Singing for the State: Shanson as Propaganda in the Russian War Against Ukraine

• In Event: Resistance and Conformity: Rock, Shanson, and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Abstract

Long before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, since the 2010s, the Russian shanson genre had already aligned itself with Putin’s politics—not only through direct praise of the president but also through active endorsement of his policies, from the gay propaganda law to the annexation of Crimea. Since February 2022, the theme of war against Ukraine as a holy war against evil, as well as an equation of Soviet/Russian participation in World War II with the ongoing Russian army’s actions in Ukraine, has joined the array of propaganda narratives and also infiltrated the shanson. This genre has shifted its focus to promoting traditional values such as patriotism, Orthodoxy, and hero worship, while also supporting official power structures, including corrupt authority. Through an analysis of shanson lyrics related to the war and an examination of the themes consistently exploited by both this genre and Russian propaganda long before the invasion, this paper traces the evolution of shanson’s political alignment, demonstrating how a once-subversive genre has become an extension of the Russian propaganda machine.

Author

• Anastasia Gordienko, U of Arizona