions: it broke the mould of ‘publication’, and it kept up the bardic tradition in American poetry. (Campbell, 159)

During his sojourn to study at the feet of Rexroth, Ginsburg came to the conclusion that his “main project from now on was to allow imagination and desire free reign in the course of composing the poem; the structure ought to facilitate the poet’s expression – if not actually to stem from it – never to inhibit it.”

(Campbell, 160). This line of poetical reasoning was to have a significant impact

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on the Beat movement in general and on the composition and content of “Howl” in particular, as well as the other major works of Ginsburg. Rexroth and his group of intellectuals noticed the void in postwar cultural production in the U.S. and took measures to address the problem. The writers of the Beat Generation continued the tradition and went a long way in helping to fill this artistic void, and in conjunction and cooperation with the jazz age, helped to fashion a movement that eventually blossomed into the much larger cultural, political, societal and artistic upheavals of the 1960s. The deadening postwar cultural situation of the

1950s in the U.S. helped to inform the backdrop behind the writing of “Howl,” On the Road, Junky (1953) by William Burroughs, and other seminal pieces of Beat literature.

Burroughs in particular succeeded in mirroring the paranoid speech and themes that McCarthyism conjured up in mainstream U.S. society. In a harrowing scene from the controversial Naked Lunch, Burroughs writes about the dystopic future that he seems as coming to fruition in the U.S. in the post World War II context. Using the fictional country of Annexia as a synonym for repressive society, the author writes:

Every citizen of Annexia was required to apply for and carry on his person at all times a whole portfolio of documents. Citizens were subject to be stopped in the street at any time; and the Examiner, who might be in plain clothes, [or] in various uniforms,…after checking each paper would stamp it. On subsequent inspection the citizen was required to show the properly entered stamps of the last inspection. The Examiner, when he stopped a large group, would only examine and stamp the cards of a few. The others were then subject to arrest because their cards were not properly stamped. Arrest meant “provisional detention”; that is, the prisoner would be released if and when his Affidavit of Explanation, properly signed and

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stamped, was approved by the Assistant Arbiter of Explanations. Since this official hardly ever came to his office, and the Affidavit of Explanation had to be presented in person, the explainers spent weeks and months waiting around in unheated offices with no chairs and no toilet facilities. (Burroughs, 19-20)

The Kafkaesque nature of this scene could equally describe the paranoid, overly bureaucratic regimes that existed in the U.S.S.R. and Czechoslovakia, as well as the situation that was in danger of coming to be in McCarthyite America.

Additionally, this passage mirrors the fact that repressive governments actually engender artistic creativity, and inspire comparison and debate about political, social and cultural realities. The quality of questioning entrenched power structures is particularly true of Rexroth and his group, the Beat Generation, the

Russian “New Wave” movement and Půlnoc Edice. The trend has continued; other relevant movements throughout the 20th century including Prague’s underground cultural movement in the late 1960s, led by the influential psychedelic musical group the Plastic People of the Universe, the punk rock movements in the 1970s in the U.S. and U.K., and the hardcore punk movement in the 1980s in the U.S., all sprung up out of a sense of cultural and political despondency. All of these movements used music, literature and other art forms to protest against the repressive political realities in their respective countries.

These musicians and artists did not feel represented by their societies as a whole. And while the level of politicization within each of these respective movements differs, a direct link exists between these movements that is borne

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out and personified by the anti-establishment ethos that each movement possessed.

It is also important to note that the Beat ethos is reinforced by the extant personal correspondence between the members of the Beat Generation themselves. These letters help to shed light on the situation that these writers and poets found themselves in, and were rebelling against, as well as imparting a detailed look into the innermost thoughts of these future literary giants. Oliver

Harris elaborates:

[…] the value of Beat letters is the product of their position as not just unpublished but unpublishable writers: the likes of Ginsberg and Kerouac invested essential energy in correspondence during the early Cold War years, when their social marginality was also economic and cultural. For those undesirables denied voice or place by Cold War discourses, the letter embodied postwar American dreams of an alternative personal and social space. (Harris, 175)

Additionally, these letters are also extremely confessional in tone. Knowing that this correspondence was not meant for publication and was intended only for like-minded and sympathetic individuals, members of the Beat Generation were able to fully express themselves in a highly personal and confessional manner.

The declarative style of writing also has parallels with the purveyors of the

Russian “New Wave.” Poet Anatoly Gladilin comments on the phenomenon from the Russian perspective: “Even without knowledge of contemporary Western literature, confessional prose […] did appear. This seemed to me both a coincidence and not a coincidence…[It] just so happened that the interest of our young people was mainly in the confessional” (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 125). James

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Breslin backs up this assertion stating Ginsburg’s “early work does fuse two modes – the confessional and the visionary – that were to become important in the sixties” (Breslin, 84). The writers of the Beat Generation, the Czech Midnight

Edition and the Russian “New Wave” lived in the margins of their respective societies. And because there was no place for them in mainstream U.S., Czech or Soviet society, the artists of these movements decided to carve out their own place, based on their own set of rules, their own sense of right and wrong and their own sense of growing moral outrage. The fact that both sets of artists arrived at this same literary mode, apart from and independent of each other, is another example of the simultaneity of these movements and acts as further proof that something was indeed “simply in the air” as Gladilin supposed.

The opening lines of “Howl” state the intent of Ginsburg’s seminal work:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, who bared their brains to Heaven […]. (Ginsburg, 9)

These lines are infused with hope, longing, madness, desperation and a yearning for truth in an effort to make sense of postwar reality and the modern world.

Ginsburg is attempting to fill the void engendered by rampant consumerism and a rapacious capitalist system that offers no solace to the individual other than the promise of some ill-defined “opportunity.” Terms such as “starving hysterical,”

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“starry dynamo in the machinery of night” “poverty,” “tatters,” and “hollow-eyed,” conjure up images of the spiritual and material bankruptcy inherent in a blindly

Christian, capitalistic and unsympathetic society that focuses solely on the attainment of material wealth at the expense of community and togetherness.

These opening lines also serve as a lament for those on the fringes of society, unable or unwilling to conform in the stultifying reality of the postwar U.S. As

Peters states: “This long incantatory work describes the destruction of the human spirit by America’s military-industrial machine and calls for redemption through the reconciliation of mind and body, affirming human wholeness and holiness” (Peters, 206). Ginsburg’s groundbreaking poem helped to define the modern, confessional mode of expression, giving voice to those in danger of being left behind, and serves as a complete and utter refutation of the typical

U.S. consumerist, militarist, isolationist worldview.

“Howl” functions as one of the first shots of the coming culture war across the bow of the staid and stagnant backdrop of the U.S. in the1950s. More importantly the poem was crucial in “declaring and creating an alternative literary and cultural community” (Shinder, xxiii). Robert Polito reports that ““Howl” aims to create a community, a society, a new nation” (Polito 231). The overall impact of the poem was significant and its influence reached far and wide, across oceans, walls, both real and imaginary, and the Iron Curtain. Eliot Katz contends that

“‘what has resonated most in the minds and imaginations of readers across the planet for half a century has been the keen sense that here is a poet devoting

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considerable literary skills and talents to help envision and create a more humane world” (Katz, 183). With “Howl,” Ginsberg was embarking on a journey, not just to change the face of poetry, but to change the very face of the world itself. The writing, publication and performances of the poem, functioned as his attempt to impart a comprehensive response to the policies of the powers that be. Ginsberg let it be known that the current state of affairs, be they cultural, political or artistic, were patently unacceptable and, in fact were actively working against the better nature of human beings and against the overall progress of society. Consequently “Howl” acted as a work of affirmation and a rallying call for all like-minded individuals to resist mainstream, postwar ideals in the U.S.

Ginsburg was loudly and eloquently demanding something better, including a cessation of the Cold War and its attendant imagery.

The trajectory of “Howl” later continues in a similar vein, addressing the legitimate concerns of the politically astute

[…] who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism, who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down […]. (Ginsburg, 13)

These lines indicate that mainstream America is being lulled to sleep by the incessant ‘haze’ of advertising and the burgeoning consumerist tendencies of the postwar U.S. It is a damning diatribe against the particularly American trope that one can buy happiness. The poem alludes to the fact that the truth about the

Cold War, and the reasons behind it, are being kept from the public at large. The

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poem puts forth the idea that those that are actually concerned with the nuclear testing at Los Alamos and the proliferation of nuclear warheads in general are perceived as nothing but un-American communist sympathizers by the media and the U.S. government. The words ‘weeping’ and ‘undressing’ also call forth the image of the Holy Fool in the Russian tradition, as well as the image of

Yaroslavna’s heartfelt lament from the medieval Kievan Rus’ tale, “The Lay of

Igor’s Campaign.” When all of these elements are put together and analyzed from a historical, literary and Cold War perspective, the aims of the poem become clear. With “Howl”, Ginsberg is providing a voice to a section of society that had been long neglected by mainstream forces. Additionally, he is questioning the direction of the postwar world, pointing out that the aims of capitalism don’t always align with the aims of the people. The poet is calling attention to the overall failings of mainstream U.S. society, as well as the penchant for using consumer goods as a cure all for all of societies shortcomings that was becoming the prevailing attitude in the country.

In his poem “America” from 1956 Ginsburg explicitly references the extant political tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. Functioning in a manner similar to “Howl,” the poem represented an artistic breakthrough for

Ginsburg in terms of representing his new found “confessional” style.

Furthermore, “America” helped to define the paranoia existent between the two superpowers at the height of the Cold War. Additionally, “America” functions as an attempt to deflate this paranoia and acts as a call for a more humanistic

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approach that can be accomplished by focusing on mutual understanding rather than mutually assured destruction. Towards the end of the poem, Ginsburg intones:

America you don’t really want to go to war. America it’s them bad Russians. Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians. The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages. Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers’ Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta- tions. That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read […]. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help. (Ginsburg, 42,43)

With these lines, Ginsburg is once again explicitly calling out the shortcomings of mainstream U.S. society. Through the use of colloquialisms, incorrect pronoun usage and improperly conjugated verbs, the poet is highlighting the fact that uneducated and uninformed members of the mainstream society are tacitly stoking Cold War tensions in a typically U.S. jingoistic fashion. He is replicating the inherent and irrational fears of communism that McCarthy so successfully exploited in order to gain political influence in an effort to demonstrate the absurdity of such a stance. Nonsensical, hysterical phrases such as “The Russia wants to eat us alive,” and “Her wants to grab Chicago” reflect the overall mood of the country at this time. Ginsburg is pointing out that these views only serve paranoid and militaristic political goals that ultimately do nothing to enhance the lives of ordinary citizens. All that views like this accomplish consists of

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establishing an us versus them mentality that ultimately only benefits the agendas of fear mongering politicians, thus ensuring that the cycle of Cold War tensions not only continue but even escalate.

Ginsburg was no stranger to Russian literature and it is interesting to note that he was of Russian descent on his mother’s side. He has gone on the record as being an ardent fan of Dostoevsky, (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 27) and as the 1960s progressed he became increasingly aware of many writers involved in the

Russian “New Wave” movement. In fact Ginsburg met Vasily Aksyonov in

Moscow in 1965. The U.S. poet later developed a close working relationship with member of the “New Wave,” Andrei Voznesensky. The two poetical giants became fast friends and used to do readings together, as well as translate each other’s work (Lauridsen, Dalgard 25). In the same interview with Lauridsen and

Dalgard taken in 1983, the Ginsburg declared “I’m basically a Russian poet, put in an American scene (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 28). Ginsberg strongly identified with the Russian literary tradition and the country’s love of the oral tradition. It is also interesting to note that other Beat writers eventually made their way into print in the U.S.S.R. in the 1960s, including Kerouac. Maurice Friedberg explains:

A number of new Western books of no special political interest also were translated into Russian. Most important among these were three tales from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road… The world they described must have charmed Soviet readers with its exoticism – a world of jazz, of carefree travel, of odd jobs, of dignified Mexicans and silly gringos. It was truly literature from the New World. (Friedberg, 103-104)

These stories and other Beat literature that was able to traverse the Iron Curtain acted as much more than influence, it served as positive proof that the writers of

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the Russian “New Wave” had come across the path to spiritual enlightenment, much as the Beats had. In many ways it also functioned as affirmation that they had indeed tapped into some sort of universal consciousness that was able to overcome ideological, cultural and geographical boundaries and lead its adherents to the search for a new form of collective truth. The publication of Beat literature in the U.S.S.R. also serves as concrete evidence that the Soviet chronotope was indeed broadening.

The music of choice for the Beats and their ilk was undoubtedly jazz, and specifically the hard-edged rhythms of the variant that came to be known as

“Hard Bop,” developed by such luminaries as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in the 1940s. The music pulses, pushes and has a hard, rhythmic swing to it that much of mainstream America at the time found unpalatable. The rhythm and cadence of jazz infected the rhythm and cadence of the emerging poetry and prose of the Beats. But the influence went further than this. Preston Whaley Jr. elaborates:

Jazz’s impact was aesthetic and social. Its improvisational and pluralistic bent compelled the Beats to open their art to immediate expression and diverse voices in culture. New voices became salient features of Beat texts, socially marked by the motley community of artists and their audiences in the Bay Area and other cities in the country. These artists and publics converted disaffection and powerlessness into affirmative emotions that shifted the marginal into the center, the disdained into the celebrated, the beat into beatitude…It was about creating a new art and a new earth. (Whaley, Jr., 6)

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Jazz adherents in the U.S.S.R. were also becoming disaffected with the now tame sounding and state approved style of jazz known as “swing” and embraced the same new musical rhythms. Starr explains:

Jazz, with its emphasis on individuality and personal expression, became the lingua franca of dissident Soviet youth, the argot of jazz their verbal medium. But not just any jazz. The carefully scored and smoothly synchronized swing bands had succumbed to banal and hollow cheerfulness. By contrast, the emerging Bop movement provided Soviet youth with an authentic language, one that permitted real feelings to break through. (Starr, 242)

The deliberate step away from the more socially acceptable swing music helped to further alienate the stilyagi and other true jazz enthusiasts in the U.S.S.R. But the stilyagi were nonplussed about this alienation. Again Starr tells us:

By zeroing in on the new bop music, Soviet stiliagi discovered exactly what the American Beat writers found, namely the private and uniquely modern ecstasy of social alienation and inner freedom” and that “…the jazz subculture of the USSR […] turned away from the larger public. (Starr, 243)

The shared admiration of bop helped to line up the respective movements to an even larger degree, as well as serving to distance them from the ideals and mores of mainstream society. When taken together the elements of jazz, style, confessional convention in literature, and societal alienation all coalesced in a manner that uniquely informed the output of the Russian “New Wave” and the

Beat Generation. The distinctive confluence created a worldwide movement of like-minded individuals all striving to break free of societal constraints and governmental repression in an effort to transcend the mundane reality of mainstream postwar existence. “Howl” specifically helped to create and influence

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the collective literary movement that worked in close conjunction with jazz and other art forms in the attempt to move towards a humane and diverse new world.

This new world would cater to all, regardless of color, creed, politics or station and not just those who lived within the parameters and constraints of mainstream society. It is also important to note that the writers of the Beat Generation and the

Russian “New Wave” shared another obsession; movement (движение.) Before the Second World War, the lack of unfettered access to movement and mobility had heretofore hindered cultural, economic and creative progress. In the postwar context in both the United States and the Soviet Union broader access to movement and mobility became another shared link to expression, prosperity and a newfound sense of freedom.

The changes brought about in the post World War II world engendered many new realities and possibilities for the youth in the United States and the

Soviet Union alike. Newfound freedoms that would have been unthinkable before the war became normative, attractive propositions that would threaten to upset the balance of existent power structures for both countries. These freedoms in turn led to new forms of expression and dissention, as well as an opportunity to explore personal politics and preferences. Perhaps more importantly, these freedoms allowed for an explosion of youth subcultures that eschewed the traditional mores and values of mainstream society, and instead focused on living life to the fullest extent, irrespective of societal expectations. For many the biggest lesson gleaned from the war with its resultant horrors, centered around

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taking advantage of the possibilities of today, of the present, of the now, as tomorrow, as the future, is in no way guaranteed. The writers of the Beat

Generation and the “New Wave” of Russian literature personified this attitude to life, love, and the pursuit of a new kind of truth. In the years immediately following

World War II, youth on both sides of the Iron Curtain gained access to, and even yearned for possibilities that the previous generations could never have imagined. These included wider access to education, leisure time, the choice of possibilities regarding career opportunity, and in the case of Soviet youth, access to Western culture, such as jazz music and its attendant and influential culture.

However, perhaps the greatest freedom afforded to both Soviet and U.S. youth following the war was access to unencumbered movement, solely and expressly for the sake and experience of movement. Movement for the sake of movement became the new form of manifest destiny in the 20th century. Through the twin formulations of movement and mobility, Soviet and youth in the U.S. were able to express themselves in a new and important manner that would help to shape and influence the modern world. The writers of the Beat Generation and the “New

Wave” of Russian literature were on hand to chronicle this new form of expression.

Movement was essential to the writers of the Beat Generation and the

“New Wave” of Russian literature. Movement, whether pertaining to the ability to dash off across the country in a car, or train, in order to search for kicks, the meaning of life, or employment, or movement as relating to the uninhibited

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gyrations of dancing to a jazz combo in a sweaty, off the grid bar or club, was central to the expression of writers U.S. and Soviet alike. To move, to burn, to howl, lurching and leering into the night, regardless, and often in direct opposition to societal concerns, became the clarion call of the mad poets and priests of this hip new approach to life. In the context of the U.S., this freedom of movement is reminiscent of the unique figure of the outlaw in the Wild West, constantly on the move, searching for opportunity and glory. In both the U.S. and the Soviet milieus, the ability for this sort of movement also draws attention to the sheer immensity of space of the respective countries in question. The immense sense of space acts as a catalyst for contemplation regarding the human condition and its place within the wider world, both in terms of politics, and in terms of sheer human and artistic expression. This vastness can make the contemplative soul question many things regarding human society, government, artistic production, and the very modus operandi of mainstream society itself. This contemplation is reminiscent of the sailor’s sense of smallness at sea, when land is no longer visible, and when one is truly alone in the world. The immensity of the U.S.S.R. and U.S. is also important when considering that many of the works in question were written at the commencement of the space race. The space race played a large role in the overall narrative and anxieties of the Cold War, and necessarily informed the artistic production of this time. The possibilities of the emerging space race also suggest the idea that the Beats and the “New Wave” of Russian writers were simply weary of being earthbound. For these writers, traditional,

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earthly concerns were to be expanded upon in the search for a new kind of truth.

When seen in this regard, space and the idea of space pose new frontiers to be investigated in the perhaps naïve hope that the geopolitical differences found on earth will not be repeated in this new context.

Thus these mad poets, these children of the new night, rushed back and forth across the land on a quest of self-discovery in an effort to put into practice these newfound freedoms. The utilization of movement by these authors is both literal and figurative. It helps to personify the new consciousness of postwar realties for the young writers of the time. Nowhere is this attitude to life more clearly expressed than in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and Vasily Aksyonov’s A

Ticket to the Stars. Both novels, though written worlds apart, both politically and geographically, portray young men and women searching for a new way, and in doing so, whether consciously or not, rejecting the ways of their mothers and fathers. The idea of a stagnant, staid and traditional life, simply adhering to societal norms and living within the box so carefully prepared for them by society was no longer appealing to this generation. Chasing the horizon, and all its inherent and exotic charms became a way of life. Another important commonality between these two works, and one that is closely linked with movement, is the manifest and complete rejection of consumerist culture that is just beginning to rear its head in earnest following the ravages of World War II. In both historical contexts, the rejection of consumer culture is significant, as from the U.S. perspective, it followed the deprivation of the Great Depression, which

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devastated the country (as well as much of Europe) from 1929 until the advent of

World War II. From the Soviet perspective the rejection of consumer culture followed years of tumultuous upheaval, which included two revolutions, two world wars, and a civil war. Thus the lifestyles promulgated by the protagonists and the rejection of consumable culture in favor of experience that is depicted in these respective novels, flies in the face of conventional society. Another significant detail connecting both works to future ideals is the appearance of personal politics. By their actions these characters are demanding something outside the bounds of normal society, something that is personally satisfying. They are unconcerned with petty sloganeering, war-mongering and other concerns of the political sphere. These protagonists are searching for meaning and purpose in the modern world; they are searching for truth in the unrelenting, infinite space of the new world, personified by the new possibilities of the night. And they are willing to utilize and exploit movement, while simultaneously rejecting in equal measure the notion of normalcy as put forth by the Old World, in a concerted effort to find meaning in the context of the wild, neon night of the postwar world.

As Tim Cresswell posits:

The inner circle of beats, revolving around Kerouac and Ginsberg, came out of Columbia University. More importantly they came out of a particular time and place – post war North America. The United States had just gone through the depression of the nineteen thirties and World War Two. It was experiencing the beginning of the nuclear age and lived with the possibility of annihilation. Churchill had declared the Iron Curtain into being and the cold war was raging… The red-baiting McCarthy… terrorized US academia and culture. Electronic mass media were becoming part of everyday life. Between World War II and the Vietnam War the United

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States became entangled in Cuba and Korea. People felt weary and hopeless – beat. (Creswell, 253-254)

The Bakhtinian theory of time and place, or chronotope, that Creswell refers to is significant in terms of cultural production. He is right in pointing out that the time and place in which these works were created is central to the content, the meaning and the overall direction of the Beat Movement. A similar chronotope was also unfolding at the same time in the USSR. The world was changing in a way that was exhilarating to contemplate from a social and creative perspective.

The reaction of youth on both sides on the political divide to these changes was to look to the future, with little regard for the societal consequences, in an effort to find tangible meaning in their lives. For many young people in the post World War

II context, the political systems under which they lived and familial and societal expectations no longer wielded the influence that they once had.

On the Road has assumed an almost mythic status amongst the canon of

20th century Western literature. The main protagonists, Sal Paradise and Dean

Moriarty, sally back and forth across the mainland of the United States on a quest for experience in an attempt to truly live outside of the parameters of mainstream society. Along the way they encounter myriad characters that help to quantify the experience of living outside the constraints of normative society in the U.S. They find joy, they find sadness, they find kicks, they find profound loneliness, but ultimately they find the United States in all its fierce and beautiful glory. Again

Creswell contends:

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The main theme of On the Road is the experience shared by Sal and Dean […] as they travel back and forth across the United States at high speed. As the story develops it becomes clear that non-stop ‘going’ for its own sake is the main joy of the two friends. In exuberant resistance to hegemonic ideals of home and family they find their meaning in mobility. (Cresswell, 254)

Sal and Dean find the meaning of life in their newfound access to mobility. For them this mobility is the greatest gift of the postwar world. These two often roar off on a cross-country trip seemingly on a whim, and with no thought to the impact on those around them. However, I contend that there are more interesting questions regarding the meaning inherent in this movement that ultimately carry more cultural significance relevant to the discussion at hand. These manic trips are a manifestation of a larger urge that is given agency through the possibility of movement. These adventures are surely a form of escapism, from the tedium and worries of everyday life, from family, from marital problems, and from unemployment. However, they personify much more than these characteristics.

