UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Soundtrack of Stagnation: Paradoxes Within Soviet Rock and Pop of the 1970s Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5jm0m00m Author Grabarchuk, Alexandra Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Soundtrack of Stagnation: Paradoxes within Soviet Rock and Pop of the 1970s A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology by Alexandra Grabarchuk 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Soundtrack of Stagnation: Paradoxes within Soviet Rock and Pop of the 1970s by Alexandra Grabarchuk Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor David MacFadyen, Chair The “underground” Soviet rock scene of the 1980s has received considerable scholarly attention, particularly after the fall of the USSR when available channels of information opened up even more than in the glasnost years. Both Russian and American academics have tackled the political implications and historical innovations of perestroika-era groups such as Akvarium, Mashina Vremeni, and DDT. Similarly, the Beatles craze of the 1960s is also frequently mentioned in scholarly works as an enormous social phenomenon in the USSR – academics and critics alike wax poetic about the influence of the Fab Four on the drab daily lives of Soviet citizens. Yet what happened in between these two moments of Soviet musical life? Very little critical work has been done on Soviet popular music of the 1970s, its place in Soviet society, or its relationship to Western influences. That is the lacuna I address in this work. My dissertation examines state-approved popular music – so-called estrada or “music of the small stage” – produced in the USSR during the 1970s. Since detailed scholarly work has ii been done on the performers of this decade, I focus instead on the output and reception of several popular composers and musical groups of the time, exploring the relationship formed between songwriter, performer, audience, and state. I do so in order to investigate and answer the following question: in the larger narrative of Soviet culture, what was the role of pop and rock music in the 1970s, a decade so ostensibly barren that even Russians refer to it as “the stagnation” (zastoi)? An examination of the popular composers and songwriters who literally and figuratively wrote the soundtrack to this decade of Soviet life shows how room for flexibility and openness to certain Western rock influences could exist within Soviet state-approved music – so often dismissed as ideologically conservative. Likewise, a better understanding of the men and women behind the songs and groups of this era sheds light on the contrary forces that drove both musical production and promotion within the USSR, and opens the way for estrada as both an enthusiastically created and received phenomenon. Finally, and most broadly, this dissertation considers and explores the notion that popular music from rigidly political systems can be used as a way of constructing highly personal meaning in a realm obliquely parallel to – and simultaneously embedded within and enabled by – the political sphere. iii The dissertation of Alexandra Grabarchuk is approved. Robert W. Fink Mitchell Bryan Morris Peter Schmelz David W. MacFadyen, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv For Viktor and Evgenia ~ In gratitude for bringing me here in more ways than one. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements viii Vita xi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 21 Ideological Transmission and Transmutation in Soviet Estrada Under Brezhnev Chapter 2 67 Soviet “Prog” and Vocal-Instrumental Ensembles: In-Between Policy and Privacy Chapter 3 107 People Sing When They’re Happy: Popular Music on the Soviet Screen Chapter 4 145 The Third Direction: Rock Opera in the USSR Conclusion 176 Toward A Post-Cold War Popular Musicology Appendix A 179 Appendix B 180 Appendix C 184 Bibliography 185 vi List of Figures Figure 1.1, artist Il’ya Kabakov’s 1983 “chart of hope and fear” 30 Figure 1.2, Nikolai Dobronravov and Aleksandra Pakhmutova look over a score 39 Figure 13, Pakhmutova receiving an Award “For Merit to the Fatherland” in 2000 45 Figure 1.4, A young Raimond Pauls playing piano 54 Figure 1.5, “Detectives’ Song” from Raimond Pauls’ Sister Carrie 61 Figure 1.6, “Carrie’s Song by the Piano” from Raimond Pauls’ Sister Carrie 62 Figure 2.1: Ariel’ performing in folk costumes 73 Figure 2.2, The composer-listener-state triangle 89 Figure 2.3, Track listing of David Tukhmanov’s On the Wave of My Memory 97 Figure 2.4, Front and back cover of On the Wave of My Memory 101 Figure 3.1, Sergei Filippov and Archil Gomiashvili in Gaidai’s The Twelve Chairs 114 Figure 3.2, A young Leonid Gaidai 118 Figure 3.3, A young Aleksandr Zatsepin 119 Figure 3.4, El ‘dar