Youth and Rock in the Soviet Bloc explores
the rise of youth as consumers of popular culture and the globalization
of popular music in Russia and Eastern Europe. This collection of
essays challenges assumptions that Communist leaders and
Western-influenced youth cultures were inimically hostile to one
another. While initially banning Western cultural trends like jazz and
rock-and-roll, Communist leaders accommodated elements of rock and pop
music to develop their own socialist popular music. They promoted
organized forms of leisure to turn young people away from excesses of
style perceived to be Western. Popular song and officially sponsored
rock and pop bands formed a socialist beat that young people listened
and danced to. Young people attracted to the music and subcultures of
the capitalist West still shared the values and behaviors of their peers
in Communist youth organizations.
Despite problems providing
youth with consumer goods, leaders of Soviet bloc states fostered a
socialist alternative to the modernity the capitalist West promised.
Underground rock musicians thus shared assumptions about culture that
Communist leaders had instilled. Still, competing with influences from
the capitalist West had its limits. State-sponsored rock festivals and
rock bands encouraged a spirit of rebellion among young people. Official
perceptions of what constituted culture limited options for
accommodating rock and pop music and Western youth cultures. Youth
countercultures that originated in the capitalist West, like hippies and
punks, challenged the legitimacy of Communist youth organizations and
their sponsors. Government media and police organs wound up creating
oppositional identities among youth gangs. Failing to provide enough
Western cultural goods to provincial cities helped fuel resentment over
the Soviet Union’s capital, Moscow, and encourage support for breakaway
nationalist movements that led to the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
Despite the Cold War, in both the Soviet bloc and in the capitalist
West, political elites responded to perceived threats posed by youth
cultures and music in similar manners. Young people participated in a
global youth culture while expressing their own local views of the
world.
This file is intended only for preview!
I ask you to delete the file from your hard drive after reading it.
thank for the original uploader
No comments:
Post a Comment