These cross-country excursions represent a quest. A quest for experience, a quest for kicks, a quest for something alien to mainstream society, and in fact a response to the principles of mainstream society. They are akin to an Odysseus like rite of passage. These trips, personified by the need for mobility, are the catalyst that allows for the living of Life with a capital L. These cross-country excursions personify a quest to enrich their respective literary work and function as an effort to search for and illuminate the possibility of a new kind of truth in the postwar world, that exists irrespective and in complete defiance of conventional societal expectation.

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Early in On the Road, Kerouac provides the mission statement of the entire Beat Generation, and one that is equally relevant for the “New Wave” of

Russian writers. This is his account of the first encounter between Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty:

They rushed down the street together, digging everything in the early way they had, which later became so much sadder and perceptive and blank. But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars […]. (Kerouac, 9)

This paragraph personifies the necessity of movement that pervades the entire novel, the entire literary movement, and goes some way to explaining the Beat’s reliance on mobility. Moving is both a means to an end, and the very end itself all wrapped into, and absorbed with, the search for authentic truth. Moriarty, (based on the real life writer, and veritable creature of the night, Neal Cassady,) is a whirlwind of activity, forever searching for that which is just out of reach. Unable or unwilling to fit into mainstream conceptions of society, Moriarty acts as the catalyst that propels Sal into the great unknown, as represented by the great expanse of night in the U.S., and into the search for something different, something tangible, something real. However, all contained within this passage in not purely reverie. Throughout the novel, Kerouac alludes to, and indeed gives long descriptions of the inherent sadness encountered in living such a lifestyle.

The author often comments on the mournful sights and sounds grappled with in a

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life on the road. The juxtaposition of the frenetic and the sad, of the highs and the lows of a life lived outside of acceptable society, of a life spent searching for some kind of truth, ultimately lends an uncompromising weight to the proceedings. The frenetic pace of life is more so because of the sadness. The highs of life experienced on the road with friends, or at a jazz club praying and gesticulating before the wild sounds emanating from the often marginalized musicians, is all the more so because of the low times experienced engaging in the very same activities. Additionally, Kerouac is acknowledging the fact that there is beauty in sadness, and it is a beauty that not many people experience in the everyday living of a normal life. The juxtaposition of beauty and sadness is an ever present in Russian literature and acts as another nexus between the Beats and the “New Wave” of Russian writers.

Another essential link between On the Road and Russian literature in general, is that in many ways, Moriarty fulfills the traditional, historical role of the

Holy Fool (юродивый, yurodivy.) The custom of the Holy Fool) has a long and storied tradition in the Slavic world. In Tsarist times in Russia, the yurodivy acted as a sort of a spiritual court jester that was able to speak truth to power through supposed foolishness. They commanded respect in the Orthodox community for their austere lifestyle, which included wearing hair shirts, chains and weights, and going unshod in winter, and their seeming ability to hold congress with the almighty. In Russian literature, the Holy Fool is able to speak truth to power in an oblique way. That is to say that the wisdom of the Holy Fool is initially obscured

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by obfuscating language that must be properly decoded in order for the sagacity of the words to become apparent. Additionally, Holy Fools are often linked to madness. Like the traditional Russian trope of the Holy Fool, Moriarty is concerned with speaking truth to power, but more through action and movement than solely through words. His search for authenticity and truth is carried out in a more indirect way than the traditional Russian variant of the Holy Fool, though his actions are as confounding as the words of the Holy Fool to those who are not paying attention or who are not well versed in decoding his movements. In many ways he uses movement to facilitate his learning process in terms of finding a higher purpose in life. Kerouac portrays his transformation into a modern form of

American saintliness:

There was nothing clear about the things he said, but what he meant to say was somehow made pure and clear. He used the word “pure” a great deal. I had never dreamed Dean would become a mystic. These were the first days of his mysticism, which would lead to the strange, ragged W.C. Fields saintliness of his later days (Kerouac, 100).

Dean is portrayed as a modern version of the Holy Fool, though his sacrament is not religion, but alcohol, amphetamines, jazz, words and movement. These new sacraments do nothing to diminish the importance of his quest, and in fact, they lead his quest into new and uncharted territory. This fact is especially important when placed in the context of spirituality in the U.S., which heretofore had been mainly represented with conventional Christian notions of morality and its relation with capitalism. Later in the novel, during a particularly tense section, in which some of Dean’s more eccentric, unorthodox behavior is coming home to roost,

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Sal describes him simply as “the HOLY GOOF” (Kerouac, 160). Much like the

Russian Holy Fool, Dean, through his perceived vices, eccentricities, unorthodox manner of living outside of societal norms, and the methods his uses to convey them, have transcended the restrictions placed upon him by that very society, and he has therefore moved beyond traditional philosophies of spirituality and truth seeking in the U.S. context.

In his novel, A Ticket to the Stars, Aksyonov explores many of the same themes as the writers of the Beat Generation pertaining to youth culture and the opportunities provided by newfound mobility. His writing is concerned with exploring and transcending the travails of young people searching for authenticity, meaning and the finding of a suitable position within the new postwar reality from the Soviet perspective. The myriad of possibilities now open to Soviet youth, such as the aforementioned access to mobility, as well as

Western cultural production mirrors the circumstances presented in On the Road.

The ability to search for something different from life is reflected in the conduct of the four main protagonists in A Ticket to the Stars. In the novel, Aksyonov relates the tale of a group of friends searching for meaning in life, love, and work, following their graduation from high school. Against the wishes of their respective families, as well as society as a whole, the group of four friends decides to eschew the typical route to university, or traditional means of productive employment in the socialist Soviet milieu. Instead they are in favor of travelling into the great expanse of the U.S.S.R. in an effort to find something real,

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something tangible, to give meaning to their lives in the postwar context. In many ways in could be stated that the urge to travel, the urge to live outside of acceptable societal norms was a right won for them by the exploits of the very parents and society during the Great Patriotic War that they are now turning away from. However, it also reveals the numerous possibilities available to youth in the postwar situation in the U.S.S.R. as well. For Soviet youth at this time, the possibility of a varied and exciting life, removed from traditional Soviet avenues of expression carried the possibility of a brighter future. At virtually any other point in

Soviet history it would have been unthinkable for communist youth to shirk responsibility and act as individuals in such a manner. However, this new generation sees the yearning for travel and experience as a virtue to be applauded and explored. Before embarking on their journey, three of the group of friends, Dimka, Yurka, and Alik are seated in the courtyard of their housing estate, Barcelona House, bemoaning the expectations of their respective families, as well as society as a whole. They are instead seeking a way out of the lives so meticulously prepared for them:

ДИМКА. Сбежим? [...] АЛИК. Неужели и мы, как наши родители, всю свою жизнь проведем в "Барселоне"? [... ]ДИМКА. Сбежим? [...] АЛИК. Куда? ДИМКА. Куда [...] Ну, для начала хотя бы на Рижское взморье [... ] АЛИК. А как же родители? Как же мои дед? ЮРКА. А мой конь? ДИМКА. Слезай с коня, иди пешком [...] Вперёд! К морю! В жизнь! [...] Мчаться вперёд: на поездах, на попутных машинах, пешком, вплавь, заглатывать километры. Стоп! Поработали где- нибудь, надоело -- дальше! (Aksyonov, 196-197)

Dimka: Should we get out of here? [...]. Alik: Are we really to spend our lives in Barcelona House, just as our parents did? [...]. Alik: So let’s take off ? [...]. Alik: Where? [...]. Dimka: Where? Well, for a start, what about

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the Baltic coast? [...]. Alik: But what about our parents? What about my grandpa? Yurka: And what about my old man? Dimka: Get off his back and walk on your own […]. Forward to the sea! To Iife! […]. Let’s tear along forward. We can go by trains, we could hitchhike, walk, swim, and we’ll swallow up the kilometers. Then we can stop! We’ll work a bit and when we get sick of it, we’ll just move on further!

This conversation mirrors the discussions of Sal, Dean and their respective group of friends in On the Road. Dimka, Alik and Yurka, as well as Galia, who makes up the fourth traveling companion, are not satisfied with the prospect of instantaneously becoming productive members of Soviet society immediately upon graduation from high school. They are interested in finding out about life for themselves, on their own terms. Collectively, they are not concerned with following the path laid out for them by the parents in particular, or by Soviet society in general.

In another work, Пора, мой друг, пора (1969) [It’s Time My Friend, It’s

Time] Aksyonov provides another example of the allure that movement for the sake of movement has for this younger Soviet generation. In the novel, set in

Soviet Estonia, a young man, Kyanukuk, sets off into the night to impress his newfound Russian friends by going on a quest for afterhours champagne. He speeds off on a motorbike, determined to simultaneously fulfill his mission of acquiring more alcohol and to experience the joys of unfettered speed. During the course of his ill-fated journey he muses:

Быстрее! Ещё быстрей! Что может быть прекраснее скорости? Скорость убивает томление и заполняет пустоту, она наводняет человека, включает его в себя. Любое движение – это цель! Побольше километров мотай на спидометр! Сколько парней летят

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сейчас по ночному миру на мотоциклах, и среди них ты не самый худший. (Aksyonov, 148-149)

Faster. Still faster. What can be more magnificent than speed? Speed kills boredom and emptiness, buoys a man up, carries a man along with it. Movement – for its own sake! Increase the kilometres on the speedometer more and more and more! How many young men are there racing on motorcycles through the night world, and among them you are not the worst. (Aksyonov, 131)

Inevitably, Kyanukuk loses control of the speeding motorcycle and is killed in the ensuing crash, highlighting the inherent dangers in pursuing a life of unfettered movement and speed in this newfangled world of the night. The authors and adherents of the Beat Generation and the “New Wave” of Russian literature were aware of the inherent risks of a life lived in this manner. However, the negative ramifications inflicted were of little consequence in the context of the bigger subcultural picture. After all, it is better to die on one’s feet, pursuing new opportunities and experiences, than to live on one’s knees enduring the drudgery of an assembly line life in a drab and decidedly dead end factory, propping up an ideology that is irrelevant to your outlook of daily existence, be it capitalist or communist. This newfound outlook on the function of life is especially relevant when placed within the dual contexts of postwar existence, with all of its recently established possibilities and the consequences of a life lived under the tensions of the ever-present and imminently destructive potentialities of the Cold War. This era was rife with eternal and internecine conflicts that were consuming the globe at this time and that were shaping the outlook of hegemonic political, social and cultural forces in such a damaging manner.

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The fact that the Beat movement, and the “New Wave” of Russian writers came to similar conclusions regarding a new mode of life, and the fact that they employed similar means of expressing and acting upon these conclusions is worth repeating. These literary movements were essentially concurrent, though separated by both geographical and political divides, and the writers of these respective movements were initially unaware of the existence of their spiritual counterparts. This initial lack of awareness demonstrates the veracity of these ideas and lends the search for authentic truth, the quest for an alternative view to existence, outside of societal respectability, a cache that it would otherwise not possess. This cache in turn led to influence among certain types of youth also seeking to explore new avenues of life and expression. Speaking of Aksyonov’s early writing, concerning this phenomenon in Soviet society, Cynthia Simmons states:

[…] in these novels and stories, the embodiments or semi-embodiments of the writer deal with the delimited questions of existence, and these usually focus on the relationship of the individual to society. In much of Aksenov’s “youth prose” of the early sixties, the protagonists weighed civic, or even familial responsibility against self-fulfillment […]. Toward the end of this period, Aksenov’s heroes and heroines had sided with the individual […]. (Simmons, 311-312)

The idea of siding with the individual was a foreign concept in the overall context of traditional collective Soviet society. To stand out, to be different in any way from one’s comrades, was an open invitation to ridicule, persecution and even possible exile. The is particularly true when considering the stilyagi, touched upon in A Ticket to the Stars, who faced opposition and harassment from the

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state, as well as from ordinary citizens. The bop variant of jazz and the culture surrounding it was to have a profound influence on the young Aksyonov. Bop consequently informed his writing, particularly in his later work in novels such as

The Burn, as he moved stylistically away from his earlier writing, and began to employ literary devices such as the carnivalesque, extreme inebriation as safety valve, and notions of the grotesque, in an effort to highlight the absurdities encountered in everyday life in attempting to live under a totalitarian regime.

Speaking to the stilyagi phenomenon’s later iterations, which were occurring during the time depicted in Aksyonov’s A Ticket to the Stars, Starr states:

The younger brothers and sisters of the pioneer stiliagi had long since abandoned zoot suits and loud makeup [by the early 1960s] […]. Neatly dressed, they nonetheless retained their distance from official Soviet society. Their racy slang and mixture of wry irony and self-dramatization revealed their continuing search for authenticity. These young men and women threw themselves into life, rejecting their parents’ docility. (Starr, 267-268)

This statement could just as easily pertain to the Beat Generation as it could to the proponents of the stilyagi movement, and the “New Wave” of Russian writers.

Rebellion against the old ways, coupled with a search for authenticity, bind the respective characters of both sets of writers together in an inescapable way. As

Dimka succinctly points out to his older brother Viktor, when he is explaining his plan to abandon a traditional Soviet life and travel off into the great expanses of the U.S.S.R.:

Ведь ты ни разу в жизни не принял по-настоящему серьёзного решения, ни разу не пошёл на риск. К чёрту! Мы ещё не успеем

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родиться, а за нас уже всё продумано, уже наше будущее решено. Дудки! Лучше быть бродягой и терпеть неудачи, чем всю жизнь быть мальчиком, выполняющим чужие решения. (Aksyonov, 200)

Why you’ve never once taken a serious decision in your whole life, never accepted a risk. To hell with that! We’re not even successfully born yet, and everything is worked out for us, our whole future is already decided. Not on your life! It is better to be a tramp and suffer failure than go through life being a boy fulfilling somebody else’s decisions.

Ultimately, this is a supremely un-Soviet point of view, and one that would have been unthinkable at any other point in Soviet history. Dimka and his friends are part of a new generation, and for them the future is not fixed, but elastic and expansive. It takes more to impress them, and their expectations of a better life are greater than any previous Soviet generation, bar perhaps the first wave of

Bolsheviks. The rising of expectations for the future displayed by Soviet youth at this time is borne out by fact that Dimka, Yurka and Alik are rather unimpressed by hearing a satellite fly overhead, much to Viktor’s astonishment. In a passage that nicely juxtaposes the traditional Soviet point of view regarding industry, duty and ideological purpose as espoused by Viktor, with the new generation’s unconcern for these values put forth by Dimka and his friends, Aksyonov writes:

Кусок земного металла, жаркий слиток земных надежд, продукция мозга и мышц, смешанная с нашим потом и с кровью тех, которые этого уже не услышат. Кусок земного металла, полный любви, полный героизма, и счастья, и страдания. Весь он наш, плоть от плоти, и, двигаясь там, он хранит в себе память о наших руках и глазах, о смене наших настроений… Он один там, в чужой среде, окруженный чужими металлами, озаряемый кострами чужих звезд, летит и гудит и дрожит от мужества и трогательно сигналит: "Бип- бип...” --Чёрт вас возьми! -- кричу я своему братцу и его дружкам и распахиваю окно. -- Слушайте! -- Ну, слышим, -- говорит Димка. -- Kосмический автобус. -- Радиостанция "Маяк", -- говорит Алик. -- Поймали, наконец, молотки ребята! -- довольно равнодушно басит

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Юрка. -- Чёрт бы вас побрал! -- говорю я. -- Шпана! Личности! Индивидуумы! -- Ишь ты, как раскричался, -- насмешливо говорит Димка. -- Рановато ты воодушевился. Человека-то там нет. -- Человека там нет! Там нет человека! Вот если бы сразу, сейчас, кто-нибудь слетал на Марс и вернулся оттуда с девушкоймарсианкой, тогда почтеннейшая публика, может быть, и удивилась бы… -- Вас не интересуют чудеса? -- спрашиваю я. -- Какие же это чудеса? -- удивляется Юрка. (Aksyonov, 201-202)

A piece of terrestrial metal, a hot ingot of earthly hopes, a product of our brains and muscles, mixed with the sweat and blood of those who can no longer hear this. A piece of terrestrial metal, full of love, full of heroism and happiness and suffering. It’s all ours, flesh of our flesh, and as it moves up there, it retains the memory of our hands, our eyes, of our changing moods […]. It is alone up there, in strange surroundings, encircled by foreign metals, illuminated by the bonfires of alien stars, flying and buzzing and trembling despite its bravery and signaling us in a touching way: “beep-beep” […]. “To hell with all of you!” I yell at my brother and his little friends as I fling open the window. “Listen!” “Well we’re listening,” Dimka says. “It’s a cosmic bus.” “It’s the broadcasting station “Lighthouse,” Alik says. “They’ve finally caught the signal, the fine fellows” Yurka rather indifferently says. “Goddamn it all!” I say. “Rabble!” “Individualists!” “Oi Viktor, starting to shout like that” Dimka said derisively. “You’re filled with enthusiasm too soon. It’s not even carrying a person.” Not carrying a person! There’s no person! But if someone now suddenly flew off to Mars and returned with a Martian girl, then maybe this most respected public would be surprised […]. “You’re not interested in miracles” I ask. “What kind of a miracle is that?” Yurka asks, surprised.

This exchange perfectly illustrates the generation gap that developed in Soviet society following the Second World War. Though Viktor is only 28 years of age, he still personifies the worldview of a typical citizen of the Soviet Union. He remembers the world as it was, the world before sputnik, Laika, Gagarin, the atomic bomb and other technological advances. For Dimka and his friends, these things are simply commonplace and nothing to really take much interest in. They are of the opinion that these advances have nothing to do with them personally, apart from the vague acknowledgement of the fact that they will potentially

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benefit them in terms of possibilities regarding their future lives. Viktor, like the majority of Soviet citizens in the early 1960s, finds this outlook on life to be shockingly out of touch with the overall zeitgeist of communist Soviet society and is appalled by the brazen nature of Dimka and his friends. However, importantly,

Viktor is also envious of Dimka’s position, and is intrigued despite himself. As

Viktor relates,

Со страхом я ловлю себя на том, что завидую ему, ему, юноше с безумными идеями в голове.” (Aksyonov, 200)

With horror I catch myself envying him, him, this kid with the reckless ideas in his head.

Even though Viktor represents the stodginess of traditional Soviet society that plays by the rules and accepts the loss of and the lack of individuality, he still can’t quite help himself from admiring his younger brother’s outlook on life, on the world and his place within it. Viktor can’t help envying the possibilities that are open to Dimka and his friends, which are opportunities that he, himself never had. Through demonstrating these new possibilities, Aksyonov is showing the extent to which the new realities of the postwar world, and the broadening of the

Soviet chronotope had begun to infiltrate Soviet society.

The possibilities that became normative following the Second World War, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, made the unthinkable thinkable in a relatively short space of time. Youth, in both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. alike were able to utilize movement, mobility and unorthodox opportunities to create a new world,

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rife with possibility. The writers of the “New Wave” of Russian literature benefitted from the broadening of culture just as much as the characters they depict, while the writers of the Beat Generation set about chronicling this brave new world from the viewpoint of those in the U.S. The twin concepts of movement and mobility allowed for the expression of newfound freedoms that in turn helped to shape and define the modern world. Both sets of writers helped to establish and authenticate subcultures that were to have profound effects on later generations.

Dean and Sal, Dimka, Yurka, Alik and Galia, all chose to embark upon a quest that was unthinkable for youth before the war. The fact that this was a choice is an important distinction. They embarked upon a quest for experience, a quest for living life on their own terms irrespective of societal expectation, a quest for the possibilities that became extant in the postwar context. Ultimately, however these protagonists are on a quest for truth. This quest was made all the more relevant and manageable due to the possibility of unfettered access to movement. In this context, the road and all its attendant possibilities act as a symbol of and a metaphor for the changing nature of the world. During the Great Depression in the U.S. the road was a necessity for grim survival; a conduit to nothing more than the possibility of employment. In the postwar context the possibility of the road expanded, and additionally became a conduit to experience, to truth, to kicks, to living life on ones own terms irrespective of social constraints or concerns. The literal and figurative movement portrayed in these works thus act

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as a signpost on the road guiding the intrepid traveller from the Old World to the

New.

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Chapter 5: The Philosophy and Writings of Ladislav Klíma and Egon

Bondy, Prague Spring and the Birth of the Czechoslovak Underground

Underground cultural production was to play a prominent role in the political and social reality of Czechoslovakia as well. Writers, such as influential poet and lyricist Egon Bondy, who was an active member of a group of authors from the Czech lands known collectively as the Půlnoc Edice (Midnight Edition) played a large role in this prominence. The group also counted Ivo Vodsed’álek,

Jana Krejcarová and Bohumil Hrabal amongst its ranks (Rauvolf, 181). This group of writers had much in common with the writers of the Beat Generation. As

Rauvolf recounts:

Despite the fact that the Beats and Czech writers could not have known about each other – not only because the Iron Curtain kept them from disseminating their work to the West but also because, at least at first, the U.S. writers’ works existed in only a handful of carbon copies – the parallels persisted through the 1960s, and in some cases even longer […]. There are many points of intersection, and it is worthwhile to note the connection, even if it was not a case of direct influence but rather of synchronicity. (Rauvolf, 181.)

This synchronicity again mirrors Gladilin’s contention that “there was simply something in the air […]” regarding the similarities between the writings of the

Beats and the “New Wave” of Russian writers (Lauridsen, Dalgard, 125). Rauvolf explains the Czech, and U.S. variant of this synchronous phenomenon:

What were the roots of this synchronicity? The experience on both sides of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain were strong and inescapable: the shattering experience of the war, the world’s postwar order, the threat of World War III, this time nuclear […]. The political purges and trials in communist Czechoslovakia found their counterparts in U.S. McCarthyism…If we look at more positive similarities, both groups were strongly intellectual, well read, and culturally educated. Synchronicity

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leads to many common artistic starting points and attitudes […] (Rauvolf, 181.)

All of these reasons for synchronicity between Czech and U.S. underground cultural production can be attributed to the Soviet variant as well, leaving us with a rich vein of material from which to draw conclusions. Writers from all three chronotopic settings used similar literary devices, tropes and motifs in an effort to make sense of the world in the postwar context. Much like Aksyonov and

Burroughs, Bondy leaned heavily on the grotesque and all of its attendant horrors and this feature played a central role in his work. This is specifically true in his lyrics that accompany the album Egon Bondy’s Lonely Hearts Club Banned,

(1974-1975) as recorded by the legendary underground Czechoslovak psychedelic group, The Plastic People of the Universe. The Plastic People were to play a pivotal role in the cultural upheavals that were to occur following the crushing of Prague Spring in 1968 and the advent of the normalization era in

Czechoslovakia. The Plastic People have been categorized as a “[…] nine-man group, headed by the guitarist and vocalist Milan Hlavsa, included in its line-up flute, clarinet and fiddle as well as guitar, saxophone and synthesizer: a typically

Czech appropriation and indigenization of a foreign musical idiom” (Burton, 131-

132).

In Bondy’s artistic output with the Plastic People and his own poetry, the grotesque functions as a hammer to shatter any illusions about the state of affairs concerning living in Czechoslovakia in the days of normalizace (normalization.)

Normalization was a construct put into place in the Soviet satellite state in the

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wake of Prague Spring. Previous to normalization, this era in Czechoslovak history ushered in the period of socialismus s lidskou tváří (socialism with a human face,) and was initiated by Czechoslovak communist premier, Alexander

Dubček, in 1968. This reform-minded movement fostered a period of an overall relaxation on censorship and other draconian Soviet backed repressive measures, as well as enacting freedom of speech. A Soviet led military intervention was initiated in an effort to curb these new democratic tendencies creeping into life in Czechoslovakia. Following this crackdown, life in

Czechoslovakia retreated into a morass of state mandated paranoia and mediocrity, and the personal and artistic lives of its citizens suffered accordingly.