Riazanov in a signature cameo from Irony of Fate 128 Figure 3.5, Georgian composer Mikael Tariverdiev 133 Figure 3.6, Diegetic songs performed by characters in Irony of Fate 140 Figure 4.1, Aleksandr Zhurbin in 2010 149 Figure 4.2, Irina Ponarovskaia and Al’bert Asadullin as Eurydice and Orpheus 151 Figure 4.3, Composer Andrei Petrov, who helped support Orpheus and Eurydice 157 Figure 4.4, Aleksei Rybnikov in the studio 162 Figure 4.5, Aleksei Rybnikov, director Mark Zakharov, VIA Araks, and other performers 164 Figure 4.6, Aleksei Rybnikov, Mark Zakharov, poet Andrey Voznesenskiy, and performer Nikolai Karachentsov in 1981 169 vii Acknowledgements I have a great number of people to thank for their assistance and support during the last four years. This dissertation would have been impossible without generous financial support that permitted me to travel to Russia for research, and then spend a year completing my dissertation. For this support, I owe thanks to a Lenart Pre-Dissertation Graduate Travel Fellowship from the Humanities Division at UCLA, as well as an Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50 Dissertation Fellowship. I am grateful also to the UCLA Musicology Department, whose gift of a summer grant in 2011 permitted me to lay the foundations of this project. Finally, I am grateful to have been the recipient of a Dissertation Year Fellowship from the UCLA Graduate Division, which allowed me to complete the bulk of this dissertation during the 2014-2015 academic year. I am exceptionally lucky to have completed this dissertation under the guidance of David MacFadyen. In the last five years, it has been David’s incredible breadth of knowledge, constant willingness to help, and sometimes hard-to-believe connections within the Russian musical community that have guided me through the different – and sometimes difficult – stages of this project. He has been a patient mentor, an incredibly supportive advocate, and a perceptive and careful editor. His work on Soviet estrada and his commitment to representing Russian popular culture have indelibly shaped not only my work, but also my entire view on Eastern Europe. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the amazing scholars who have supported me throughout my graduate student career, and especially those who served on my dissertation committee. Peter Schmelz’s assistance on this project has been invaluable. In addition to being a vital source in my area of interest, Peter’s 2009 book and his continued involvement with my project allowed for more subtle and nuanced possibilities to my approach to Soviet music as a whole. Robert Fink played an integral role in the development of this project viii when he served as my mentor for a 2011-2012 Graduate Research Mentorship. The seeds of many of the ideas I present in this dissertation were first developed in conversation with Bob, who encouraged me to draw necessary parallels between Soviet and Anglophone popular music from the start. Mitchell Morris graciously stepped in and lent his encyclopedic knowledge of all things Russian and twentieth-century to this project. I will always remember his indispensable advice about music, dissertating, and life. I would also like to thank other members of the UCLA faculty for their assistance and support, including Tamara Levitz, who trusted me with important Stravinsky work and helped me grow into my scholarly identity; Elisabeth Le Guin, who has been my Early Music hero since 2009 and gave me a chance to be such to others; and Raymond Knapp – an incredible mentor, and the very first to support me when I was an undergraduate. Thanks also to Nina Eidsheim, who helped me conceptualize this dissertation in clear and simple ways I hadn’t previously considered; Olivia Bloechl, who challenged my ways of thinking and helped me grow in the seminar setting; and Jessica Schwartz, whose Rock Analysis course inspired me to explore different approaches to popular music. It is our close relationships that make all the toil possible and worthwhile. Particularly, I wish to thank Zara Rose Browne and Morgan Woolsey for their unwavering support over the years. These strong, beautiful women have kept me laughing and on track despite all odds. I am grateful also to my duo partner, Peter Yates, for opening The Library of Doubt to me. That space of acceptance has changed me for the better, and our co-creation has brightened my life immeasurably. Last but not least, my love and thanks go to Jamie Callahan. His patience, intellect, and back rubs inspired me throughout the final push – I couldn’t ask for a better hype man. ix My family’s support has been indispensable, in this and all creative endeavors. My parents, Viktor and Evgenia, have taught me about keeping the door of my heart open in the most trying of circumstances.