Western Rock Music and Transformation of Soviet Youngsters’ Emotional Culture: From the 1970s to the 1980s

• In Event: Sounds from the West: American and European Music in Late Soviet Culture

Abstract

In numerous memoirs and interviews with individuals whose youth coincided with the Soviet era, we often encounter descriptions of their first time of listening to rock music as a profound emotional experience. Taking this into account, it is important to understand how these experiences correlated with the emotional regime and what “emotives” they elicited. To answer this question, the author analyzes such sources as archival materials, oral interviews, and periodicals, applying the methodology of the history of emotions.

Author

• Irina Veselova, Independent Scholar