This is the world that Bondy and the Plastic People found themselves in at the tail end of the 1960s.

However, before we come to any discussion regarding the poetic output of

Bondy, we must necessarily address the work and general worldview of influential Czech writer, eccentric and philosopher, Ladislav Klíma. The influence of Klíma played a huge role in the formation of what came to be a considered a classic example of defiance in the Czechoslovak context regarding social consciousness and defiance against totalitarianism. Ladislav Klíma

was born August 22, 1878, in the western Bohemian town of Domažlice […]. At first a top student, he became steadily more rambunctious […] and in 1895 he was expelled from gymnasium, and all the schools in the Austrian monarchy, for insulting the ruling Habsburg dynasty. He attended school in Zagreb […] but came home after only half a year [and] resolved never to subject himself to formal education again. Adamantly refusing to engage in any sort of "normal" life as well […] never seeking permanent employment […]. He settled in Prague's Smíchov district where he wrote

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his first work in 1904, The World as Consciousness and Nothing in which he makes the case that "the world" is nothing but a fiction. (Klíma)

Klíma willfully lived his life on the margins of society, and in so doing rejected traditional moral values inherent in normative society. He strongly proclaimed that the only parameter for understanding the world was the assertion of the absolute will of the individual. In his article on the Klímaesque, Gareth Brown states:

The pivotal axis of Klíma’s philosophy is the assertion that pure subjectivity is in fact the only certainty. A sovereign existence is achieved through the recognition, therefore that one’s own will is the only subject of any agency at all, in all of existence. The logical symptom of this assertion is that ‘the world’ is in actuality a very different entity from that which it is traditionally perceived to be. Instead of being absolute and inflexible, and that which ultimately subjugates its inhabitants, the roles are reversed. The world is in fact ‘absurd and a void […] Klíma describes his simple, ultimate synopsis of ‘the world’ [by stating] “the world is an absolute toy of my absolute will, [and] the world is what, at any moment, I wish to have of it.” (Brown, 166)

Klíma’s philosophy suffuses his literary output, most notably in “Jak bude po smrti” (“How it Will be After Death,”) in which he elaborates on his worldview, as well as expounding upon his ruminations concerning the afterlife. In fact the

Plastic People of the Universe released an album by the same name in 1979, which drew heavily on Klíma’s philosophy as presented in this work. The story concerns an unnamed tradesman quietly drinking by himself in a hotel in a provincial town. He overhears a farmer intone the seemingly nonsensical phrase:

"I obešel já polí pět." (And I wandered around fields five.) (Klíma). The tradesman and his understanding of life (and the afterlife) is forever altered. Klíma uses this fantastical premise to ruminate on many of the tenets of his personal philosophy.

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After referring to the above phrase as “grotesque,” the narrator goes on to offer his worldview:

Myslím ostatně nesměrodatně v duši své kramářské, že směšnost a hrůznost jsou sestry, rub a líc jedné a téže věci : že kořeny vší hrůzy spočívají v mysteriu komičnosti a naopak, že v nejhlubší hloubi směšná jest jen hrůznost, jen každý strach; že svět jest jen bezedně hlubokou a feérickou hrůznou groteskou. (Klíma)

I, by the way, hold firm the conviction in my shopkeeper’s soul that the ludicrous and the dreadful are sisters, the reverse and inverse of one and the same thing: that the roots of all terror consist in the mystery of the comic and, on the contrary, that in the profoundest depths of the ludicrous there is only terror, naught but every fear; that the world is nothing more than a bottomless, deep, faery, terrifying farce. (Wilson)

The idea of the world as nothing more than farce is central to Klíma’s outlook on the human condition and its place in a hierarchical society. When one views the world in this manner, and rubbishes conventional sensibilities regarding societal constraints, new possibilities become apparent. It enables the individual the ability to assert their own will in an effort to make sense of the inherently irrational world around them. This outlook on the world is made all the more important when placed into the totalitarian communist context, as traditional views of society and community become even more farcical by definition.

Klíma reiterates his philosophy concerning the inherent absurdity of the world in the novel Utrpení knížete Sternenhocha (1928) [The Sufferings of Prince

Sternenhoch]. The novel chronicles the life of Prince Sternenhoch and his descent into madness, ostensibly at the hands of his new bride, Helga. The eccentric nobleman endures a life of suffering, insanity and self-torment, largely through his own deluded actions, until at last he attains a state of ecstasy and

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ultimately salvation, through this very suffering. Sternenhoch also utilizes herculean amounts of alcohol in an effort to escape from the absurd (un)reality in which he finds himself. Through his grotesque depiction of Prince Sternenhoch and his sufferings, Klíma is rejecting duality, the idea that good and evil, light and dark are separate constructions. In his worldview, everything is equivalent; everything is simply an expression of the divine will. They are congruous phenomena. Therefore there is, and there can be no, distinction between the divine and the individual. This point is illustrated towards the conclusion of the novel. When Sternenhoch is in the process of attaining salvation through suffering he emphatically states; “Everything is alive; Nothing does not exist! [...]

– And everything that is, is God” (Klíma, 168). Klíma posits that the individual creates the world with his own will. He goes on to postulate that the realization of this will is the ultimate and essential concern for the individual, and this is the quality that the Prince ultimately attains through his suffering. Poet Egon Bondy utilized many of the same tenets of Klíma’s philosophy in his work with the

Plastic People. Klíma’s viewpoint in turn exposures of the absurdity of a life lived under a totalitarian regime. Canadian Paul Wilson, a one time collaborator with the Plastics, recognized the relevance of Klíma’s work in deciphering these absurdities in the communist context, which led him to translate “Jak bude po smrti” into English in 1976. The year is significant, as it was at this time that the

Plastic People and many other prominent musicians artists and dissidents of the

Czech underground were arrested by the communist government. These arrests

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eventually led to the formation of Charter 77 which was to play a large role in the political upheavals to come.

Bondy incorporates elements of Klíma’s worldview into his poetry in an effort to both explain and make sense of the inherent absurdity of living under a totalitarian regime. Thus he utilizes bodily functions, inebriation as an escape mechanism, and the idea of willfully becoming a non-person, in an effort to make sense of the senseless world in which the citizens of Czechoslovakia found themselves. Rauvolf relates “Like William S. Burroughs, Bondy did not hesitate to write without emotion about his addiction to pills and alcohol. Speaking about lifestyle, Bondy remarked that ‘all this was just a manifestation and way of instinctive defense against totalitarian establishment’” (Rauvolf, 181). Here are several samples of Bondy’s lyrics as utilized by the Plastic People of the

Universe:

“Dvacet” “Twenty” Když je dnes člověku dvacet, Nowadays when a man is twenty chce se mu hnusem zvracet. He wants to vomit with disgust

Ale těm, co je čtyřicet, But those, who are forty je toho vyblít ještě více. It takes even more to puke

Jen ten, komu je šedesát, Only one who is sixty může jít se sklerózou klidně spát. Can peacefully go to sleep.

“NIKDO “ “NOBODY” Nikdo nikdo nikdo Nobody nobody nobody nikdy nikde nikam nowhere nobody nowhere se nedostal ever got

Snad já? Mabye me? takový vůl such an idiot přece jen nejsem but only I’m not

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Nikdo nikdo nikdo Nobody nobody nobody nikdy nikde nikam nowhere nobody nowhere se nedostal ever got

Snad já? Maybe me? takový vůl such an idiot přece jen nejsem but only I’m not

“SPOFA BLUES” “SPOFA BLUES” Co to dáme žaludku k práce What we give the stomach for work než usnu... before I sleep…

Amitriptilin Thioridazin Amitriptilin Thioridazin Dormogen Meprobamat Dormogen Meprobamat Nitrazepan Diazepan Nitrazepan Diazepan tři dvanáctky a tři rumy three of twelve and three rums Encephabol Lipovitan Encephabol Lipovitan v malé dávce je vždy vítán in a small dose is always welcome

Od půl osmé všechno beru By 7.30 I take everything na intervaly neseru I don’t shit in the meantime ale po půlnoci přeci but after midnight zpřeházím zas všechny věci I again jumble all things a beru teď now I’ll take it

Encephabol Lipovitan Encephabol Lipovitan tři dvanáctky a tři rumy three of twelve and three rums Nitrazepan Diazepan Nitrazepan Diazepan Dormogen Meprobamat Dormogen Meprobamat Amitriptilin Thioridazin Amitriptilin Thioridazin

Pak teprv do postele dorazím6 Only then to bed I arrive (Bondy)

In the poem “Dvacet” (“Twenty,”) Bondy is commenting on the fact that living under a totalitarian regime takes a devastating toll on its citizens. He highlights this fact by using language depicting bodily functions that is not normative in communist society. Thus, that which affects those in their twenties, and that

6 All lyrics by Egon Bondy. The translations are my own.

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makes them want to vomit with disgust, fades into insignificance by the time one reaches the age of forty. By the time one is sixty, it is possible to peacefully go to sleep, forgetting the absurdities of living in this manner, having had any sense of moral outrage simply ground out of you through attrition. As noted Czech author

Josef Škvorecký stated concerning his outlook on this phenomenon;

Zjevení, jehož se nám dostalo, je z rodu zjevení, jaká se přiházejí pouze v mladí; ještě než na duši udělá hroší kůže, protože se jí dotklo příliš mnoho dojmů. (Škvorecký, 11-12)

The revelation we experienced was one of those that can only come in one’s youth, before the soul has acquired a shell from being touched by too many sensations.”) (Polackova-Henley, 11)

The effect of living in a totalitarian reality is two-fold, and both ultimately work in favor of the regime. First, as time passes, the individual simply wears down under the constant pressure and repression of the state. Life becomes nothing more that a vehicle for avoiding any unnecessary entanglements with the authorities.

Keeping ones head down, and towing the party line in all facets of life becomes the sole method for living. Thus, only by becoming something of a non-person is one able to successfully navigate the totalitarian version of life, though this mode of life is anything but fulfilling. Secondly, this self-policing, reinforced during the period of normalizace, acts in favor of the regime and functions as evidence that the grinding nature of life in a totalitarian state gradually crushes any manner of individuality, dissention or creativity out of its citizens, thus rendering them docile and much easier to control. Simply being able to go to sleep peacefully

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outweighs any ideas concerning dissention, rebellion, or demand for change from an uncaring and unthinking regime.

“Nikdo” (“No One”) explores becoming a non-person to a deeper degree.

However, this poem incorporates a twist that makes it abundantly clear that the act of becoming “no one” is done explicitly as an act of dissention against the state. “Nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody nowhere ever got,” Bondy monotonously intones, before delivering the punch line: “Maybe me? Such an idiot, but I’m not.” Bondy is merely playing at being the fool. In reality he is rejecting traditional communist ideals, and instead, akin to Klíma, he is asserting the existence of his absolute will. Additionally, by referring to himself and his circumstances as a non-person, as merely an “idiot,” Bondy is removing any agency that the regime might have possessed regarding his artistic output, and indeed regarding the way the he chooses to live his life. In effect he is placing himself below the state’s contempt, and attempting to create a parallel polis. By refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the communist regime, Bondy is rendering it as an absurd and pointless entity. By depicting himself as a non- entity, he is acting and living in a subversive manner that is counterproductive in terms of the state’s goals for its citizens, and that ultimately serves as an assertion of the importance and necessity of his absolute will.

In “Spofa Blues,” Bondy utilizes the grotesque motif of extreme inebriation as a mechanism with which to escape the absurdity of a life lived under totalitarianism. The poem reads as a laundry list of intoxicants, consumed

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gleefully and willingly in an effort to remove the imbiber from the constructs of reality and instead place him in a liminal space in which he can truly find freedom by constructing an alternate reality. The overuse of inebriants in turn highlights

Bondy’s utilization of the grotesque to point out the inherent sense of un-reality encountered in living under such conditions. As Cynthia Simmons states: “Social liminality, whether it results from prescribed periods of exemption (carnival), altered states of consciousness, or mental “defect,” leads to and encourages liberties with language (as one aspect of behavior) that result in illogicality, inappropriateness, and incoherence – referred to here as aberrant discourse.”

(Simmons, 43) All of these elements are present in Bondy’s work, and particularly in “Spofa Blues.” He makes a mockery of the communist trope of “building communism” by asserting that by ingesting of all these substances he is giving his stomach “work.” Additionally, we see the return of the scatological in this poem, as Bondy states that imbibing these substances will constipate him.

However, for the author the constipation of the body is a welcome price to pay in order to liberate himself form the constipation of the mind that he suggests is the objective of the state. The grotesque imagery emphasizes the absurdity of the realities of living under a totalitarian regime. It is Bondy’s contention, gleaned from the lens of Klíma that the only rational response to the inherent irrationality of the totalitarian world is to act and live in an equally irrational manner that highlights and comments upon the irrationality of said world. Thus, a sort of closed loop of irrational behavior that detracts from the illogical, repressive

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workings of the state is set in motion and acts as an attempt to garner some sort of meaning, some sort of truth from life that diverges from the official communist party line.

Much like Aksyonov, Klíma and Bondy, employed the use of the grotesque in an effort to transcend the abhorrent reality of living under a totalitarian regime.

By focusing on the absurd nature of living in such conditions, these luminaries from the Czech lands were simultaneously able to stress the inherent meaninglessness of living in such a way, as well as to formulate ways for the individual to escape from the futile and irrational system that has been foisted upon them. By declaring that the individual has the right, the duty to assert his own will, and that this will is divine, Klíma put forth an avenue of thought that ran completely against the grain of normative social rhetoric. Bondy then utilized the tenets of the Czech philosopher as a springboard to chronicle and condemn the communist variant of society. The result is transcendent literature that engendered a generation to cope with the madness and the purposelessness of living in such circumstances. By utilizing the literary elements of the grotesque, by openly discussing bodily functions, inebriation as both a form of rebellion and escape, and by willfully pursuing the life of a non-person, Bondy, through the lens of Klíma, was simultaneously able to deliver a damning verdict on communist society, as well as offering a safety valve for disaffected citizens crushed by the weight of the state. The weight of these circumstances was to become much

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heavier for the citizens of Czechoslovakia following the events of Prague Spring and the Soviet led invasion to quell this democratically leaning “uprising.”

When the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague on August 20, 1968 much more than the hopes and dreams of reform-minded citizens and politicians of

Czechoslovakia were crushed beneath their wheels. The invasion had many far- reaching consequences in terms of overall Czechoslovak culture, including the repression of political and cultural reforms. These reforms had been organically engendered by intellectuals, students, the media and others and significantly, were supported by Czechoslovak Premier Dubček. Jan Pauer asserts:

The Prague Spring was a process with three aspects: a self-led reconfiguration and modernization of power structures, a social movement striving toward democratization and modernization of the country, and a movement for national emancipation in Slovakia. Far from being the product of a sudden international, economic, or political crisis, this experiment was the result of a cumulative process, preceded by a period of disillusionment among large numbers of the Communist elite concerning the nature of the Soviet Union and their own regime. Its relatively uniformed reform objectives, favorable economic terms, initial efforts at easing political tension between East and West, and most notably, system-changing rather than system-disrupting nature seemed to indicate favorable conditions for democratization and the loosening both of Czechoslovakia’s satellite status and of the rigid bloc formation in Europe. (Pauer, 166-167)

The musical and literary underground that had been percolating in Prague, as well as other cities across the country for some time, was decimated by the enforced rolling back of Dubček’s reforms. Under the auspices of Prague Spring the underground was beginning to poke its collective head above ground, yearning for a free space to engage in honest cultural production. The Czech underground literary and musical movement had much in common with the

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concurrent countercultural movements then taking place in North America and across Western Europe. The emergence of reform minded communism, in conjunction with a more Western oriented cultural movement was alarming to the

Soviets, who spared little time in invading their communist “little brother” in order to put an end to the reforms that made such movements possible, and to set

Czechoslovakia back onto the path of approved communist orthodoxy. The post-

1968 return to the normalization, sometimes defined as the “self-censorship and mutual control” (Bren, 29) of communist ideology and practice in Czechoslovakia led to the persecution of artists, writers, intellectuals and musicians, as well as ordinary citizens. The Czechoslovak intelligentsia and many others were forced to undergo state mandated “screenings” in order to remain in or return to “official society.” To not clear these screenings meant virtual professional oblivion for any musician, performer, writer, artist or indeed any member of the intelligentsia. In many instances well-educated professionals and members of the intelligentsia were relegated to menial, labor intensive positions, or imprisonment as a form a punishment for actively participating in Prague Spring, or otherwise vocalizing any form of dissent. Menial labor was to be the fate of future President of

Czechoslovakia, the noted playwright and political dissident, Václav Havel, who found himself rolling barrels in a brewery following the intervention of Warsaw

Pact led forces for his perceived transgressions against the rule of Soviet power.

Havel rather famously chronicled this time in his life in the play entitled Audience written in 1975.

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When contemplating any forms of culture in post-1968 Czechoslovakia it is important to keep in mind that dissent of any kind was met with the firm resistance of the regime. This government led repression was doubly true with regards to underground cultural production. Anything that did not hew rigidly to the party line received short shrift by the powers that be. When filtered through the lens of seemingly Western forms of music or discourse in general, the state of the cultural situation in Czechoslovakia comes into sharper relief. In the communist context, youth and the culture that surrounds it becomes a byword for general dissatisfaction that has the potential to manifest itself as political dissent.

This dissenting potential is especially true for those enthralled with music and other forms of culture that were influenced by the cultural and musical movements gaining prevalence in the U.S. and Western Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These movements were primarily in response to the continuing horrors of the Vietnam War, the burgeoning military industrial complex and the intensification of rampant consumer culture. Therefore, even though

Czechoslovak bands such as the Plastic People of the Universe were not inherently political per se, their adherence to these Western capitalist forms of musical and cultural representation raised a red flag to those unwilling or unable to distinguish the difference in the communist context. Adhering to Western forms of style as a means of dissent was a political strategy explicitly employed by Ivan

Martin Jirous, the intellectual guru, artistic director and manager of the Plastic

People. As Burton notes:

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Listening to their music and sporting the insignia of musical dissidence – jeans, T-shirts, long hair […] were theorized by Jirous and others as forms of “counter-socialization”, a means of nullifying ideological indoctrination by the regime. Drink and, when available, drugs also formed part of the potent oppositional culture, creating a musical version of the “parallel polis” imagined by the Chartist philosopher Václav Benda. (Burton, 133)

Therefore the very existence of such bands, or groups of like-minded young people within a communist society was perceived as a political statement that was not only unacceptable to the regime, but was also perceived as a threat to the legitimacy of the communist party as a whole. The effort to establish a

“parallel polis” that “[…] operated outside, and implicitly against, the established structures of the game […]” (Burton, 132) was an attempt by the Czech underground to reinstitute a public sphere in Czechoslovakian society. The idea of a parallel society that actively eschewed participation in the trappings of mainstream daily life was inherently at cross-purposes with the goals and mandates of the communist regime.

It is important to relate the fact that Czechoslovakia is unique in the

Eastern Bloc in terms of possessing a viable and vibrant underground cultural scene, regardless of the ever increasing repressive tactics of the regime (Bondy,

51). As Bondy goes on to relate:

The Czechoslovak underground of the 1970s and the 1980s was an important component of the unofficial culture and inside this context it comprised many elements of the counterculture. In comparison with other countries of the Eastern bloc, it has been much more artistically productive, from rock’n’roll to the visual arts. (Bondy, 51)

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The burgeoning underground scene that coincided with the more “official” reforms of Prague Spring supports Bondy’s contention. However, it must be noted that Czech literary and artistic underground culture stretches back at least to 1949, through various samizdat (self-publishing) projects (Bondy, 52). This contention is supported by the writers of the Půlnoc movement, who had been active since the 1950s, as well as writer Josef Škvorecký, whose first novel The

Cowards (1958,) chronicles the life of jazz loving youth in a small town in

Czechoslovakia at the end of World War II. The response of the regime to groups such as the Plastic People bears witness to the fact that they were perceived as a legitimate threat to entrenched power structures, and by extension to the legitimacy of the communist regime itself. The mantra of the post-1968 era in

Czechoslovakia concerning artistic production was made abundantly clear, especially to those, like the Plastic People that already existed on the fringes of society. This mantra stated explicitly “that one could not separate art from ideology” (Rudé právo). The Plastic People attempt to go “underground” in an effort to bypass the crackdown on “unofficial” culture was laudable, though ultimately doomed to failure. It was simply futile to try and distinguish art from ideology in the Czechoslovakian context and to even attempt it led to heightened repression, persecution and ultimately to trial for the adherents of the underground groups and many members of the intelligentsia that made up their circle.

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Paul Wilson is able to provide a unique perspective on the cultural situation for those in the underground in Czechoslovakia both before and after

Prague Spring. Wilson moved to Prague in 1967, as he puts it “to teach English and discover what Socialism was like in practice […]” (Wilson, 36). Eventually, he ended up meeting and befriending the Plastic People and in due course joined the band in 1970 (Wilson, 39). Thus he is able to provide a first hand account, both of the realities of life for an underground musical group operating under communist conditions, as well as to relate the tactics and overall repression perpetrated by the state against the Plastic People and others following the events of Prague Spring. Wilson states: “Contrary to what people imagine, the

Soviet invasion in August 1968 did not put a stop to things overnight. The momentum that was built up during Prague Spring carried over well into 1969, and what ultimately killed it were not Russian tanks, but Czech bureaucrats”

(Wilson, 36). Pauer supports this claim stating “When Alexander Dubček [...] was replaced in April 1969 by Gustáv Husák, who intensified the pro-Soviet party line, the August 1969 mass protests on the anniversary of the military occupation were no longer directed against the external aggressor but against the internal regime” (Pauer, 173). Pauer goes on to relate, “The defeat of the Prague Spring

[…] did not come about suddenly but, rather, little by little, with the most difficult part carried out by the reformers themselves (Pauer, 174). Taking advantage of the scattershot manner in which new restrictions were applied, the Plastic People of the Universe formed in the post-invasion period in late 1968 (Wilson, 36). And

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while he is not explicit that the Plastics formed in response to the crackdown resulting from Prague Spring, Wilson does indicate that the band hoped to continue the shared feeling that something was in the air, and that the dream of a reformed version of communism was still a viable option in Czechoslovakia.

However, any hopes for reformation were quickly dispelled shortly after Wilson himself joined the group in 1970. The obstacles put in place by the regime were difficult, if not impossible to overcome. Wilson explains:

By this time, as part of the general cultural purges going on across the country, the Plastics had lost their professional status and with it, their basic equipment, most of which had been loaned to them by the state-run booking agency […]. Without official status, it is impossible to get rehearsal space, and without rehearsal space, it is difficult to become good enough to satisfy the juries who sit in judgment over every musical act in the country. (Wilson, 39).

Wilson’s quote illustrates two points. Namely that initially in the post-1968 context a band like the Plastic People were still able to operate with nominal support from state institutions. However, it also points out that as normalization progressed, it was simply no longer possible to operate without official status. Consequently life became a Kafkaesque game of bureaucratic cat and mouse with the regime for many denizens of the Czech underground in the era of normalization.

