Between Belarusian Partisans and The Beatles: Brezhnev’s Nationality Policy and Globalization of Soviet Pop in the Music of the VIA 'Pesniary'

• In Event: Belarus III: Partisans, Empire, Revolution: Building the Belarusian Nation through Literature, Music, and Teaching of History

Abstract

Destalinization and the cultural shifts of the Thaw in the USSR on a global scale coincided with the rise of popular music. Post-war change in popular demand for leisure and a less controlled private sphere easily permeated the Iron Curtain. Yet the Prague Spring and the escalating dissent among the post-war youth generation challenged Soviet authorities to address the perceived threats of Western influences.
Their response to these dynamics were the vocal-instrumental ensembles (VIAs in Russian). They constituted a new genre in the state-sponsored popular music that successfully substituted Western pop bands. The zenith of VIAs occurred during Brezhnev's rule, serving as an instrument to implement nationality policies. In Belarus, this marked one of the initial instances of inherently national popular music imposed by the state. However, the musicians, fascinated with Western pop, pursued their own creative agenda. They navigated the complex terrain between their economic and professional interests, the Soviet framework of national culture and the listeners' partiality for Western rock music.
The focal point of this paper is the entanglement of the Soviet, national, and Western elements in Soviet-Belarusian pop music of the 1970s and how it was used in a balancing act between the musicians' objectives and the authorities demands. Drawing upon Soviet newspapers, memoirs, diaries, and musical sources, the paper examines the hybridized vision of Belarusianness that the vocal-instrumental ensemble ‘Pesniary’ engaged in their songs and visuals and shows how this compromise provided the path of subjective liberation for musicians and listeners.

Author

• Lizaveta Lysenka, U of Bonn (Germany)