Here is it important to reiterate that the process of normalization touched all facets of life within Czechoslovakia, from the workplace, to consumer options, to acceptable cultural expression. English playwright Tom Stoppard elucidates on the realities of life in normalization era Czechoslovakia for those deemed to have actively participated in Prague Spring:

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When Dubček fell in April 1969, the Husak regime undertook the vast process of “normalization,” whereby some 400,000 people where expelled from the Party, thrown out of their jobs, their children removed from secondary schools and universities, and so on. (Stoppard, 163)

And though the process of normalization took some time, this new political reality held equally true for those operating on the fringes of communist society as

Stoppard further elucidates:

Along with all this, from 1971, there was a “normalization” of the musicians as well: no more long hair, no more lyrics sung in English, no more Western decadence, no more high decibels, no pessimism, no junk; just good, clean, middle-of-the-road music. (Stoppard, 163)

The new political, social, and cultural reality in Czechoslovakia sounded a death knell for those operating outside of official culture; namely the directive from the regime became conform to state demands or perish as an artistic entity.

However, the Plastic People grasped a third option. Rather than compromising or quitting altogether, they decided to go “underground,” playing only at private parties and events staged and attended by close friends of the band, or else in small villages and towns outside of the watchful eyes of Prague’s security forces.

However, even with these precautions, the band still incurred the relentless wrath and persecution of the authorities (Stoppard, 163).

Nevertheless, it is equally worth relating the fact that in many cases the repression of the regime acted as a galvanizing factor, as yet another obstacle to be overcome in the pursuit of artistic expression and freedom. It is thus necessary, to relate the actions of the Plastics in Havelian terms. Without necessarily knowing it, the band was attempting “to live within the truth,” simply

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by performing music, and extolling a lifestyle that was out of favor with the regime, well before Havel had committed his ideas on the subject to paper in his seminal essay, “The Power of the Powerless” in 1985. Briefly stated, in this treatise Havel called on his fellow Czechoslovaks, through the allegory of the greengrocer, or everyman, to simply stop conforming to the demands of the regime by refusing to play the elaborate, state sponsored game of tacit complicity. Instead he counseled that the people should speak the truth and thereby live within the truth. As Vladimir Tismaneanu states, the Czechoslovaks should no longer let themselves be infected by the “moral numbness […] (that) is the most important ally of post-totalitarian power” (Tismaneanu, 139). This viewpoint touches on the vary topic that Bondy elaborates on in “Dvacet.” Havel himself acknowledged the role played by the Plastic People and other underground groups following the collapse of the Czechoslovak communist party in 1989:

Unknown young people who wanted no more than to be able to live within the truth, to play the music they enjoyed, to sing songs that were relevant to their lives, and to live freely in dignity and partnership […]. Everyone understood that an attack on the Czech musical underground was an attack on an elementary and important thing […] it was an attack on the very notion of ‘living within the truth’, on the real aims of life […]. Who could have foreseen that the prosecution of one or two obscure rock groups would have such far-reaching consequences? (Havel, 63-65)

The Plastics simply carried on, by whatever means necessary, practicing whenever and wherever they could and even building their own equipment

(Wilson, 39) in an effort to continue playing and to continue to “live within the truth.”

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As a result of continued underground activity, an endless procession of police surveillance, intervention and violence began to follow the Plastic People wherever and whenever they attempted to perform. The worst of these events came to be known as the “Budějovice massacre.” As Wilson describes in detail:

[…] the Plastics were asked to play at a concert near the city of České Budějovice in South Bohemia […]. By now rock concerts were so rare that news spread like a prairie fire, and hundreds of kids from all over the country converged on Budějovice […]. But before the Plastics had a chance to play, several busloads of police arrived, cancelled the event and then ordered everyone out of town. Masses of young people were herded into the Budějovice train station by cops and soldiers with dogs and riot gear, and were then driven though a tunnel leading under the tracks to the platforms. The tunnel was lined with truncheon-wielding goons, and a lot of blood was spilled and limbs broken. All those destined for Prague were crammed Nazi style into one end of a single passenger car and then, as the train rocked and rolled back to Prague, they were taken one by one into a compartment, photographed, interrogated briefly, and then sent to the other end of the car. At every station along the way, there were hoards of policemen making sure that no one escaped. In the end, six people were sent to prison and dozens were expelled from school. The Budějovice massacre was a well-coordinated paramilitary operation, the opening skirmish in a holy war against unconventional rock music that has been going on ever since. (Wilson, 43)

It is important to keep in mind that this calculated, militaristic, heavy-handed reaction is in response to nothing more than a rock concert. There was no overt political agenda on view, either from the band itself, or those in attendance. It was simply a gathering of youth that were not espousing the tenets of “official”

Czechoslovak culture. It must then be concluded that the very existence of a band like the Plastic People was read as a politically motivated provocation by the regime, as the levels of repression exhibited cannot rationally be interpreted otherwise.

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When viewed in this context, one cannot help but be reminded of the response of U.S. authorities in Chicago during the Democratic National

Convention in the tumultuous year of 1968. The tactics of the Chicago police in that instance, as well as the levels of violence displayed, are easily comparable.

However, this was an overtly political demonstration against U.S. policy and aggression in Vietnam and Laos, which was organized, and implemented specifically to draw a response from the government. The fact that the response of both regimes was one and the same was then exacerbated by the fact that the protests at the Democratic National Convention were broadcast live on national television, and the brutality of the police in Chicago was beamed into living rooms all over the United States, thereby making ordinary citizens aware of what was actually occurring. The Czechoslovak youth had no such luxury and had to rely on word of mouth or on illegal radio broadcasts from beyond the Iron Curtain in order to receive any sort of information. Aksyonov himself has equated the events unfolding in Prague and Chicago in 1968 and the relevance to the situation in the U.S.S.R.:

I remember the night in August 1968 when, two years early the sixties came to an abrupt end in the Soviet Union: Soviet troops had invaded Czechoslovakia. In the ensuing weeks I followed Pravda’s coverage of events in both Prague and Chicago. According to the Prague correspondent, “Soviet troops have learned to recognize counterrevolutionaries by their appearance: jeans, stringy hair, mustaches, and beards – such are the distinguishing features of the enemies of socialism.” His Chicago comrade, seething with the same righteous indignation, wrote: “Chicago police brutally club the demonstrators. Anyone in jeans, anyone with a beard or long hair is fair game, for such are the sole distinguishing factors of the ‘disturbers of the peace.’” Clearly even Pravda discerned certain common denominators

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between East and West in those fatal years…As I see it, both American and Soviet culture emerged from the 1950s with a feeling that it was time to give up the sedative, hide bound isolationism of McCarthyism and Stalinism. (Aksyonov, 196)

This is tangible evidence, from one of the most influential members of the “New

Wave” of Russian literature that subculturally motivated style in the United

States, the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia were all beginning to align in the post World War II context. This claim is supported with further evidence by an event that occurred in Czechoslovakia two years before Prague Spring. Bažant,

Bažantová, Starn relate:

In the 1960s American hippies found many followers among young Czechs who provoked the regime with their blue jeans and above all their long hair. In Prague, they liked to gather under the statue of Saint Václav at the upper end of the eponymous square. In autumn 1966, however, the police raided the Prague “beatniks”; they were beaten, their hair was shorn, and some of them were arrested. A special decree was issued forbidding anyone with long hair in public places. (Bažant, Bažantová, Starn, 342-344.)

It is important to note that this alignment was taking place in terms of underground cultural production, style and expression, and in terms of the ways in which the various governmental power structures responded to the challenges this cultural production, style and expression posed to their political legitimacy.

Additionally, by focusing intently on the style of the demonstrators as a marker of difference and dissidence, the Soviet troops and the Czechoslovak and Chicago police organizations also demonstrated the strength of impact that those who dress differently could have on mainstream societies and the power structures that support them. Dick Hebdige talks about the impact of style in the punk rock

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context on the mainstream of 1970s Great British society, and I will draw corollaries and expound upon this impact in a later chapter.

Following the Budějovice massacre, Wilson relates that things only became worse for the Plastic People, culminating in the mass arrest of the band, as well as several other prominent members of the underground in March 1976.

(Wilson, 35) The arrest and subsequent trial of the Plastic People was to play a significant role in the upcoming social and political upheavals that were to culminate in the collapse of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the coming decade. The first major act of political dissent following the arrest and trial of the Plastics was the formation of the action group known as Charter 77. As

Skilling states in his article about the connection between Charter 77 and the musical underground:

There is irony, and significance, in the fact that the initial stimulus for Charter 77 was provided during 1976 by the trials and convictions of […] the Plastic People of the Universe and their supporters for “disturbance of the peace.” They were accused of using obscenities in their songs, but in reality their “crime” was the adoption of their own stance toward life, which in its very independence constituted a challenge to the party. (Skilling, 1)

The arrest and trial ultimately “generated protests from members of the former intellectual elite of the country […] not known since 1968” (Skilling, 1). The protest of the trial in turn led to a coalition of previously disparate reform-mined factions and to the drafting of the proclamation that declared the intentions of the dissident group that came to be known as Charter 77 (Bren, 4). Significantly, and somewhat surprisingly, the regime allowed Havel to attend the trial of the Plastic

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People from which he produced an article simply called “The Trial” (Burton, 132).

Burton goes on to describe Havel’s observations:

The trial was in reality “an impassioned debate about the meaning of human existence, an urgent questioning of what one should expect from life,” questions embodied first in the music of the Plastics and similar groups and then posed by the support groups that came into being as the trial proceeded, “a very special, improvised community,” said Havel, “a community of people who were not only more considerate, communicative and trusting toward each other, they were in a strange way democratic. (Burton, 132)

Again, this is further evidence of the attempt of those in the Czech underground to reclaim a form of the public sphere. Jirous was singled out for special treatment by the authorities, but the regime miscalculated the impact that the persecution of the Plastics and Jirous would have on the public at large. We are told:

Jirous, not for the first or last time, was sentenced to several months’ imprisonment, the importance of the trial being, first, that it crystallized the alienation of tens of thousands of young people, previously “apolitical”, from the regime, and second, that is was the seedbed of Charter 77 that emerged the next year. All the Chartists agree: it was the trial of Jirous and the Plastics that was the catalyst, and the support groups formed in September 1976 that mutated in Charter 77 in January 1977. (Burton, 132)

The document that came to be known as Charter 77, drafted by members of the artist and intelligentsia communities and supported by all manner of members on the fringes of Czechoslovak society became the first sortie in a cultural and political battle that culminated in the “Velvet Revolution” in 1989. It is also no small coincidence that Havel, playwright, dissident and founding member

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of Charter 77, emerged from these ideological battles to become the first post- communist President in Czechoslovakia. Wilson goes on to recount the overwhelming effects that the arrests had on the underground community.

[…] my friend and I surveyed the devastation: twenty-seven people, most of them members of the Plastic People, DG 307, Umělá Hmota, and Hever & Vazelína, arrested; the Plastics’ amps, speakers and some instruments, most of it painstakingly constructed by hand over the past five years and shared out among the underground bands on a communal basis, seized: dozens of flats raided, ransacked and countless photos, tapes, samizdat texts and books confiscated; over a hundred people interrogated, it was the largest police action in the country since the early 70s… ((Wilson, 44)

The results of the mass arrest of the Prague musical underground would be categorically different than the fallout from the Budějovice massacre and “in an unexpected way, it changed the face of rock’n’roll in Czechoslovakia” (Wilson,

44). In fact one could say that the implications of the raid and arrest of the Plastic

People and other members of the Czech underground would have much more far-reaching consequences than Wilson posited, with the fallout eventually impacting the communist regime on a political as well as cultural level. Wilson relates:

The very next day, the Western press agencies in Prague picked up the story and sent it out […] Within twenty-four hours the news was beaming back into Czechoslovakia via the BBC, the Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe, which has an estimated three million listeners. Suddenly, the whole country knew about the Plastic People of the Universe… For thousands of disaffected and alienated young people in the country, it was the best advertisement the Plastics could have wished for. (Wilson, 44)

Much like the fallout in the U.S. from the broadcast of police brutality at the

Democratic National Convention, the Plastic People and the plight of the

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underground became front-page news, and suddenly the group was the talk of the country.

Nevertheless, the implications of the mass arrests had more far-reaching consequences, as Wilson states:

[…] the banned intellectual elite of Czechoslovakia – people who had been ousted from public life after the Soviet invasion – rallied to the defense of the underground bands. A group of intellectuals, including the playwright Václav Havel and the philosopher Jan Patočka, wrote an open letter to West German novelist Heinrich Böll appealing for support. A former member of Dubček’s politburo wrote an open letter to the leaders of Czechoslovakia, and so did a group of ex-lawyers and ex-judges, themselves all victims of political repression. (Wilson, 44)

The arrest of prominent members of the underground served to galvanize and mobilize the politically marginalized Czechoslovak intelligentsia, from all walks of life, be they above or underground. Wilson contends:

Inspired by the example of the musical underground, and by the energy and solidarity the trial had generated, Václav Havel [… ]and others went on to give shape to the human rights movement launched in January 1977. The result was Charter 77, a manifesto calling for the Czechoslovak regime to honor the commitments to human rights that it made by signing the Helsinki Agreements and the UN covenants. (Wilson, 45)

The trial of the Plastic People proved to be a watershed moment, as the communist regime unwittingly gave the new coalition of dissidents a platform that in the final analysis proved more sturdy and with more far-reaching consequences than the heady days of Prague Spring. As Tismaneanu maintains:

“The existence of Charter 77 was more important in Czechoslovakia’s “velvet revolution” than the reformist dreams of the former leaders of the Prague Spring”

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(Tismaneanu, 144). However, it should not be discounted that at this point in time there was still a long road ahead for those in the underground. The signatories of

Charter 77, Jirous and Wilson himself were constantly harassed and arrested by the police. Wilson eventually earned the distinction of being told by the police to leave the country in July of 1977 (Wilson, 45). The police also “encouraged”

Wilson to refrain from speaking out or helping the Plastic People once he returned to the West. Wilson relates a conversation between a member of the

Czechoslovak secret police and himself:

“Look, you’ll be leaving the country in a few days. When you get to the West, we don’t want you doing anything – you know – to help the Plastics. Know what I mean?” “When I get to the West, I’ll be outside your jurisdiction.” “Is your wife going with you?” “She hasn’t got her papers yet.” “But I take it you want to see her again […]. Call it blackmail if you want […] but you’d better believe me.” (Wilson, 45-46)

Wilson was then unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road, well outside the city limits of Prague, and made to walk home in the middle of the night.

Shortly thereafter he left Czechoslovakia and returned to the West. (Wilson, 46)

Jirous himself has written extensively on underground musical and literary culture in Czechoslovakia, both before and after Prague Spring. In his article

“Report on the Third Czech Musical Revival,” Jirous holds forth on a number of topics relating to the underground music scene of Prague in the 1970s, or what he terms “the third Czech musical revival, a period that began in [the] early

1970s, most probably about 1973” (Jirous, 10). On reading Jirous’s article it

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becomes readily apparent that the author is something of an idealistic firebrand, that eschews all Western capitalist norms in terms of motivation for artistic creation or notions of success, financial or otherwise. Wilson describes his appearance; “Jirous was a bright, energetic and very determined young man […].

He came to Prague […] hung around the nascent rock scene, grew his curly chestnut hair long, and wrote inflammatory articles” (Wilson, 37). In his writing the determination of Jirous and the incendiary aspects of his thinking come across quite noticeably. The former art historian also had the forethought to link the literary underground with the musical underground at this important juncture, stating:

One cannot speak about the underground literature in the Czech lands without reference to the environment from which it began to spread. Underground rock music, particularly the music of the Plastic People, formed the nucleus of the expanding underground community from which literature emerged only subsequently. (Jirous, 62)

Jirous is commenting on the emerging coalition of once disparate groups of

Prague intellectuals, musicians and literary figures. Simply stated a community outside of and dismissive of Czech societal norms in general and normalization in particular was beginning to percolate. The spark that was needed to bring them out into the open was provided by the regime itself in arresting the Plastics and other members of the underground. Jirous states: “Until the trial in 1976, the underground itself led a relatively separate existence. Its medium, the rock music of the Plastic People […] and other groups, created in the surrounding avowedly hostile world a spiritual enclave […]“ (Jirous, 66). Though the coming together of

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like-minded individuals signaled a sea-change, in the years to come things would get worse before they got better. Again, Jirous states: “Persecution of the underground did not end with the trial in 1976. Police pressure on the underground never ceased to exist because virtually everyone who professed to be a member of the underground had signed Charter 77” (Jirous, 67). He goes on to state that the period of the worst repression occurred in 1980-1981, which in turn found many activists from the underground in jail or forced into emigration

(Jirous, 67-68). By 1985 the underground had recovered against all odds and those who had not been forced into emigration, engendered by the spark provided by the repressiveness of the regime, refused to emigrate or otherwise desist from their political or cultural activities (Jirous, 68).

Underground culture in Czechoslovakia occupies a unique place in time and space, both in relation to other countries of the Eastern bloc, and in terms of the influence that it ultimately wielded in the fate of communism in the country.

The repressive tactics of the Czechoslovak regime after Prague Spring and the

Soviet invasion eventually had the reverse effect of what was intended, galvanizing the once disparate groups of activists, dissidents, students and intellectuals into a force that ultimately helped to foster the Velvet Revolution. As

Tismaneanu states:

With the benefit of hindsight, activities like those of […] Charter 77 appear strategically coherent and historically effective. They led to extraordinary transformations in [society] and created the embryo of the counterpower that was to replace the crumbling communist regime during the 1989 upheaval. For in its strategy, the civil society rejects the communist party’s

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claim to a leading role and aims to promote genuine pluralism. (Tismaneanu, 145)

In his book Uncivil Society, historian Stephen Kotkin downplays the role played by civil society, including groups like Charter 77, in the upheavals that spread throughout the Eastern Bloc in 1989. In his discussion of various Eastern Bloc countries including Czechoslovakia, Kotkin elaborates on the idea that it was in fact the communist establishment itself, in conjunction with Gorbachev’s reforms of glasnost and perestroika, and not the result of popular movements that ultimately decided the fate of communism in Eastern Europe. He argues that by their very nature, communist regimes lacked any form of civil society, and thereby characterizes the communist party elite as an “uncivil society.” The communist elite was fundamentally unable to respond to the rampant economic, social and cultural problems that became increasingly exacerbated during late communism (Kotkin, 15). And while there may be some validity to Kotkin’s contentions, I think it is rather rash to completely discount the role that the Plastic

People and Charter 77 played in the political and cultural discourse in

Czechoslovakia. As discussed above, those involved in the movement and many scholars who have looked at the situation all tend to agree that Charter 77 and the Czechoslovak underground did play an active role in helping the bring about the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

The trial of the Plastics and other members of the underground in 1976 acted as a catalyst that brought these groups together and additionally gave them a national and international platform. The politicization of the underground

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music and literary scenes in Czechoslovakia ended up playing a role in the history of the country, helping to bring Václav Havel to national prominence, which eventually led to his being elected President in 1989. As Havel states in

“The Power of the Powerless” regarding the greengrocer who decides to refuse to put up the sign in his shop window mandated by the state:

By breaking the rules of the game, he has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system…[B]y his action, the greengrocer has addressed the world. He has enabled everyone to peer behind the curtain. He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth” (Havel, 56).

The Plastic People, Jirous, Bondy, Škvorecký and other members of the intelligentsia decided to “live within the truth.” They did so not as an overt political statement, but simply because they wanted to play the kind of music that they liked, write the kind of literature they liked, engage in the kind of conversations they liked. By doing so the intelligentsia broke the illusion of power, and in the process, opened many people’s eyes to the political and cultural repression inherent in communist regimes. Additionally, they helped to pave the way for

Havel to assume the role of president in post-communist Czechoslovakia.

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Chapter 6: Politicization, Cooptation, Commodification, and Repression of

Underground Cultural Production in the Capitalist and Communist Systems

Youth, underground and countercultures, and the way they are perceived by entrenched political, financial and social structures have played a significant role in shaping discourse in the 20th century on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Be they situated in the U.S.S.R., the U.S., or Czechoslovakia, youth, underground and subcultural movements function as an alterative for members of society marginalized, disenfranchised or disaffected by the hegemonic forces that dominate and shape mainstream discourse. Underground cultural movements bring together like-minded individuals interested in reassessing or reshaping the human experience in a way that falls outside of the parameters of mainstream culture. They are looking for a means of expression that is not determined by profit margins or tainted by political agendas. In effect these like-minded individuals are carving out their own versions of the public and private spheres that contrast with mainstream society by their very existence. Consolidation of power and retention of control are the ultimate goals of political systems both capitalist and communist. Therefore, by juxtaposing youth and underground cultures in the capitalist West and the communist East and the art, music, and literature that they produce with the reaction to them by the respective regimes in which they take place, a picture begins to emerge that helps to facilitate a greater understanding concerning why these youth and underground culture movements spring into being in the first place.

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For all intents and purpose, the writings of the Beat Generation were reactionary in nature, and were intended to challenge the hegemonic, top-down tendencies of the status quo in the U.S., which was increasingly focusing on consumerism and unchallenging forms of cultural production. In the Soviet variant, the writers of the “New Wave” of Russian literature movement took advantage of the more liberalized policies of the Thaw to produce literature that did not strictly adhere to the tenets of Socialist Realism. These writers followed on from the stilyagi movement, in attempting to create new forms of expression that spoke to their generation. For the Czechs, the situation was somewhat different. In many ways they were caught in the middle culturally, just as they were caught in the middle geographically in the overall context of the European continent. Consequently, the Plastic People of the Universe and other purveyors of underground culture were both reactionary and reactive to political fluctuations.

Additionally understanding the motives behind underground cultures aids in elucidating why they are coopted, commoditized, repressed or normalized by the powers that be. The impact and the ramifications of the stilyagi movement, the

Beat Generation, and the experience of the Plastic People and the Půlnoc Edice played a significant role in shaping the discourse of the 20th century and the way that underground culture is viewed from above and below. Furthermore, it is important to consider the role that market and political forces played in the eventual cooptation, commodification, outright suppression or normalization of these subcultural movements. In the communist contest, these control

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mechanisms made underground artistic production difficult to access or simply more palatable to the conservative status quo, and thus subservient to the political system. In the capitalist variant these control mechanisms allowed entrenched corporations to profit from the implementation of these new youth- oriented consumer markets.

In both the capitalist West and the communist East many who hold the reigns of power view underground cultures with suspicion. In the Western variant, corporate and political entities look to co-opt and commoditize any burgeoning youth or underground cultural sect with the dual purpose of disassociating the movement from its founders, thereby lessening the overall cultural impact, as well as opening up untapped revenue streams for major corporations. Regarding jazz in the United States, political economist Jacques Attali refers to this process as

“A music of revolt transformed into a repetitive commodity. An explosion of youth

– a hint of economic crisis in the middle of the great postwar economic boom – rapidly domesticated into consumption” (Attali, 103). In the communist context the traditional model consists of complete and utter repression, or the suppressive process known as “normalization.” Any form of artistic or cultural production that is not solely concerned with representing the state in a favorable light is expressly forbidden and ruthlessly targeted. As the jazz era progressed in the Soviet Union, the Komsomol eventually resorted to a more tried and tested

Western model of repression. Aksyonov spoke about a combination of these oppressive techniques, that is particularly Soviet in its style of execution, stating:

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In the early days outraged Komsomol volunteers would start fights wherever jazz was played, but in time their leaders realized they would do better to co-opt it. They even took to sponsoring jazz concerts of their own – on the condition that the musicians steered clear of American songs and developed a purely Russian jazz. (Aksyonov, 203)

If the Soviet authorities could not eradicate the jazz movement, they would simply coopt it and steer it in a direction that was more palatable to mainstream society in terms of tempo, rhythm, volume and subject matter. S. Frederick Starr elaborates on the methods employed by the Komsomol, designed to both gain control over the agency of the jazz movement and to ride the coattails of the burgeoning subculture to cultural legitimacy among the adherents of jazz:

The organization chose a two-pronged attack. On one side, it staunchly supported the campaigns against delinquency, helping to organize vigilante squads (druzhinniki) to patrol the streets; it also came down hard on anything resembling political dissent. On the other, it pursued a more positive program by seeking to accommodate those writers and jazz musicians who were articulating the yearnings of the rising generation. Komsomol established its own jazz cafés, nightclubs where young Soviet men and women could revel in their private worlds under benign official auspices. Jazz, in short, was to be coopted. (Starr, 268)

Thus the culture surrounding jazz was to be stringently controlled, stripped of its political and cultural ramifications and agency, and censored by the state in an effort to sanitize the overall effect on the young people of the Soviet Union. The result was middle of the road cultural production stripped of any form of agency, social relevance or power.

The middle of the road nature of the original format of Soviet jazz was obviously and necessarily enforced by the state itself. Jazz musicians were subject to a stringent process to ensure that their musical repertoire adhered to

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the expectations of the Soviet regime. This practice was not unlike the normalization process in Czechoslovakia. Starr recounts the Soviet variant in detail:

Every musician and group wishing to enter the system first had to be certified and graded by the local Office of Musical Ensembles (OMA), an offshoot of the Union of Soviet Composers. The two-tiered rankings […] distinguish sharply between those groups authorized to play for restaurants and dances and those qualified to perform in concert. Jazz bands, quite at home in both milieus, are usually restricted to restaurants. This crippling limitation embodies the Russians’ time-honoured bias in favor of high culture […]. The bias is also reflected in the performance test which each individual must pass to be admitted to the system. Sight reading and classical technique are stressed, while the ability to improvise is considered of no consequence […]. (Starr, 265)

Thus the parameters by which Soviet musicians were allowed to operate were solely dictated by the regime, an entity that was often at cultural and political cross-purposes with the musicians themselves. The process of vetting musical production along stylistic (i.e. Western or bourgeoisie) parameters established an uneven playing field designed from the beginning to benefit the state and to punish purveyors of culture that were deemed to fall afoul of government mandated norms for musical composition and production. The fact that the admission process focused on the more technical aspects of musicianship such as sight-reading and aspects of proper technique rather than the skill of improvisation is very revealing in this context. In official circles, improvisation was thought of merely as Western decadence and as such had no place in state- sanctioned Soviet culture. It is important to keep in mind that without official vetting and acceptance into the state controlled musical unions of the Soviet

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Union, it was impossible for musicians to perform for the public at large. Starr goes on the elaborate on the gauntlet that Soviet musicians had to traverse if they were to be allowed entrance into the Union of Soviet Composers:

As if these impediments to the aspiring jazz musician are not enough, the variety agencies and offices of musical ensembles continue to exercise strict control over jazz band repertoires through the notorious repertory commissions (Repertkom) and the artistic councils (Khudozhestvennye sovety). Before a new band is certified for performance, it must present itself for an audition and also submit a list of the tunes it proposes to play. Since all official patronage is withheld from groups failing the audition, self- censorship becomes the better part of valor […]. (Starr, 265-266)

Through this two-pronged system of official certification and enforced repertory audition, the Soviet authorities were able to hamstring any form of the production of Soviet jazz that did not adhere to official doctrine. Thus, forms of jazz such as the Western influenced bop and hard bop varieties were excluded from approval by the repertory committees. Additionally, by implementing this form of self- censorship, they were able to further remove any form of agency from Soviet musicians. The result normalized safe forms of cultural production that would not offend the average citizen of the U.S.S.R. This restricted form of cultural production, which did little to challenge official rhetoric proved to be the hallmark of the Soviet era.

Attali has discussed the reasoning behind controlling the production of music from regimes both capitalist and communist. He states that theorists of totalitarianism

[…] have all explained, indistinctly, that it is necessary to ban subversive noise because it betokens demands for cultural autonomy, support for

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differences or marginality: a concern for maintaining tonalism, the primacy of melody, a distrust of new languages, codes or instruments, a refusal of the abnormal – these characteristics are common to all regimes of that nature. They are direct translations of the political importance of cultural repression and noise control. (Attali, 7)

Simply stated, music (noise) that is not indigenous to the Soviet Union and the

Soviet cultural perspective carries nothing but subversive elements that must be ruthlessly eradicated by the authorities. This form of control simultaneously reinforces traditional notions of patriotic and communist art forms and allows entrenched power structures to control cultural production as well as the official meaning of cultural production on a nationwide level. This thinking irrevocably links outside forms of cultural expression with Western liberalizing forces advocating for social autonomy that under no circumstances could be allowed to flourish in the Soviet context. In effect it criminalizes exposure to or production of non-traditional forms of artistic production. Such control mechanisms were not limited to the Soviets and Attali goes on to categorize the Western variant of this phenomenon:

The economic and political dynamics of the industrialized societies living under parliamentary democracy also lead power to invest art, and to invest in art, without necessarily theorizing its control, as is done under dictatorship. Everywhere we look, the monopolization of the broadcast of messages, the control of noise, and the institutionalization of the silence of others assure the durability of power. Here, this channelization takes on a new, less violent, and more subtle form: laws of the political economy take the place of censorship laws. Music and the musician essentially become either objects of consumption like everything else, recuperators of subversion, or meaningless noise. (Attali, 8)

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Essentially Western governments exercise control through capitalist notions of consumerism and the overreliance of consumerist principles that govern society in much of the West. The practice of control holds supreme across all forms of cultural production and leads to the same stagnant notions of middle-of-roadism as its Soviet counterpart. The main difference between the capitalist and communist systems is the existence of the free-market in the capitalist countries that allows the possibility for underground cultural production to find its own corner of the market. As mentioned above, the possibility of exploitation becomes an issue for underground cultural production when mainstream market forces inevitably become aware of such unconventional markets and attempt, often successfully, to exploit them. The phenomenon of the exploitation of underground or unexplored markets has happened countless times under the tutelage of capitalism. The Western model of cooptation and commoditization has indeed proven to be a subtler and kinder form of cultural and societal control that has been much more effective that its Soviet equivalent over time.

As stated previously, the Soviet Union possessed a exciting and lively underground youth subcultural movement that dates back to the mid-to-late

1940s, which mirrors the ascent of the bop variant of jazz. Much to the chagrin of the Komsomol, KGB, and even Josef Stalin himself, Western modes of dress, music, and culture (or approximations thereof) were able to successfully and continuously infiltrate the U.S.S.R. following the Great Patriotic War. In the Soviet context at this time, the subcultural phenomenon was centered on jazz music and

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its attendant culture. For a small section of disaffected Soviet youth, jazz and the freedom, independence, and style that it personified became a central mode of expression that sparked the first legitimate subculture in the Soviet Union. Thus, the stilyagi movement was born. These adherents of style dressed in outlandish

Western fashions, which was wholly inappropriate and reviled in the Soviet context. This movement was met with outright repression at every turn, from the state itself and from ordinary members of Soviet society. We are told that stilyagi

“[b]oys could be found wearing zoot suits or fitted pants and shirts, flashy ties and shoes with thick soles that were originally worn by Russian factory workers.

The girls wore fifties-American inspired dresses, pant suits and high hairstyles, often accompanied by bright red lips…” (Oosterhoff). The stilyagi movement began to gather pace in earnest in the wake of the death of Stalin in 1953. For many it seemed as if a sort of renaissance was occurring in the Soviet Union as personified by the relative cultural relaxation following the advent of the Thaw. In many ways the bop era of jazz and the stilyagi movement acted as safety valves on Soviet society in much the same way as Carnivals did in medieval Europe.

Jazz and the cultural world surrounding it allowed people to imagine themselves subsumed in an alternate reality, inviting its proponents to forget, if just for awhile, the daily drudgeries of life in a totalitarian regime. The youth of Soviet

Russia felt that the availability of this recent form of expression was hard won by their forebears during the sacrifice and privation endured during the Second

World War. As a result, a new kind of cultural determinism was instilled in the

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stilyagi. This broadening of acceptable cultural expression was not something that Soviet youth were prepared to give up lightly or without a struggle, regardless of any amount of persecution or ridicule from the majority of Soviet society.

In the post World War II context, jazz adherents in the U.S.S.R. were becoming disaffected with the now tame sounding and state approved style of jazz known as “swing.” The cultural origins of swing stem from the 1930s and represent a more danceable and less musically challenging form of jazz. Instead the stilyagi began to embrace new musical rhythms, such as the emergent Bop scene from the United States. Starr explains:

The deliberate step away from the more socially acceptable swing music of the

1930s to the more hard edged bop variant pioneered in the 1940s helped to alienate the stilyagi and other true jazz enthusiasts in the U.S.S.R. Additionally, by embracing the bop variant of jazz, the stilyagi were further aligning themselves with their subcultural brethren in the U.S. By doing so, they painted a political target on their collective backs that was to be exploited by the Soviet authorities.

Concerning the developing synchronicity in the thinking and actions of the Beats and the stilyagi Starr relates:

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By zeroing in on the new Bop music, Soviet stiliagi discovered exactly what the American Beat writers found, namely the private and uniquely modern ecstasy of social alienation and inner ‘freedom’ and that […] the jazz subculture of the USSR […] turned away from the larger public. (Starr, 243)

It must be noted that this Soviet subculture was a relatively small phenomenon, primarily focused on style and music. The stilyagi themselves were not producers of culture, but rather were recreating what they thought were Western modes of cultural expression. Despite the relatively small ranks of the stilyagi, Stalin himself was aware of the movement and took the typical steps of totalitarian regimes to eradicate it through the usual channels of repression, namely the apparatus of state security, the education system and the media. As Volkov recounts:

Teachers, obeying orders, tried to quell this and other enthusiasms for ‘American fashion’ by what means they could, including expulsion from college, which could ruin a person’s permanent record forever. Along with the media campaign against the stilyagi (they were denounced in films, radio, and newspapers and mocked in nasty cartoons in satirical magazines), this created tension among young people. (Volkov, 176-177)

Thus the state implemented the two-pronged strategy of reinforcing conformity, and sowing division amongst Soviet youth as a mechanism by which to remove the agency behind the stilyagi movement. In effect Soviet youth were compelled to censor the expression of their peers if it did not adhere to traditional communist norms. This form of repression is not unlike the mechanism of normalization applied in Czechoslovakia following Prague Spring in 1968.

In the wake of Khrushchev’s secret speech in 1953, and with the initial stirrings of the Thaw, artists behind the Iron Curtain were able to focus on the

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future, on building a new, more inclusive and less repressive form of society. The need for more inclusive forms of expression is apparent in much of the artistic production and rhetoric that was beginning to surface in the late 1950s and early

1960s. Aksyonov and other members of the “New Wave” of Russian literature were becoming fixated on the future and in creating new avenues of expression in an attempt to change Soviet society from the inside. This type of artistic production, and the notion of searching for a new kind of truth, irrespective of societal or political concerns, mirrors and expounds upon the work of the Beat movement in literature in the U.S., through such authors as Kerouac, Ginsburg, and Burroughs. As a result of the 6th, Moscow World, Festival of Youth and

Students in 1957 and the American Exhibition at Sokolniki in 1958, restrictions on youth and youth culture began to be loosened. Young Soviets were allowed to freely associate with foreigners during the Festival, which allowed for the free exchange of ideas regarding music, art, poetry and prose amongst other pursuits.

Additionally, the rules regarding the censorship of cultural production in the

U.S.S.R. were beginning to be loosened. After these groundbreaking cultural events life marginally improved for the stilyagi and they were able to exist without the constant fear of arrest, or of other societal and political reprisals. In the eyes of many hardline communists, Khrushchev had over-stepped the mark in his attempt to liberalize Soviet culture and repair some of the damage done during the Stalin era. This overstepping on Khrushchev’s part inevitably led to a rolling back of many of the liberties granted during de-Stalinization. The return to a more

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hardline form of communism hit the artistic and cultural worlds hard and

Aksyonov palpably describes this process in The Burn. The ouster of Khrushchev by the more traditionally conservative wing of the CPSU shortly after these rollbacks in 1964 ushered in the much more conservative Leonid Brezhnev, and a period of stultifying stagnation began in which cultural regression again became the norm.

Moving forward, it is important to note the reemergence of the stilyagi during perestroika in the mid-to-late 1980s. This recurrence signaled the shifting political sands of a new type of Thaw under Gorbachev, that came to be known by the twin policies of перестройка (perestroika, or re-structuring,) and

гласность (glasnost, or openness.) However, in the modern context, the stilyagi took on many different forms. For example, many new members of the musical underground adopted the fashion of the original stilyagi, while others choose to incorporate other Western fashions, such as those of the Teddy Boy movement in Great Britain in the 1950s. As Richard Hume states:

From 1979 a new phenomenon appeared – a group openly calling themselves Teddy Boys, in Leningrad. In 1982 they formed their own club, ‘the Leningrad Teddy Boys Club,’ based in the centre of the city…The Teddy Boys Club was very knowledgeable [about] Western youth culture and was instrumental in giving information and advice to the rockabilly rebels of that period, on such things as correct style of dress [and] authentic music […] Unlike in the UK, youth identities were much more fluid. By the mid-1980s these Teds, who were still very much a part of the Stilyagi culture, had adopted other styles such as punk, rockabilly [and] new wave […]. (Hume)

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Thus in the Soviet context, the stilyagi can be understood as precursors to the much more culturally impactful punk movement. Hume goes on to state, “[t]he

Stilyagi played an important part in the development of Russian youth culture. In the 1980s their numbers markedly increased […]”, (Hume). The stilyagi of the

1980s did not face the same problems and harsh conditions as their predecessors in the 1950s and 1960s. There were no Komsomol detachments combing the streets looking for stilyagi to humiliate publicly, nor where they subjected to persecution from ordinary members of society. The fact that this no longer occurred in the 1980s suggests that attitudes towards youth and youth culture were softening in the Soviet context. Naturally this relaxing continued following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that the stilyagi fulfilled many of the same roles that other emergent

Western youth countercultures did in the postwar context. The main difference in this equation deals with commodity driven market forces, which necessarily didn’t exist in the communist context to nearly the same extent as in the West. It can be argued that the stilyagi movement was more honest in this regard, as it was normal and necessary for them to produce their own clothing and musical recordings from existing materials. Profit was simply not a motivation for the majority of members of the stilyagi, nor was fame the goal for many. In constructing their own forms of media as an expression of their own lifeworld, the stilyagi in effect developed a do-it-yourself, or DIY ethic that was to be become the norm in the coming punk and hardcore punk eras. In effect, the stilyagi laid

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the groundwork for future generations of disaffected Soviet youth and the continuation of Soviet youth and underground cultures.

In many ways the cultural and political landscape in the United States following the end of World War II mirrored the situation in the U.S.S.R. and

Czechoslovakia. Typical life in the U.S. was extremely conformist in nature. The return to a more American specific worldview was a reflection of the political climate, which was strongly in favor of a return to prewar isolationist policies following the slaughter of World War II. Rampant consumerism became a byword for prosperity in the U.S. and this narrative was reinforced by the mass media.

Factories that had been churning war materiel for the Allied cause now began to manufacture consumer goods at unprecedented levels. Additionally, nationalist tendencies began to play an ever-increasing role in political and cultural discourse in the United States. Furthermore, state enforced conformity was brought about in no small part by fears stoked by the apparent advancement of worldwide communism. As Yamasaki contends:

The inclination to conform was also a by-product of the Cold War. As the “iron curtain” descended on Europe in the late 1940s and China “fell” to the Communists in 1949, American leaders began to portray the Cold War as a holy struggle between the “free world” and the Soviet bloc [….]. Senator Joseph McCarthy, the United States House of Representatives’ Committee on Unamerican Activities (HUAC) and numerous loyalty boards sought to expose communist infiltrators and disloyal Americans […]. A mood of fear and suspicion descended on America. (Yamasaki, 186-187)

This paranoiac mood was further amplified by the trial, conviction and eventual execution in 1953 of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the

Soviet Union. The distrustful atmosphere, stoked in no small measure by Senator

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Joseph McCarthy, that had seized the nation led to the politicization of just about everything in the U.S. context. And of course, cultural forms were not to go unnoticed in these highly polarizing times. As Oliver Harris states:

The Rosenberg case was one of a series of national and highly public trials stamped by the paranoid style of American politics, a style that responded to global stalemate by waging domestic war on enemies within. This was a total conflict fought on microscopic scale and through inflated symbolic dramas, so that the early Cold War years were marked by an unprecedented politicization of culture and by the political conscription of private life in the name of national security. The key to political containment abroad was, then, personal self-containment at home, and the Cold War penetration of the private by the public was as much a matter of patriotic self-policing and voluntary self-censorship as of a panoptic state surveillance. (Harris, 171-172)

This notion of self-policing and self-censorship conjures striking parallels with the reality of life behind the Iron Curtain, as Soviet jazz musician can readily attest to.

Indeed all citizens of the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia have been subjected to this form of repression since the communist takeovers in their respective countries.

The infiltration of the political into the cultural was taken by the members of the Beat Generation as the first shots in a coming culture war. In the Cold War era, mainstream cultural production became a byword for introducing and reinforcing norms regarding the proper form of life in the U.S. Any form of cultural production that failed to exhibit these norms was political suspect in the eyes of governmental institutions, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The work of the Beats functioned as an earnest form of rebellion against the hegemonic forces in the United States, and so-called American family values. They were

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rebelling against the narrowing of the chronotope in the U.S. and were attempting to forge new paths of expression in the darkening political, social and cultural reality. The aims and intentions of the Beat Generation and their writings were earnest in nature, and while it is true that they were not overtly political in tone, the writing was reactionary and anti-establishment in manner and nature. Peters relates that “the beats had no programmatic politics and rejected institutional forms of protest, declining party memberships and sect affiliations altogether”

(Peters, 209). However, by their actions, these young writers and poets were exercising the option of turning the personal political, refusing to play the state maintained game as it were. In effect, the Beats were seeking to carve out a place for themselves and their lifestyles among the staid and oppressive reality of postwar life in the U.S. As Allan Johnston relates, “The writings of [the] Beats show a […] need to understand a system that they felt made oppressive demands for conformity” (Johnston, 116). Additionally, they were reacting aggressively against the blatant, and to many, immoral commercialization and commoditization of virtually everything in U.S. society. Johnston elaborates on this commercialization stating it:

[…] involved a desire to escape from socioeconomic conditions that the Beats felt subordinated the person to a world of consumer objects, while also suggesting a broader critique of sociocultural developments that were generating an increasingly totalitarian, commodity-driven world. In the eyes of the Beats, the society they faced was massifying and de- individualizing, while the state, the workplace, the media, and consumer culture appeared to be operating in tandem to require ‘conformity’ at all times and in all places. (Johnston, 107)

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This assessment of U.S. society is shockingly in line with the views of many of the Soviet and Eastern Bloc dissidents concerning the direction and policies of their respective governments. In rebelling against this state imposed conformity, the writers of the Beat Generation were attempting to reimpose a sense of belonging and community into a system that nominally focused on the individual. In effect, the Beats were attempting to apply the notion of American exceptionalism, not to the individual, but to a new form of community. Rejecting required conformity was a call to arms to all like-minded individuals to band together to create a society that was more open, more receptive to new ideas and less concerned with unfettered consumerism. It is also important to keep in mind that in the political context, nomenclature plays an important role. This is demonstrated in the very name of the Beats themselves, or, more precisely the name they were given and by which they came to be more commonly known:

Beatniks. As Peter Tamony relates:

Beatnik is a blend concocted by Herb Caen, columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle. Sputnik had blasted off in October, 1957. The Slavic – nik had been surfacing in Al Capp’s comic strips for several years: nogoodnik, McNooknik, Liddle Noodnik. On May 4, 1958, Caen noted: ‘Novelist Jack ‘On the Road’ Kerouac, the voice of the Beatniks’ […] (Tamony, 277).

Speaking to this same phenomenon, Peters goes on to add “Caen coined the term ‘beatnik’ after the 1957 launch of the Russian satellite Sputnik, conferring on the writers just a hint of anti-Americanism” (Peters, 209). Indeed, this appellation further tainted the Beat Generation in the eyes of authorities as it explicitly linked the Beats with the communist, and in particular, the Soviet world. The term acted

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as tangible evidence that the members of this movement were engaging in un-

American, subversive behavior that could negatively impact the youth of the

United States, by making communism appear alluring, rebellious and romantic.

For authorities, it was a short leap to utilize the writings of the Beats to demonstrate that they were in effect, rejecting all things American.

The Beats attempt to forge a new form of expression that called for a more open society was made all the more difficult when San Francisco authorities arrested poet and bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti for the dissemination of obscene material. The material in question was Ginsberg’s Howl and Other

Poems and the location of the offense was the City Lights bookstore (Black, 27).

In his article on the arrest and the trial that followed, Joel E. Black states:

In late May 1957, Officers Russell Woods and Thomas Page of the Juvenile Division of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) entered City Lights Bookstore to purchase a copy of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems. They arrested Shigeyoshi Murao, an employee of the store who was its only occupant at the time, for distributing obscene material. Howl publisher and City Lights owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti surrendered to police a couple days later […]. Shortly thereafter, a trial date was set at the San Francisco District Court […] (Black, 27.)

The trial of Ferlinghetti shone a bright spotlight on the world of the Beats and reinforced the notion that the writers, publishers and participants of underground cultures were perpetually in danger of being made examples of in the Cold War and McCarthyist contexts. This fact was true on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Eventually, Ferlinghetti, and by extension Howl and Other Poems were exonerated from all charges, much to the chagrin of the existent power structures of the United States. As Black relates, “In the end, conservative politicians and

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journalists were troubled to find that Howl was not illicit but protected, expression”

(Black, 30). The impact of the Beat Generation was to reverberate to other like- minded movements, such as the “New Wave” of Russian literature and the members of the Czechoslovak underground. Perhaps, more importantly, these reverberations were to coalesce under the tutelage of future generations, most notable the underground cultural movements of the 1960s and the punk movement of the 1970s. As Johnston contends:

The Beat rejection of consumerist aspirations and the existing economic order helped open the way for a critical perspective on modernity that still influences those who feel alienated from the dominant culture. The frankness and honesty of this critique goes a long way toward explaining why Beat writing continues to resonate with those who react against our era of globalized marketing and encroaching environmental holocaust. (Johnston, 122)

When viewed in this context, the writings of the Beat Generation and the legacy they left behind acted as a guide map to future generations of disaffected youth.

Their rejection of the consumerist and conformist objectives of the state placed them in a liminal position within society in the U.S. For some, the Beats existed to inject some much-needed life into the Great American Experiment. For others they were the harbinger of the encroachment of a vulgar, secular, communist and distinctly un-American form of expression that had no place in the United States.

This reality is borne out by the persecution that the writers of the Beat Generation faced from local, state and federal levels. The attempt to label the Beats as subversive reveals the extent to which the authorities were willing to go to suppress cultural production that did not champion and reinforce the hegemonic

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views of entrenched power structures.

An interesting picture begins to emerge when the Western capitalist response to the counterculture phenomenon is juxtaposed with the communist

Czechoslovak context regarding the communist regime’s repressive response to underground literary and musical movements. The heavy-handed response to cultural production that falls outside of the dictates of official communist doctrine proves especially so in the case of the previously mentioned psychedelic musical group, the Plastic People of the Universe, formed following the events of Prague

Spring in 1968. By analyzing this case we are able to gain a greater insight into state driven, coercive tactics, in this instance from a totalitarian perspective. Ivan

Jirous, the manager of the Plastic People, had an outlook on the production and presentation of culture that was determinedly non-Western in tone. Many might find this surprising, considering the amount of time he spent in communist jails.

To reiterate this point I cite Jirous at length:

It is a sad and frequent phenomenon in the West, in the early 1960s, the idea of the underground was theoretically formulated and established as a movement, that some of those who gained recognition and fame in the underground came into contact with official culture (for our purposes, we call it the first culture), which enthusiastically accepted them and swallowed them up as it accepts and swallows up new cars, new fashions or anything else. In Bohemia, the situation is essentially different, and far better than in the West, because we live in an atmosphere of absolute agreement: the first culture doesn’t want us and we don’t want anything to do with the first culture. This eliminated a temptation that for everyone, even the strongest artist, is the seed of destruction: the desire for recognition, success […] and […] the material security which follows. (Jirous, 30-31)

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Jirous states in no uncertain terms that Western capitalist notions of fame, material profit, and official recognition had no place in the artistic production of the Plastic People. This antagonistic rant regarding cultural production in the capitalist West, and its inevitable cooptation and commodification by the system, which served to diffuse any potential political unrest, brings forth many questions that theorists of popular culture in the West, including members of the Frankfurt

School and Dick Hebdige, have been grappling with for decades.

In his work Subculture: The Meaning of Style, distinguished English academician Dick Hebdige analyzes various working-class musical youth cultures, from mods and rockers to skinheads and punks, through the lens of

Marxist dialectics and semiotics among others. He also deals with the general issue of deviance in terms of style in an attempt to better understand the overall nature of a national ideology and its effects on society. These subcultures essentially constitute a form of alternative society, with its own signifiers, codes, fashion and music that operates outside of and in some cases, in open defiance of mainstream society. Hebdige discusses the fact that in many cases these subcultures simply refuse to accept the place that mainstream culture is insisting that it occupy. The result is that after initial shock and dismay by the general population at the actions, appearance and cultural production of these fringe groups, the mainstream simply coopts and commoditizes these outlying cultures in an effort to control and ultimately profit from them. Some of these subcultures are able to resist pressure and persecution from the mainstream, but only for a

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short time, before succumbing to the dominant ideology. Therefore through marketing, the existent corporate structures simply takes over original ideas, repackages them to a certain degree, and sales them back to the general population in a format that is more palatable and therefore less dangerous to the hegemonic forces of mainstream society. Thus originality, dissent, disaffection and the like become nothing more than a product to be bought, sold and ultimately subsumed by the prevailing ideology.

Hebdige goes on to build on the later Marxist notion of hegemony, which is defined as “a class alliance by means of which one, leading [hegemonic] class assumes a position of leadership over other classes, in return guaranteeing them certain benefits, so as to be able to secure public political power over society as a whole” (Hegemony). Antonio Gramsci developed this theory, and Hebdige uses it to relate how the powers that be in the United Kingdom quickly coopted, corporatized, absorbed, and repackaged punk culture into “New Wave” in the late

1970s, thereby making it less powerful in terms of political potency, while simultaneously making it more palatable to the status quo and, thereby, more lucrative for the established recording industry. According to Gramsci’s application of the term, hegemony “provides the most adequate account of how dominance is sustained in advanced capitalist societies” (Hebdige, 15). Hebdige goes on to relate this theory to the notion of underground youth subcultures stating: “[…] the challenge to hegemony which subcultures represent is not issued directly by them. Rather it is expressed obliquely in style” (Hebdige, 17).

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However, over time this style, usually non-conformist and confrontational in nature, is coopted by hegemonic (i.e. market) forces, which then attempt to

“recuperate” the offenders, in an effort to rehabilitate or “normalize” potential political or social unrest. Hebdige goes on to state:

The process of recuperation takes two characteristic forms: (1) the conversion of subcultural signs (dress, music, etc.) into mass- produced objects (i.e. the commodity form); (2) the ‘labelling’ and re-definition of deviant behaviour by dominant groups – the police, the media, the judiciary (i.e. the ideological form). (Hebdige, 94)

When placed in the context of normalization era Czechoslovakia, these theories take on new and different meanings. As Jirous has stated, the goals of the underground Czech bands of this time did not necessarily include popularity, financial success, or even official recognition. Jirous goes on to say:

In the West many people who, because of their mentality, would perhaps belong among our friends, live in confusion. Here the lines of demarcation have been drawn clearly once and for all. Nothing that we do can possibly please the representatives of official culture because it cannot be used to create the impression that everything is in order. For things are not in order. (Jirous, 31)

With the added factor of a top-down repressive political ideology looking to subdue and oppress, rather than subvert and coopt, the Gramscian notion of cultural hegemony, takes on a different, and more sinister connotation. The

Plastics and other members of the underground were certainly in no danger of having their music coopted and commoditized by the state. Indeed the screening process that the band had to endure during the implementation of government enforced normalization following Prague Spring was meant to engender their

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demise and to ultimately silence all underground groups once and for all.

However, their Western-oriented style, that is to say their choice to appropriate the look of the Western (i.e., U.S.) “hippie” lifestyle in terms of fashion, hair length, musical orientation, and freedom of expression was in danger of being coopted, or in this case of being equally appropriated and influencing other

Czechoslovak youth. In terms of cultural relevance, and in terms of growing a popular movement uninterested or unfriendly to the entrenched power structures, this style and what it represents cannot be overestimated. Therefore, the Czech authorities felt that they had no option other than to resort to outright repression in order to stifle the gathering movement, instead of implementing the subtler capitalist model of cooptation in an effort to mitigate any actual threat to mainstream social and political structures.

Hebdige’s notion of the “recuperation” of potential political and social malcontents in Western cultures is easily translatable to the official Czechoslovak policy of normalization, but again in a different form than that which occurred in the capitalist context. The commodity form of recuperation isn’t necessarily overtly applicable to the situation in Czechoslovakia due to the lack of open markets, however, the ideological form certainly played a role, albeit with suppression and not subversion in mind. Thus members of the underground or those that played an active role in Prague Spring were labeled by the state as undesirable and were purged from Czechoslovak society, losing jobs, university placements, and any chance for advancement through official channels.

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Additionally, the expression of style by which practitioners of underground culture chose to represent themselves made them easily identifiable by state authorities.

Essentially, anyone that stood out in the monochrome reality of daily life in the totalitarian context was vulnerable. The re-definition component of Hebdige’s recuperation theory comes into play only if those labeled as undesirable repented and repudiated their former “transgressive behavior” in an effort to curry favor with the state and to thereby be allowed to re-enter mainstream Czechoslovak society and return to work, university, and so forth. However, it is worth stressing that the goal of recuperation in Czechoslovakia was not to control through assimilation, but to break the will of those deemed subversive and to control through domination and repression. Thus, in 1970 the state implemented so- called screenings to test the political engagement of Czechoslovak citizens

(Bren, 44). As a consequence those involved in Prague Spring literally had to sing for their supper. Paulina Bren describes the situation in The Greengrocer and His TV, stating that political engagement and correctness became the main requirement of employment in normalization era Czechoslovakia. The return to a hardline form of policing and punishing acceptable forms of political engagement was alarming to those working, or hoping to work in the arts or in the media, as this now meant that they would be scrutinized in both the public and private spheres. Additionally they would have to disavow any previous reformist convictions, as well as adopt and toe the official party line with enthusiasm (Bren,

52-53). It is important to remember that this was the state of affairs for all who

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hoped to engage in official cultural production. Those involved in the underground would simply be denied a license to perform, as was the case with the Plastic

People early on in the screening process (Bren, 53). Those who that did recant, toe the line, and re-enter official culture suffered a loss of integrity amongst peers and colleagues. In the end, the blatant and continuous repression implemented by the regime simply did not work. The Western capitalist model of subversion and cooption, as put forth by Hebdige and others, has proven much more effective as a control mechanism against political unrest and protest than the overt force and repression employed by communist regimes. By placing such significance on the Plastic People and by resorting to outright repressive tactics, the Czechoslovak regime inadvertently added weight and significance to the underground movement, and unintentionally fostered the subsequent coming together of the various dissident groups that would help to precipitate the anti- communist Velvet Revolution in 1989.

The perception that the mainstream music industry coopts and commodifies burgeoning youth subcultures into something more palatable and profitable for mainstream public consumption is beyond doubt. There are many examples of this phenomenon, including, but not limited to, the repackaging of punk into so-called “New Wave,” or “New Romantic:” urban house music transforming into family friendly disco, or potent Riot Grrrl movement of the 1990s morphing into the fairly innocuous “girl power” of the Spice Girls. As George

Berger recounts in his book about seminal British anarcho-punk band Crass,

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“The music industry was […] doing what it has always done best: taking a movement, watering down its essence and repackaging it for public consumption in a way that kept the accoutrements and readily identifiable ephemera whilst surgically removing the spirit” (Berger, 4). This comment could easily have been written about jazz, or any other musical form that sits outside the purview of mainstream U.S., Soviet or Czechoslovak culture. By reducing underground movements to nothing more than “accouterments” authorities were able to simultaneously eliminate cultural and musical spontaneity and agency, as well as to remove any sort of individuality that members of these movements were expressing. Essentially they normalized and commoditized style, in effect creating a uniform that future adherents would conform to in an effort to belong.

As a result underground cultures became less about innovation and more about conformity. This in turn led the originators to drop out of movements as the lack of authenticity present inherently detracted from the vibrancy of the original reasons for being involved in the first place. Moreover, this example of infiltration and corruption, seemingly from within the movements, shines light on the fact that the capitalist model of coopting underground cultural production has been active and effective for a very long time. Berger goes on to discuss the fact that these tactics were inconsequential for those legitimately and authentically engaging in the punk scene that were operating without profit as the sole motivator. Additionally, he links the punk movement to the underground movements that preceded it. He states: “Because, like the great post-war youth

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movements before it – beatniks, teds, mods, hippies etc – punk gave the individual a route to personal liberation and self-discovery; a place for outsiders, romantics, lovers of outrage, people who sought a life less ordinary” (Berger, 5).

Unfortunately, for all but the most ardent of believers, cooptation and commodification severely limited the impact and authenticity of the original punk movement. Nevertheless it is necessary, to draw a line from the Beat Generation in the U.S. to the Russian shestidesiatniki and stilyagi to the Czech writers of

Půlnoc Edice and the Plastic People of the Universe to the transnational punk movement in an effort to connect the cultural output of these various movements into a larger context regarding the nature of 20th century existence. Perhaps the ultimate takeaway from these underground cultural movements is that even in the wake of the various repressive techniques with which they were subjected to, new movements come along and pick up where the others had left off. The

Russian anti-Putin collective, Pussy Riot is a particularly relevant 21st century example of this fact. The repressive actions of these various regimes may have been effective in the short term, but in the long term these underground movements have left road maps for future generations to follow. These roadmaps exist to this day in the form of books, records, film and fashion that in many cases have outlasted the regimes that sought to exploit, suppress or eliminate them altogether. As repressed Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov so famously expressed, «рукописи не горят» (“manuscripts don’t burn”) (Bulgakov, 245).

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The role of underground artistic creation in the modern context in turn brings up an interesting question that necessitates a brief discussion of the

Situationist International (SI) and their theories concerning politics, cultural production, and life in the 20th century in general. Many of the components of the original punk movement were themselves coopted from the Situationist

International, particularly the work of the Sex Pistols and their erstwhile manager,

Malcolm McLaren. By way of introduction to the SI we are told:

The Situationist International (1957–1972) was a relatively small yet influential Paris-based group that had its origins in the avant-garde artistic tradition. The situationists are best known for their radical political theory and their influence on the May 1968 student and worker revolts in France. (Matthews)

Again, the year 1968 plays a prominent role in the interpretation of underground movements. The Situationist International was responsible for many theories pertaining to the navigation of life in the modern world, including notions concerning the politics of boredom, alienation, separation and militantism, among others. As Greil Marcus states:

Their project was to expose the emptiness of everyday life in the modern world and to make the link between desire and idea real. They meant to make that link so real it would be acted upon by almost everyone, since in the modern world, in the affluent capitalist West, and the bureaucratic state-capitalist East, the split between desire and idea was part of almost everyone’s life. (Marcus, 14)

The Situationists went on to argue, “that the alienation which in the 19th century was rooted in production had, in the 20th century, become rooted in consumption.

Consumption had come to define happiness and to suppress all other

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possibilities of freedom and selfhood” (Marcus, 14). When contemplated in this context it is the twin Situationist concepts of recuperation and detournement

(rerouting; hijacking; appropriation) that we are most interested in when attempting to evaluate underground subcultures. According to the Situationists:

Recuperation is the channeling of social revolt in a way that perpetuates capitalism. To understand recuperation is to understand how working class struggles are kept under control and how working class demands become integrated into capital’s strategy. To understand recuperation is to understand that it is a central function of the media and of modern unions. Punk rock culture being sold in boutique stores is an instance of recuperation. Of course, it is the inability of punk rock culture to effectively challenge anything that opens it up so completely to recuperation […]. Detournement is something like the opposite of recuperation. It is the appropriation of images or ideas and the changing of their intended meaning in a way that challenges the dominant culture. A good example of this is the detourned comics that the situationists popularized, in which revolutionary ideas and slogans are substituted for what the comic characters are supposed to be saying. (Matthews)

These provisos then, are pertinent to any discussion concerning punk rock, or any subculture for that matter, as well as their attendant cultures. First of all, by utilizing these Situationist terms, McLaren and the Pistols were able to coalesce their actions with a much-respected form of social critique. The well-respected pronouncements of the SI within existent underground communities necessarily added an alluring level of cache to the already exciting prospect of the music and rebellion that they were pursuing. The resourceful McLaren saw the use of these manifestoes as a legitimizing force amongst the cognoscenti of the British art and music worlds. These methods also added to the overall befuddlement of mainstream society in navigating the message put forth by the group and their

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devotees. It seems that the idea of recuperation regarding punk rock and other subcultures is both rather apparent and straightforward. It is no major revelation that markets across all platforms are universally interested in exploiting new avenues of revenue. Conversely, this discussion becomes interesting when the idea is put forth that the mainstream music industry actively engages in the

Situationist concept of detournement themselves. However in this case it is used against the proponents of these emerging subcultures. Again, unsurprisingly, this market driven manipulation is done in an effort to open up and exploit these new revenue streams. When one applies the notion of detournement to the record industry’s repackaging of punk into “new wave,” or the simple regression of the complex tenets of the Riot Grrrl movement into the reductive slogan “girl power,” a sinister image emerges. By engaging in this activity, the mainstream music industry is removing the agency, vibrancy and any potential long-term potency of these movements. In doing so, they are reducing the message and content of these movements into nothing more than empty slogans that can be employed to sell t-shirts, lunch boxes, and myriad other ephemera to an unsuspecting, uninformed, and often uncaring consumer public. The utilization of detournement by the mainstream culture industry is the antithesis of the Situationist’s comics.

Under this model, everything produced is, by definition, nothing more than a commodity to be bought and sold, with no regard whatsoever to artistic meaning, authenticity, or agency. Through this reductive marketing tactic, any thoughts or expressions in the artistic community concerned with the admittedly complex

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concepts of authenticity or artistic purity is rendered null and void. And, as we have seen, the effect of this practice has indeed achieved its purpose.

Underground music scenes, from Jazz, to Psych to Punk, to Grunge, to Riot

Grrrl, to Third Coast Hip Hop have been rendered less authentic and more profitable by the machinations of record corporations and other market forces looking to exploit rather than to nurture compelling artistic production that strives to push forward the human experience.

The youth, underground and subculture movements that emerged in the post World War II context in the Soviet Union, the United States and

Czechoslovakia, share many important similarities. All of these movements were concerned with a form of expression that could aid and abet in the navigation of the modern world. Whether responding to the newfound possibilities opening up after World War II in the U.S.S.R., the return to hardline communism in post-

Prague Spring Czechoslovakia, or reacting against the very structure and lack of opportunity in American society, the stilyagi, the Czech underground and the

Beat Generation were attempting to forge a path for themselves that disregarded societal norms. Though initially unaware of the existence of the other, the similarities between these three disparate groups are very interesting to contemplate. All utilized the Situationist concept of detournement in appropriating and exploiting existing cultural materials, both in terms of fashion and music, in an effort to create something new, exciting and tangible in a youth context. These groups existed outside of, and in reaction to more traditional conservative

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communist and working-class ideals. All were despised or misunderstood by the dominant power structures of their respective countries and were therefore marginalized politically, as well as societally as a result. In the Soviet and

Czechoslovak contexts, the respective regimes utilized the typically totalitarian tactic of outright repression or normalization in an effort to nullify these countercultural movements. This approach simply did not work. Humans are, by nature, curious animals, so repression tends to achieve the opposite of the desired effect. Repression, instead, inadvertently added cultural significance to these rather small movements. Cooptation and commoditization in the capitalist

West was rather more successful. The original punk movement was able to comprehensively utilize many of the same components as its underground cultural precursors in its emergence from underground culture. This ability was exacerbated by the fact that many punks had the educational nous to take their machinations a step further, and thereby were able to incorporate a sophisticated understanding of art and art history into the movement that the working class was not traditionally exposed to.

One specific example is a concept espoused by the Situationist

International, detournement. This well-respected concept added an intellectual component to punk that was heretofore absent from earlier youth subcultures.

The Situationist notion of recuperation broadened the scope and scale of the punk movement’s impact, in turn causing reverberations on popular culture that can still be felt to this day. Ultimately, the mainstream record industry employed

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the very notion of detournement against punk culture itself. The hijacking by the mainstream culture industry of the SI concept detournement had the effect of diluting the overall impact of the punk movement, while simultaneously opening up new revenue streams to be exploited. Once conventional market forces took advantage of that previously mentioned natural human curiosity, the punk movement was coopted and commoditized on an unprecedented scale. Here then is presented the lasting legacy concerning the political ramifications of underground youth movements in both the capitalist and communist contexts: that of dilution, cooptation, commodification, normalization, and repression. Any sense of authentic meaning was relentlessly stripped from underground cultural movements, with control by the entrenched power structures being the ultimate goal.

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Chapter 7: Conclusions, Forecasts, and Moving Forward

The postwar years in the United States, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet

Union consisted of a tumultuous coming of age for writers, musicians and artists of all stripes, to actively enter into a meaningful form of dialogue with the hegemonic forces of their respective societies. Mainstream examples of culture and society in the U.S. in the post World War II depicted a social reality that simply did not exist for many people, and that left much to be desired across all levels of the existing social order. Under the surface of the Leave it to Beaver’s,

Pat Boone’s, and other state approved social and political media, a vibrant, expressive and significant underground movement was just waiting to burst forth in an effort to shake the nuclear families of the U.S. out of their comfortable, isolationist malaise. The same could be said of the postwar years in the U.S.S.R., as culture and artistic expression progressed considerably after the death of

Stalin in 1953, engendered by the on-again, off-again nature of the

Khrushchevian Thaw. As a consequence of the advance into Germany during

World War II, many Soviet soldiers caught an unforgettable glimpse of life in

Western Europe. Despite the fact that Germany was war-ravaged and on the brink of total collapse by this time, Soviet soldiers were exposed to a standard of living that was beyond their comprehension in terms of wealth, infrastructure and abundance. In Czechoslovakia, the cultural and political situation ebbed and flowed following the Second World War, with the Soviet model of cultural repression holding sway subsequent to the communist take over in 1948. A brief

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period of respite came into being that culminated in Prague Spring, leading to the implementation of normalizace, which attempted to crush the spirit of the

Czechoslovak citizenry, and bring them back in line politically, culturally and socially with their Soviet taskmasters.

However, the world was being to open up and Soviet soldiers returning from the conquest of Berlin were exposed to modes of culture, art, music and literature that were, up to this point in time, expressly forbidden to them. These new found freedoms were something that they would not be able forget or forego, despite the best attempts of the Soviet authorities. Soviet soldiers brought home artifacts from their exploits in Western Europe, including literature, art and music, which would become a major factor in shaping and influencing the coming stilyagi movement. More important than these artifacts, however was the fact that the returning Soviet soldiers brought back Western influenced ideas with them. The

Soviet authorities, at the behest of Stalin, did everything in their power to suppress these ideas, up to and including shipping returning soldiers off to

Gulags in Siberia due to the sheer fact that they had been exposed to Western, capitalist modes of life, culture and expression. However, this did little to dissuade the returning soldiers and Western capitalist notions of music, art and culture in general continued to take root and flourish, influencing the next generation in the process. This influence was especially prevalent among Soviet youth. Similar forms of expression were simultaneously coming to bear in

Czechoslovakia, as was manifested by the cultural production of the Půlnoc

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edice movement and the work of Egon Bondy, which was to have a profound effect on the musical production of the Plastic People of the Universe. Due to the fact of geography, it was much more difficult for the communist Czechoslovak authorities to limit the exposure of its citizens to Western cultural production through the medium of radio. Many adherents of Western music were easily able to tune in to such stations as the BBC, and Radio Free Europe amongst others.

Records albums from the capitalist West were also available to those who knew how to find them, in the black or secondary markets.

The horrors of World War II had instilled a newfound passion for life, divergent from the dominant aims of hegemonic forces on both sides of the increasingly politically divided world. For those involved in underground cultural movements, sloganeering, petty ideology and the hollow promise of a better life in the future had an empty ring to them. This fact is borne out by the lust for life that authors and characters from the Russian “New Wave,” Beat Generation and

Czech underground movements projected and personified. The sentiment was felt across all levels of American, Czech and Soviet society, and even

Khrushchev himself was briefly caught up in the headiness of the times after he ascended to power following the death of Stalin. However, after a short time, the relatively liberal era of de-Stalinization gave way to a return to a more traditional, hardline stance regarding the production of art and culture in the U.S.S.R. in general. The regression and restoration of traditional, Soviet societal norms led to a crackdown on the arts and a return to antagonistic methods and imprisonment

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for those not willing to kowtow to the official party line. Something akin to this occurred in the United States as well, as was personified by the return to prewar isolationist policies, the advent of McCarthyism, and the stultifying nature of mainstream art and entertainment. And while Starr characterizes the Soviet hostilities against jazz as “the purge that failed” (Starr, 157), it is important to keep in mind that the fate of many Soviet jazzmen and adherents of the stilyagi lifestyle mirrored the situation for cultural dissenters in the time of Stalin. As

Škvorecký relates:

Essentially they are all tragic lives […] (that) range from death in the Gulag to the frustrated cynicism of old pioneers who have had too many ups and downs, or have made too many degrading compromises not to feel exhausted, and often disgusted, even disgusted with themselves. (Škvorecký, 107)

Again, this stance is reiterated by the protagonist in Bondy’s lyrics for the Plastic

People song entitled “Dvacet.”

The political reality of living under a totalitarian regime affected virtually everyone not connected in someway to those placed in a position of power within the government. People from all political, social and artistic walks of life in the communist context were forced to make concessions and choices against their better nature or interests in an effort to survive under such circumstances. Those that attempted to transcend these realities, or to circumvent them entirely, often paid a terrible price. And though it is true that for the most part the situation for those living in the United States was not as dire in terms of consequences as their counterparts living under communism, it is important to keep in mind that

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authorities in the U.S. kept a close watch on those involved in underground cultures, looking to identify, exploit and root them out at every turn. The Director of the FBI at this time, J. Edgar Hoover had to be much more subtle about his methods of persecutions than his Soviet and Czech counterparts. However, it is now known that he kept extensive files on members of groups that he deemed to be suspicious or without general merit to the American way of life. Hoover would harass and cajole those he unilaterally labeled as “subversives,” branding them as homosexuals, communists and drug addicts, in an effort to subvert the message these artists and musicians were attempting to express. Hoover was largely successful in this regard, and through his efforts and influence in particular, and the FBI’s in general, most citizens of mainstream society in the

U.S. simply ignored, abhorred or detested the Beat Generation and jazz music in general. The disdain for underground cultural production in the U.S. context was to continue into the future, as is evidenced by the hostile reception that punk, post-punk, heavy metal and hip-hop, amongst other forms of underground cultural production, have since received by the dominant power structures in the suburban U.S.

In many ways, the political, social and artistic realities produced by the

Cold War and its consequences acted as a catalyst for the musical, literary and cultural explosion that occurred on both sides of the Iron Curtain. It has been well documented that during times of political uncertainty and unrest, artistic urges come to the fore, often in the form of protest or dissent, and this is

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quintessentially the case with respect to the Russian “New Wave” movement, the

Czech underground and the Beat Generation in the U.S. Living under the specter of complete and utter nuclear annihilation provided a vehicle for a new form of artistic freedom and expression that would be difficult, if not impossible to replicate during more stable, peaceful times. Throughout history other cultural movements have also acted out in protest against repressive or exclusive regimes. These include the anti-Vietnam movements of the 1960s, the punk rock movement of the 1970s and the hardcore punk movement of the 1980s. And importantly, a form of all three of these underground cultural movements existed in all three of the chronotopic locales under discussion. All of these cultural movements were reactionary and anti-establishment in nature, and were directly responding to a specific set of topical grievances, be they political, economical or cultural. The music and culture, which surrounded these actions, played a significant role in the trajectory of the respective movements. Additionally, they all portrayed and personified an inherent dissatisfaction with the mainstream societies of their respective chronotopes, and all that these hegemonic forces represented.

When taken at face value the Czech underground, Beat Generation in the

U.S. and Russian “New Wave” of literature movements were populist in nature.

They grew organically through a mutual disillusionment with the overall state of the world, and all of these underground movements shared an inherent belief that ordinary people and artists alike can and should affect and direct the order of

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things. It could be said that a collective and incessant wind of change was blowing in each scenario that acted as a catalyst for change that strove for increased communication and understanding. One of the central and crucial strengths generated by the underground cultural movements under discussion is also a central and crucial attribute of all forms of art in general. Those involved were able to launch multi-platform critiques against those in power that had the potential to influence and organize people across all walks of life. Music, art, film, literature and fashion all united to form a coherent, meaningful and powerful subcultures that were able to effectively communicate the aims and goals of its adherents. The other deciding factor that more current forms of underground movements have in common with each other is the influence passed on to them by the Beat, Czech and “New Wave” movements. These early adopters of underground culture constructed a blueprint proving that it was possible to stand up against repressive and stagnating regimes, often in a non-violent manner, in an effort to push an alternative perspective on life and culture that ran counter to the aims of dominant power structures.

The members of the Beat, Czech underground and “New Wave” movements managed to effectively chronicle the varying stages of a burgeoning artistic movement. Though they hailed from diverse cultural and political realities, and were effectively situated half a world a way from each other, many of the strategies and methods employed by these movements, as well as the conclusions arrived at are strikingly similar in nature. The unique combination of

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literature, music, fashion, lifestyle and sense of community existed in all three cultural scenarios and acted in blatant disregard for the respective regimes under which they labored. The fact that all of these movements managed to achieve such parity, initially completely independently of each other, is a testament to the overall accuracy of their endeavors. It also acts as compelling evidence that the parameters of artistic expression were undergoing rapid changes in the postwar world. In the Soviet Union, the chronotope was expanding and political ideology and the tenets of Socialist Realism no longer held sway over the most creative and important artists, or the people that they purported to represent. Through the herculean Soviet exploits in World War II and the attendant horrors contained therein, the old modes of cultural expression were simply no longer a valid form of communication for many. The same conditions can be said to have existed in the postwar reality of the United States. Too many had seen too much, and the staid and isolationist tendencies of mainstream society, exemplified by the narrowing chronotope in the U.S. at this time simply did not offer enough for young people who fundamentally disagreed with the inherent sensibilities of dominant society. Writers, musicians and artists on both sides of the Iron Curtain were able to tap into a new means of searching for a more universal form of truth and consequently expose the sins of their respective countries in a new and thoughtful manner. Ginsberg’s “Howl” acted as a catalyst for this newfound expression in the U.S. context, and in conjunction with the work of Kerouac and

Burroughs, amongst others, was able to forge a new identity for cultural

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expression in the U.S. Conversely, Aksyonov, Voznesensky and other luminaries of the Russian “New Wave” were able to achieve the same goals in the Soviet

Union almost simultaneously. The Czechoslovak writers of Půlnoc edice, Bondy and the Plastic People were also operating under similar conditions and reached similar conclusions regarding the role of cultural production in a repressive political and social context. When all three of these movements are considered in totality, it is of little wonder that these respective movements made such an impact on the literary and cultural world stage. Many in the world were desperate for cultural expression that ran counter to the existing cultural realities of the postwar world and the Beat Generation, the Czech underground and the Russian

“New Wave” movements were able to respond to this newfound need, in an urgent and relevant manner that functioned inclusively, rather that exclusively.

And while ultimately these movements may share many differences, it is the many similarities, which are worth analyzing as a means to provide insight into a much more culturally diverse and interesting phenomenon that ultimately came to span the globe. In many ways these three movements acted as a mirror image of each other. They were able to arrive at similar conclusions from widely divergent starting places in terms of politics, culture and the overall structure of their respective societies in general. However, perhaps the similar conclusions arrived at should not come as so much of a surprise. According to Aksyonov, there has always been an unique affinity between Russians and Americans. As

Pilkington relates:

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The peculiar relationship to ‘things American’ among young people in the former Soviet Union is interesting in itself. As Aksenov rightly notes there is a long-standing cultural notion that somehow Americans and Russians are ‘very similar’. Thus, he argues, even at the height of the cold war there were many fans of America in the highest echelons of government whilst at the mass level pro-Americanism was based on association of the word ‘America’ with the appearance of American military vehicles as well as food during the famines of the war. (Pilkington, 292)

The affinity between Russians and Americans relates to cultural production as well, such as mutual attraction to the hard-bop variant of jazz. Importantly,

Aksyonov’s conclusions regarding the cultural relationship between the two superpowers also support the notion of the convergence of the Soviet and

American chronotopes following the Second World War.

Existent public spheres and chronotopes played a significant role in the formation, goals and forms of cultural production of these respective underground movements. It is important to keep in mind that the world was much larger in terms of scope and accessibility at the time in question. Modern technologies, that we now take for granted, simply did not exist. As a consequence, much more effort, strategy and simple luck was required for an artist’s work to reach a truly international audience. It is significant that these seemingly divergent movements, and others like them, utilized forms of art across multiple platforms in an effort to arrive at more coherent and universally sound conclusions.

Members of the Beats, the Czech underground, and the Russian “New Wave” embraced music, literature and fashion, to construct a parallel polis that existed and flourished outside the parameters of mainstream society. And, while at the

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beginning, these movements were unaware of each other on a large scale, the mutual influence of intertexuality in also important to consider. Intertexuality, or the borrowing, transformation and influence of existent texts, be they literary, musical, filmic or style orientated, helped to inform and push the cultural production of these respective movements in new and interesting directions. Due to the communal nature of these movements, the respective members were able to feed off of and expand upon each other’s achievements, both in terms of style, content and intent. As a result, the creativity and output of the respective members of these artistic movements were able to improve and mutate in a rapid fashion, which led to many stylistic breakthroughs that in turn led to the creation of new and challenging art forms. The rapid progression of cultural and artistic ideas was also shared and developed by jazz musicians, through the use of improvisation and “jam sessions,” that would often last for hours at a time. The practice of long form improvisation sessions saw jazz music advance at a rapid pace, as is in evidence by the rapid progression of the music from the more palatable and safe “swing” variant of jazz to the more hard edged and more musically challenging “bop” or “hard-bop” variant. When seen in this context, it is possible to come to the conclusion that the jazz, literary and fashion movements as personified by the Beats, the Czech underground, the Russian “New Wave” and the stilyagi, were able to coalesce into a force that fundamentally carried similar messages and arrived at similar conclusions. When taken at face value, the legacy left behind by these underground movements combined to form a

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mosaic of the modern, progressive artistic world at that time. In turn, the legacy of and struggle for artistic progression functions as a snapshot in time that documents the efforts of artists from both sides of one of the biggest political divides in the history of the world. It showcases the effort to improve and enrich the world at large through vision, integrity and a hope for a better tomorrow. As a consequence, the Beat movement enriches the “New Wave” movement, which in turn galvanized the Czech underground and a soundtrack of dissent is the glue that binds them all together. Together these art forms produced a coherent, though assorted, and ultimately worldwide movement that was able to simultaneously celebrate its diversity and point the way to a brighter and more fully realized future.

The influence wielded by the Beat, Czech underground, and “New Wave” movements, and the literature, music and culture that they helped to spawn, engendered and influenced countless others to do the same. And while in many ways the writing of the Beats served the same purpose, it can be said that the

Soviet variant helped to act as a sort of artificial and collective memory that ensured those who were exposed to these works would never forget the heady days of the stilyagi, or the joys and possibilities of the era of the Thaw. Brief though they may have been, these days continue to shine brightly in the creative life of a country that is often at war with itself from a cultural and political perspective. The concluding lines of Aksyonov’s The Burn function in this manner, acting as a form of collective memory and conscious as regards the

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Thaw, with the additional caveat that things will always continue to move forward.

In fact these lines signify that it is vitally imperative that things must always continue to move forward, with little regard to the political or societal consequences:

Сколько это продолжалось, не нам знать. Потом все снова поехало. (Aksyonov, 442)

How long it lasted, we knew not. Then everything started moving again (Glenny, 528)

Yet again, the concept of movement is central and essential to the tenets espoused by these underground cultural movements. The meaning presented in

Aksyonov’s words here is twofold. Firstly, the Thaw and the opening up of culture that informed it did happen, and as a consequence, the culture produced and the memoires attained cannot be taken away. Secondly, we as a collective society must move forward, through word and deed in order to ensure the progression of the human experience.

Throughout recorded history, governmental and societal forms of manipulation have routinely been implemented in order to control and coerce populations in a variety of methods. The goal of these forms of manipulation ultimately functions as a means to contain elements of society that are deemed to challenge entrenched power structures through cultural production or other forms of perceived dissent. The typical capitalist variant of cultural and societal manipulation within the public sphere primarily functions through control of market forces by entrenched corporate and political entities. This top-down

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manipulation in effect helps to maximize profit potentials while simultaneously minimizing dissent among disaffected members of a given society. In his work An

Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, Dominic Strinati gives a summation of the Frankfurt School’s positions regarding the capitalist variant of the control and manipulation of artistic production that is traditionally implemented by the entrenched cultural industry, stating:

[…] the culture industry reflects the consolidation of commodity fetishism, the domination of exchange value and the ascendancy of state monopoly capitalism. It shapes the tastes and preferences of the masses, thereby moulding their consciousness by instilling the desire for false needs. It therefore works to exclude real or true needs, alternative and radical concepts or theories, and genuinely threatening political opposition. It is so effective in doing this that people do not realise what is going on. (Strinati, 54-55)

Strinati’s formulation is borne out simultaneously by the unchallenging, unoriginal and uninspiring output of the majority of mainstream popular cultural production and the reception that challenging forms of artistic expression across all mediums receive from entrenched power structures in the supposed interests of mainstream society. Broadly speaking, the primary function of mainstream culture in capitalist societies is to generate profit. In the communist context the function of culture reinforces ideology. Therefore it is should come as no surprise that power structures in both the capitalist and communist contexts view underground artistic production as a threat to the continuation of their power. The process of instilling the desire for false needs is an important component in controlling the population and maintaining power within established power

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structures. It is the equivalent of distracting an infant with something shiny.

Additionally, the notion that most people in capitalist countries are unaware that they are being manipulated in this manner is particularly concerning. The ability to exclude and demonize any form of threatening political or cultural opposition, or any form that can be perceived as threatening or subversive serves as a decisive component that keeps control firmly in the hands of existent power structures.

The Beats and other members of underground cultural movements are actively seeking to subvert the capitalist system of manipulation by offering another perspective of the American experience that falls outside of the purview of mainstream society. In effect the purveyors of underground cultural content are seeking to open a dialogue with existent power structures in an attempt to push forward and expand upon the human experience. By offering cultural production that falls outside of the purviews of the mainstream culture industry and the society that it represents and controls, members of underground cultural movements are opening themselves up to reprisals in a variety of manners.

Firstly, this has been borne out by the persecution faced by Ginsburg, Burroughs, and other members of the Beat Generation in the form of censorship trials, as well as unwarranted attention from the FBI and HUAC among others. More recently, the specter of the Parent’s Music Resource Committee, or PMRC sought to limit and control the cultural production of artists that they independently, and somewhat arbitrarily had deemed to be obscene, through

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labeling the contents of record albums as explicit. Secondly, in producing an alternative form of cultural production that appeals to those on the fringes of society, members of underground cultural movements are alerting the entrenched culture industry to the existence of “un-tapped,” and therefore exploitable new markets. This in turn leads to opportunities for the culture industry to coopt and commoditize these movements in a manner that will ultimately hamstring them and remove any form of dissent, authenticity or potential cultural impact contained within underground artistic production. This also serves as a means of control geared toward maintaining the order of things.

As he was operating within the Czechoslovak chronotope, Václav Havel was well aware of the challenges that the entrenched communist power structures imparted upon its citizens. As a well-known playwright, and eventual prominent member of the Czech underground movement, Havel felt the consequences of these challenges on a daily basis, not the least through censorship, diminished job opportunities and ultimately, imprisonment. Through the trials and tribulations he faced at the hands of communist authorities, as well as his overall distrust of existent power structures in general, the author and future president of the Czech Republic was also extremely prescient when it came to discussions regarding the future of discourse, control and manipulation in the capitalist context. As a means of navigating the Trump era, journalist

Pankaj Mishra harkens back to the words of Havel concerning the nature of state mandated manipulation in a recent article:

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The problems before humankind, as Havel saw it, were far deeper than the opposition between socialism and capitalism, which were both “thoroughly ideological and often semantically confused categories [that] have long since been beside the point.” The Western system, though materially more successful, also crushed the human individual, inducing feelings of powerlessness, which—as Trump’s victory has shown—can turn politically toxic. In Havel’s analysis, politics in general had become too “machine-like” and unresponsive, degrading flesh-and-blood human beings into “statistical choruses of voters.” (Mishra)

Succinctly stated it is Havel’s contention that not only are the ultimate goals of capitalist and communist regimes in lockstep, this assertion is simply no longer a topic of discussion that should considered for debate. Of course, the capitalist model of repression and control takes a more subtle approach than the communist variant. Capitalism focuses on the ability or the “freedom” to acquire consumer goods that distract or dissuade people from questioning the motives of entrenched power structures. The availability of creature comforts go some distance in quelling dissent and social unrest. The increasing availability of luxury goods in Putin’s Russia bear this contention out.

Therefore, Havel contends that control and the retention of control are the main goals for any established form of government. Essentially, in both the capitalist and communist variants of government, citizens have been reduced from the political process, and instead are directed to focus on empty rhetoric that reinforces inherent points of view based on social, religious, racial and cultural background, rather than a genuine need to advocate for the welfare of all.

Whether this form of rhetoric is genuine or simply the result of the repetitious nature of the modern 24-hour news cycle becomes irrelevant in the overall

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scheme of things. Information has been reduced to mere snippets that introduce, reinforce and ultimately supersede and exclude any form of rational debate, intellectual honesty, or conventional existent thought, merely because this information is repeated endlessly and much more loudly by well-paid pundits with significant skin in the game. Collectively in the 21st century, society is becoming more concerned with difference than commonality. Again, I refer to Mishra’s article concerning Havel:

For Havel, the main question before him was “equally relevant to all”: whether we could succeed in “placing morality above politics and responsibility above our desires, in making human community meaningful, in returning content to human speech, in reconstituting, as the focus of all social action, the autonomous, integral, and dignified human ‘I.’ ” Havel saw the possibility of redemption in a politically active “civil society” (he, in fact, popularized this now-commonplace phrase). The “power of the powerless,” he argued, resides in their capacity to organize themselves and resist “the irrational momentum of anonymous, impersonal, and inhuman power.” Active resistance is necessary because it is the moral and political indifference of demoralized, self-seeking citizens that normalizes despotic power. (Mishra)

In the 21st century world of Western capitalism, thinking, debating and discussing from an open and informed perspective are no longer required to qualify as a valuable member of society. One must simply parrot the views of the television news pundit, as they are shown and reshown spouting opinions that reinforce hegemonic discourse on an endless loop and across multiple platforms.

In light of the seeming hijacking of discourse by the media and other entrenched power structures it would be wise for us to remember the tenets of

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Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism. As Neil Nehring posits in Flowers in the Dustbin:

Culture, Anarchy, and Postwar England:

Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogical theory, in contrast with the various structuralisms, considers discourse as a material social phenomenon, in which a dialectical relationship exists between linguistic structure and the individual […]. Language, in Bakhtin’s view, may to some extent be a medium of oppression, just as modernists believed. But in contrast with their desperate experimental escapes from commonplace language, he understands everyday discourse to be perfectly capable of enabling the individual’s process of self-definition…Bakhtin’s epistemology, developed at the same time the avant-garde was challenging modernism, absolutely reverses the relation perceived by many poststructuralist theories between the individual agent and language (or power and ideology). He begins with the acquisition of language and the individual’s development through it, in which language and ideology are not the same thing; ideology is always articulated through language. (Nehring, 139.)

It is Bakhtin’s contention that language should be utilized in order to enable the individual to navigate the world around them. Language and its use is more important than an entrenched ideology because language is a true form of connection that supersedes and defines ideological goals. Language should be utilized as a tool for understanding and communication, not division and mindless sloganeering. In utilizing language in new and innovative ways, the authors under discussion are putting Bakhtin’s dialogical theory into practice. The human condition will be bettered when groups of like-minded people are able to utilize language as a form of dialogue that aids in the creation of lifeworlds that aim to connect and expand entrenched notions of a public sphere dominated by the few, rather that to mindlessly conform to a top-down form of expression that reinforces dominant perspectives. Sadly, this message is in danger of being lost in the

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overly technological landscape of the ever-increasing post-factual world of the

21st century.

In the current post-factual world the formation of lifeworlds becomes even more important. According to Cushman, “Habermas’s theoretical work is characterized by an attempt to explore the relation between the lifeworld and the social system. If the lifeworld is the world of subjective experience, then the social system is the “objective” world which gives rise to and frames such experiences” (Cushman, 10). It is instructive to think of Cushman’s term “social system” as a byword for the existent public sphere of a given society. That is to say a top-down form of regulation that reinforces the hegemonic forces of a given society. Therefore, the dedicated creation of lifeworlds by members of underground cultural movements within the larger constructs of the chronotope and public sphere in which it operates serves as a mechanism by which individuals who perceive themselves to be marginalized can seek ways to navigate, explain and ultimately understand the human experience in a manner that is meaningful to their own lifeworld. Cushman goes on to state:

Habermas recasts the most fundamental “essence” of humans as communicators. What is more important is that we communicate our experiences of being in the world, for it is these shared experiences which “fill” our lifeworlds […]. (The) central quandary of modernity is distorted communication, and this quandary is resolved by the rise of communicative movements which seek to protect the lifeworld from the forces of instrumental reason which are embodied in the structures which frame existence. (Cushman, 10-11)

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Essentially, this is alternate means of expressing the Havelian notion of “living within the truth.” By creating alternate forms of political, cultural, social and artistic expression, members of these alternative lifeworlds are able to create pathways to understanding through cultural production, often without considering financial concerns, that would otherwise go unexplored. The fact that underground cultural movements that fall outside of the purview of mainstream society continue to exist and thrive to this day is testament to the viability of these movements, as is the fact that entrenched cultural industries still seek to repress and normalize, or coopt, commoditize and ultimately, to profit from these movements. It goes without saying that these entrenched culture industries are supported and encouraged by the dominant discourse of the public sphere. It is a salient point that in the beginning decades of the 21st century, society as a whole is still grappling with issues that were brought to bear by marginalized, underground cultural producers more than fifty years ago. A final word regarding the Habermasian concept of the public sphere. As Cushman relates:

According to Jürgen Habermas, the cultural bulwark of a democratic social order is the existence of a vibrant “public sphere.” The public sphere is constituted by the free marketplace of ideas in which the validity and utility of ideas is based purely on collective judgments of their utility and truth value. In the Soviet Union, a formal, institutionalized public sphere of culture did not exist; public culture was expressed underground and circulated privately, and because of this it was not really public at all, but quasi-public. What Petersburg musicians wanted more that anything else after they came up from the underground was to have their critical discourse become a vibrant part of the Russian public sphere of cultural communication. What is more important, they wanted to contribute to the public sphere on their own terms rather that on the terms set by the sphere of economics or politics. (Cushman, 323)

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The fact that members of the underground in the latter decades of the Soviet

Union wanted to participate in the creation of a more inclusive and open form of a public sphere in the communist context mirrors the behavior of the writers of the

“New Wave” of Russian literature. The members of these respective underground cultural movements were not necessarily looking to dismantle the entire system, but rather, through the medium of cultural production, they were attempting to expand the forms of acceptable communication, to enter into a dialogue with the existent power structures in an effort to broaden and enrich the human experience.

Looking to the future, it is important to connect the Beats, the “New Wave” of Russian literature, and the Czech underground to more current forms of subcultural artistic production. The punk, postpunk and hardcore movements in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as the East German and Soviet variants of punk rock, up to current examples of politically active underground cultural production as personified by such artists as Fugazi, Pussy Riot, and

M.I.A. amongst countless others, continue the work begun by these cultural forerunners. It will also prove instructive to investigate staunchly independent recording labels and the way that they operate outside of the parameters of the mainstream culture industry. Recording labels such as Washington DC’s

Dischord Records, founded by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson in the 1970s, operate almost as documentarians of punk and hardcore music rather than entrepreneurs. MacKaye is quite philosophical and pragmatic is his assessment

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of the mainstream record industry, as well as the function of purveyors of independent forms of culture. For him, the role of cultural production should focus as a means of inclusive communication, which helps gather like-minded people, as well as helping to engender dialogue between groups of people that do not necessarily see eye to eye. In a recent conversation MacKaye stated: “Music is a form of communication that predates language” (MacKaye). Music acts as a gathering force that is able to communicate to people in an inclusive manner.

Music inherently acts as a form of glue that helps to build lifeworlds. The power of music as a unifying entity also explains why so many governments fear and are mistrustful of it.

The business practices employed at Dischord also mark the label as an outlier in the capitalist world. The majority of the profits generated by record sales are reinvested into the label to ensure the further production of music, and the continuation of the scene that they are documenting. To this day, Dischord produces no merchandise, other than the albums themselves. They are simply looking to document the artistic production of their community. As such Dischord only works with bands from the Washington DC area. Much like their underground forebears, adherents of the hardcore genre of punk rock music in the U.S. were responding to the chronotopic dynamic that came to bear under the tutelage of the Reagan administration in the 1980s. The same can be said for the hardcore movement that concurrently developed in the United Kingdom during the Thatcher era. Members of the hardcore community were responding to

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the regressive policies of these respective regimes through the medium of music.

In effect they were attempting to create their own form of parallel polis that is very much akin to what the Plastic People were attempting to achieve. Hardcore punk in general , and Dischord Records in particular challenged, and in some cases, refuted outright many of the top-down theories of popular culture that have been put forth by Adorno, Hebdige, et al, simply by their continuing existence and by the significant radical cultural impact that the label, and its bands have made. At the same time the label has maintained ethical, non-traditional business practices in the face of corporate greed, commodification and cooptation. The continued existence of Dischord Records stands in stark contrast to the idea that all forms of culture are simply manufactured for society by capitalistic forces with no regard for social or cultural change.

Additionally, the challenging nature of both the music that Dischord

Records produces, and the ways in which they produce it, confront Adorno’s notion of regressive listening among the population at large with regards to forms and notions of popular culture. In his article, “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening” Adorno puts forth his thoughts concerning the phenomenon of regressive listening:

Responsible art adjusts itself to criteria which approximate judgments: the harmonious and the inharmonious, the correct and incorrect. But no other choices are made; the question is no longer put, and no one demands the subjective justification of the conventions. The very existence of the subject who could verify such taste has become as questionable as has, at the opposite pole, the right to freedom of choice which empirically, in any case, no one any longer exercises. If one seeks to find out who ‘likes’ a commercial piece, one cannot avoid the suspicion that liking and

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disliking are inappropriate to the situation, even if the person questioned clothes his reactions in those words. The familiarity of the piece is a surrogate for the quality ascribed to it. To like it is almost the same thing as to recognize it. An approach in terms of value judgments has become a fiction for the person who finds himself hemmed in by standardized musical goods. (Adorno, 30)

In terms of conventional popular culture these distinctions may well be true. The musical differences to mainstream popular music such as Madonna and Britney

Spears are negligible at best. The structure, rhythm, cadence and lyrical content of these songs are fall within the same basic musical parameters that all are designed to appeal to large numbers of people. But when placed in the context of hardcore, independent music culture in general, and Dischord Records specifically, the notion of regressive listening becomes more tenuous. Those who ascribe to the aesthetics of independent culture simply dismiss the rulebook of dominant popular culture, and instead build their own cultural universe from the ground up. As a consequence, the way that cultural products are produced, the means by which they are produced and the goals and motivations for said cultural production refute the usual mainstream culture industry paradigm. The advent of hardcore bands and labels is something more than the usual industry formula of form band, make music, record music, sale music, make profit. The hardcore music scene functions as a way of life, an independent cultural phenomenon that was built organically, over time, without utilizing or even acknowledging dominant market forces or the practices of mainstream culture industries. The type of people drawn to hardcore music share these same

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characteristics, and in the process have created and continue to create their own lifeworlds that reflect a more egalitarian form of expression. Those interested in pursing the tenets of the hardcore variety of punk music are looking for something that mainstream cultural production cannot or will not provide. The community that sprang up around the early years of independent and hardcore music was extremely closely knit. If one chose to become a member of the hardcore community, that is exactly what they were joining; a community. In fact one is joining a tribe that those in mainstream society are either unaware of, or once they become aware of it, are simply afraid of and contemptuous of at best, or violent towards at worst.

The radical nature of the hardcore music itself, and the appearance of those that play and listen to it guaranteed this reaction from mainstream society and in many ways even encourages it. Adorno also addresses the issue of radicalness in some forms of music stating, “It is only in dissonance, which destroys the faith of those who believe in harmony, that the power of seduction of the rousing character of music survives” (Adorno,1963). Adorno’s thoughts concerning the seductive attributes of the rousing character of music are uncompromisingly supported by the musical output of such sonically groundbreaking American Hardcore bands such as Minor Threat, Black Flag, The

Circle Jerks and S.O.A, to name a few, and the ways in which they chose to operate. The radical, dissonant, and often brutal music, as well as its sheer speed and volume helped to separate these bands from mainstream cultural

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production in the U.S. Hardcore punk music, and the overall culture that surrounds it simply operate on different terms than other forms of popular music and culture. Jacques Attali, in his work Noise: The Political Economy of Music, reinforces the claim of Adorno regarding radicalness in music stating, “‘Radical’ music unmasks false musical consciousness and can transform the infrastructure, the relations of production outside the ‘sphere of music’” (Attali,

43). Independent music in general, and Dischord Records and hardcore punk in particular, function as a prime example of Attali’s contention. By building and maintaining independent, sovereign forms of infrastructure, means of production and recording, distribution, and touring networks, hardcore bands operate

“outside the sphere of music.” In effect they operate outside the bounds of the mainstream, forming their own form of society. In doing so hardcore punk bands in the United States and the United Kingdom are carrying on the legacy that the

Plastic People and other members of the Czech underground helped to spawn so many years earlier and half a world away in drastically different political circumstances. As a consequence, many other bands and labels have been able to follow, and continue to follow the path set out by previous purveyors of underground culture to the present day. The continued existence of cultural production that lies outside of the sphere of influence of the mainstream culture industry strengthens the link and viability of underground cultures that stretches back to the stilyagi, the “New Wave” of Russian literature, the Beat Generation, the Plastic People of the Universe and the Půlnoc edice movements.

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The situation surrounding the production of underground music in the

Soviet Union in the 1980s is also worth exploring. Speaking of the burgeoning rock and punk rock scenes at this time in the U.S.S.R., music critic Artemy

Troitsky states, “On the whole it was an active and fruitful period, which confirms the well-known theory that the best rock is often made ‘under pressure’”

(Troitsky, 99). This is yet another reinforcement of the belief that the most socially and politically relevant cultural production occurs during times of unrest. A few years into the 1980s the punk rock scene in the Soviet Union was eventually allowed to open up to a certain degree following the ascent of Gorbachev to the premiership of the CPSU and his implementation of the twin liberalizing policies of гласность (glasnost’ or openness) and перестройка (perestroika, or restructuring.) Again, the opening up of more socially acceptable forms of artistic production that did not adhere to the state mandated tenets of Socialist Realism are testament to a new phase of the widening of the Soviet chronotope to allow for more distinct forms of cultural production. However, the reaction from Soviet era rock and punk bands concerning the new liberalized communist cultural policies in the latter half of the 1980s might come as something of a surprise.

Following the advent of perestroika and glasnost’ Troitsky relates:

There are suddenly far more purely commercial rock bands, and noticeably fewer home-made cassettes. This is just one of several paradoxes of perestroika [… ] too few bands dare to test glasnost […]. It seems that the long-awaited sunlight has blinded most of the creatures crawling out of the underground […]. I’m confident that our rock will endure these pleasures and temptations and maintain its non-conformist spirit, just as it has survived the decades of trauma and some decidedly

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indelicate treatment […]. The future is bright and unpredictable. Nothing scares us now. (Troitsky, 138)

Troitsky’s lament concerning the challenges that perestroika and glasnost’ presented to underground cultural production in the Soviet Union in the 1980s again supports the notion that the most challenging and significant forms of art are produced in times of political duress and instability. It can even be inferred from this statement that more capitalist questions of popularity, recording contracts and the financial compensation they will inevitably bring are beginning to creep into the equation concerning underground Soviet cultural production.

However, I contend that Troitsky’s optimism concerning the future of underground music in the Soviet Union and beyond is the most intriguing factor in his pronouncement. The music critic is presaging a time when underground cultural production will once again seek to challenge and question the policies of the ruling elite and the status quo and attempt to shake the foundations of state mandated power structures. Indeed, it can be postulated that Troitsky is presaging the advent of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot.

The Russian feminist punk rock collective, Pussy Riot burst onto the world stage of political commentary through performative dissent in 2011. In the course of a series of provocative public performances, the group took aim at what they perceived to be the incestuous, and constitutionally illegal relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church, and the continuing administration of Vladimir

Putin. Pussy Riot, as well as many others, were also unhappy at the political

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dance being enacted by Putin and Medvedev, as a means by which to keep the erstwhile KGB man in the presidency. The punk rock collective were also calling for free elections devoid of the allegations of persistent corruption that have come to dominate Russian elections in the Putin era. Pussy Riot managed to achieve international notoriety virtually overnight, following the performance of the punk rock prayer, “Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Chase Putin Out” at the Christ the

Savior Cathedral in Moscow on February 21, 2012. (Tochka, 304). Three members of the collective, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and

Yekaterina Samustsevich, were eventually arrested, tried and in the case of

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina, sentenced to a penal colony for hooliganism,

“committed for reasons of religious hatred and enmity” (Gessen, 166). Many observers of the farcical nature of the trial noted that the proceedings closely resembled the show trials of the Soviet era under Stalin.

The role that Pussy Riot came to embody resembles that of their subcultural forebears. As Masha Gessen states in her book, Words Will Break

Cement, regarding the actions and ultimate fate of Pussy Riot and its members:

“To create, and to confront, one has to be an outcast” (Gessen, 15). The members of Pussy Riot, much like the Beats, Czech Underground, and “New

Wave” of Russian literature, felt marginalized by the dominant discourse of the society into which they had been born. Picking up the baton of dissent from their underground predecessors, as a viable means of meaningful expression, the members of Pussy Riot decided to act through the means of cultural

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communication that ran counter to dominant culture in an effort to both shake things up, as well as to open up new forms of discourse regarding the political, social, and cultural situation in Russia at the time. As Gessen states: “In all societies, public rhetoric involves some measure of lying, and history – political history and art history – is made when someone effectively confronts the lie”

(Gessen, 35). Confronting the lie, speaking truth to power and living within the truth are the roles that the purveyors of underground cultural production should strive to fulfill, and must continue to strive to fulfill. Notions of success are often arbitrary. They are often attributed to factors that are subjective at best, and random at worst. For underground cultural production, the true mark of success is measured in resistance, perseverance, and influence on future subcultural movements and expression.

In writing her book on Pussy Riot, Gessen was given access to the their correspondence while they incarcerated awaiting trial for the punk rock prayer action at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. On April 11, 2012 Nadya

Tolokonnikova, in a letter to a friend, wrote the following: “I am writing this in a hurry because my notes are taken away from me. My letters don’t get to people, and letters don’t get to me either. They are shamelessly shutting us up, denying us the right to take part in a public discussion and attempt to reach consensus with our opponents” (Gessen, 145). It is important to note that Nadya is concerned with taking part in a public discussion and in engaging in a dialogue with the hopes of reaching common ground with those that have differing

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viewpoints, rather than with simply attaining her freedom. This hope for dialogue and consensus again reinforces the Bakhtinian notion that the prime function of human beings should be to serve in the role of communicators.

Gessen also quotes Tolokonnikova speaking of the OBERIUs’ collective of the 1920 and 30s. The OBERIUs’ were a Soviet collection of artists, writers and musicians that were persecuted and purged during the Great Terror.

Tolokonnikova states: “They made art into history. The price of taking part in making history is always disproportionately large for the individual and his life.

But it is also the meaning of human existence. “To be poor but to enrich many.

To have nothing but possess everything.” The OBERIU dissidents are considered dead, but they are living. They have been punished but not killed (Gessen, 204-

205). Tolokonnikova’s sentiments regarding the role of the artist reinforces the

Bulgakovian notion that “manuscript’s don’t burn,” as well as reinforcing the idea that underground or challenging artistic production that does not adhere to hegemonic forms of discourse act as links in a chain, which runs through and connects human expression in the modern context. She also firmly states that the role of artistic production functions as the meaning of human existence. The

Beats, Russian “New Wave,” and Czech underground movements would certainly agree with this outlook. As an pertinent example of underground cultural forms linking across time and space, Marcus Webb has discussed the similarities between the output and aims of the Plastic People of the Universe and Pussy

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Riot with Paul Wilson and Vratislav Brabenec, two members of the Plastic

People:

It’s tempting to draw parallels with the Pussy Riot trial: a band taking on the state and being very publicly tried for it. However, Wilson sees a vital distinction. “The big difference between Pussy Riot and the Plastic People is that Pussy Riot are provocateurs and the Plastics weren’t deliberately so,” he says. “Pussy Riot actively went out to change things, the Plastics did it almost by accident. We just wanted to play music, we didn’t set out to bring down the state.” But why do regimes fear music so much? “Maybe because in music you cannot cheat,” answers Brabenec. “If you do, it shows. And when people feel this genuine source in some music they want to join it. That’s why the PPU was followed by so many young people without agitating or having a particular programme. They were simply true to themselves and you could feel it.” (Webb, 6)

The members of Pussy Riot were effectively able to pick up the baton of dissent from the Plastics and run with it in a much more overt manner. And while Pussy

Riot deliberately set out to effect change on the existent system in Russia, and the Plastic People did so rather by accident, both groups demonstrated the power wielded by underground musical production, and the fear that it brought out in the respective regimes under which they labored. Brabenec’s quote stating that “because in music you cannot cheat,” mirrors, reinforces and contributes to the Bulgakovian belief concerning manuscripts (i.e. ideas) being unable to burn, and the Havelian conviction of living within the truth. His statement also leads further credence to the link shared by underground cultural production, and the influence that previous forms have passed on to future generations. It is also important to mention that voices of dissent within literature are still active in

Russia today, even under the increasingly repressive regime of Putin. Writers

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such as Vladimir Sorokin, Viktor Pelevin, Tatyana Tolstoya, Ludmila Ulitskaya,

Artemy Troitsky and Andrei Gelasimov continue to produce literature and commentary that challenges and critiques the dominant power structures in

Russia. These authors are also carrying on the traditions of previous underground cultural production and provide yet one more link in the dialogic chain that stretches back to the Russian “New Wave” of literature.

Lastly, in terms of scrutinizing other forms of underground cultural production and the similar functions that they fulfilled in regards to the previous forms of underground culture under discussion, it will be instructive to consider the punk rock movement that developed in East Germany in the late 1970s. The

East German punk scene will function as a means to broaden the overall discussion at hand and give insight into the trials and tribulations faced by members of outlying social groups within the East German totalitarian regime.

East German punks were politicized and political from the beginning of their appearance on the scene, owing to the chronotope into which they were born.

East Germany was very much under the thumb of their Soviet taskmasters and for many, life resembled a monotonous charade dominated by communist directives and obligations, decreed monologically from a monolithic political structure. Crucial to the development of punk rock in East Germany was the ability to access Western cultural production. It was extremely difficult for the

East German secret police, or Stasi, to control access to cultural production from the West, notwithstanding the sheer numbers of agents and informants that they

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employed for this purpose. The availability of Western cultural production was especially easy to come by in the divided city of Berlin, as access to radio, film and television from West Berlin was readily attainable, and difficult for the authorities to prohibit.

Members of the punk rock community in East Germany were routinely harassed and arrested by the Stasi and had to engage in an almost spy-like existence in order to evade detection, or imprisonment. As Tim Mohr states in

Burning Down the Haus: Punk, Rock, Revolution and the Fall of the Berlin Wall:

“By the beginning of 1981, as punks became more visible, the authorities concluded they needed to get more aggressive. The Kriminalpolizei’s political division, K1, and then the Stasi’s Abteilung XX – Department XX, the division responsible for subverting underground political activity – stepped in to institute a cohesive policy of repression” (Mohr, 35). This sentence aptly describes the situation under which members of underground movements were living. The East

German state implemented a repressive system that ruthlessly rooted out and crushed any form of cultural, social or political dissent. Ultimately, the East

German authorities failed in their efforts to quell the punk scene, and the movement continued to grow. The fundamental influence that the East German punk scene, often in conjunction with the German protestant church, was able to bring to bear is a testament to the will of its adherents. On the cover of Mohr’s book, the publisher states: “Instead of conforming, the punks fought back, playing an indispensible role in the underground movement that helped bring down the

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Berlin Wall” (cover copy). And while this may sound somewhat hyperbolic, the fact remains that the punk rock movement was able to stand up the East German regime, and to ultimately thrive under the harsh conditions employed by the Stasi and other government agencies. Additionally, and importantly, the East German punks carried on the tradition of dissent and dialogue that characterized the work of the Beats, the Russian “New Wave,” and the Czech underground, thereby adding another link to the chain of underground cultural production in the process. It also is important to note that the Berlin Wall is now long gone, yet the musical production of the East German punks and the influence it has had on later generations steadfastly remains.

Moving forward, the processes and forms of manipulation, coercion, cooptation, and commoditization and even policing, underground cultural production have been greatly impacted by recent technological advances. It will be interesting to see the long-term effects that this will have on cultural production that falls on the underground spectrum. In terms of policing, it is interesting to note that Pussy Riot was not initially detained following the performance of their punk rock prayer at the Christ the Savior Cathedral in

February of 2012. The members were only apprehended after they uploaded a video of the performance onto the Internet, that went viral, thereby instantly raising the profile of the action to a global level (Tochka, 304). On one hand, the

Internet and varying forms of social media platforms, function as a type of great equalizer. These platforms ensure that anyone who is so inclined can access any

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form of cultural production that they wish to consume. Additionally, from the perspective of the artist, the Internet provides a forum to disseminate cultural production to a much wider global audience. On the other hand, the openness of the Internet leads to a glut of material that can be overwhelming to navigate. It is therefore more difficult for underground artistic production to achieve any sort of meaningful national, global, or international impact, as there is simply too much content for the average person to wade through. This in turn enables the entrenched culture industry to employ new forms of manipulation and coercion in order to push their own commercial agendas, which focus on profit, rather than message. The global format of the Internet allows for the cycle of cooptation and commodification to occur at a much faster rate, which in turns denudes any form of content with regards to authenticity, cultural expression, or any form of dissent, and which necessarily removes any form of agency from any form of burgeoning underground cultural movement. It is also important to consider that the Internet is a private space that is manipulated and monitored by market forces. Terms of service hold sway over the Internet, not first amendment protections, and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter determine these terms of service. These terms are another way to implement an un-level playing field in terms of what is deemed acceptable and puts any kind of burgeoning underground cultural movement at an inherent disadvantage. This ability to frustrate and manipulate the coalition of artistic movements is borne out by the distinct lack of any cohesive grassroots underground cultural movements regarding the Trump era in

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the United States, the Brexit crisis in the United Kingdom, and the increasingly despotic reign of Putin in Russia.

It is possible that the Internet will function as a new form of Third Space, or a space that falls outside of traditional locations for dissent and dialogue, such as cafes, salons or taverns, that aims to push forward the human condition in a positive manner rather than as a location for reinforcing the dominant discourse of well-entrenched hegemonic forces. Lifeworlds are already formed on the

Internet, as a reaction to the top-down nature of the public sphere, and it has the ability to function as a space that offers alternative forms of meaningful discourse, and dialogue between those with dissenting opinions, than are to be found through traditional forms of communication and media. However, at present it seems that social media platforms are in danger being overrun with people seeking to highlight differences rather commonalities between different groups of people. For many the cultural content that is emerging on the Internet constitutes a reimagining of underground cultural production in the modern context. Perhaps some anonymous kid in the basement of his parent’s house will prove to be the new producer of groundbreaking underground cultural content. It is indisputable that the ritual associated with engaging in the underground is changing, as is the way that people consume cultural production. The underground community and the way this community coalesces is moving from public spaces such as record stores, cafes, bars and music venues into the virtual world. The ramifications of this change of venue are as yet unknown, but

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early indicators suggest that we as a society must battle to preserve the possibility and viability of underground cultural production, and the questioning nature that it inherently possesses, no matter the form that it takes. The Internet is the dominant new market currently operating in the world, and the race to utilize, exploit, control and manipulate it is already well established. Learning how to use the Internet to meaningful advantage in terms of human expression and progression is one of the many challenges facing the next generations of cultural producers.

The eternal challenge for a progressive, humanistic society moving forward is to ensure the continued existence of underground cultural entities, be they literary, musical, filmic, or based in fashion. Traditionally, these entities function as a means to question the motives and methods of entrenched power structures, whether societal, cultural or political. It is therefore imperative for a viable society that these movements continue to exist. In the 21st century, with the advent of new types and functions of media, the form of future modes of artistic production is unknowable, yet it is essential as it will convey the aspirations of future generations. It is fundamental that thoughtful forms of dissent that confront the entrenched power structures of a given society continue to thrive and exist. The challenges faced by producers of underground cultural content in the 21st century constitute a unique phenomenon. Many of the same challenges faced by previous generations of underground movements continue to remain prevalent. The question of how to dissent in a post-factual world is

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foremost among these challenges. However, the continuation of underground cultural and social movements is imperative for the ongoing progression and expression of the modern human condition. If present day society is to learn anything from the purveyors of previous generations of underground culture production, this is it; they must question everything. They must engage in a dialogue with the existent power structures to ensure the viability of discourse. In the post-factual world speaking truth to power is a necessity.

In many ways the processes that govern the creative processes of underground cultural production mirror those of those engaged in academia, albeit on a more visceral level. Proponents of underground cultural production are attempting to engage in a discussion with their predecessors, as well as society as a whole, much like academics attempt to engage and expand upon modes of thought and analysis that have been put forth by previous generations. The endgame of both disciplines is to push forward human discourse in a way that is beneficial to those who come after, and one that aides in navigating the human experience in a meaningful and beneficial way. The role of underground cultural production from various backgrounds, spanning political and social realities has, over time, proven to be an avenue by which marginalized, or disaffected members of a given society have found a means of expressing truth to existing, entrenched power structures. This has been the case with the Beat Generation, the stilyagi, the “New Wave” of Russian literature, Půlnoc edice, and the Czech

Underground movements, not to mention the countless underground cultural

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movements that have followed. In the Western capitalist variant of the public sphere we must endeavor to maintain and reinforce the ability to constructively and legally dissent. As Gessen states in the epilogue to her book on Pussy Riot and the state of discourse in Putin’s Russia: “The courts had become Russia’s sole venue for political conversation, the only place where the individual and the state confronted each other” (Gessen, 290. For discourse to progress in a meaningful, progressive and inclusive manner, this situation cannot be allowed to become the norm. In the ever shifting political landscape of the 21st century, speaking truth to power through dissenting cultural production must continue as a means of thoughtful expression. If we lose this ability, we might just lose everything.

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