Songs Of Criminals And Other Assorted Lowlifes

During the immediate Russian Post-Revolutionary era, a great many Rusian immigrants fled their native lands, fleeing to various places of the world. Paris was one of the major destinations, and a lot of the emigres found themselves faced with hard times, even to the point of having even to sing for their suppers. They sang tearful, sad songs of longing for their homeland, or in some cases of cherished, happy memoires of better times, now lost forever.

And thus, from these humble beginnings, a name was given to what would eventually be applied to a standard style of specific Russian folk music-“Chanson”.

Today, the music of Chanson evokes a wide range of comparisons, from hip-hop to American country music, and an even wider range of attributes. It has been called, at best, the music of “drivers and bodyguards”, and at worse, “the music of criminals”.

It has also been banned from Russian radio and television, save for limited amounts of time during the late evenings. It has drawn the suspicion, and even the ire, of Russian politicians, much in the same way early rock and roll, and later heavy metal, and then rap, caused such consternation among the American elite, before coporate America decided it was too good a money maker to be censored.

Today, chanson is almost an underground, counter culture style, popular in cafes, with Russian citizens from all walks of life, and ever more increasingly, with American and Western European tourists.

A great lot of it revolves around subjects the Russian governemnt would just as soon be forgotten, such things as the oppressive nature of the past Soviet regimes, and most especially life in the old Russian gulags. A lot of the music is sad, a lot of it is angry, and an apreciable amount is even mocking, and satirical, of the oppressive system, it’s abuses, it’s effects, and it’s consequences. And there are of course songs about more contemporary times and troubles, ideals and criticisms, songs both serious and trite, that is not necessarily, shall we say, at all times pleasurably oriented to all aspects of modern Russian life and politics.

Chanson has been around for awhile, since before the Revolution actually, since even the Czarist times, which means that it’s original fans might have, ironically, been communist revolutionaries. No one realy knows who started it, or how old it actually is. But one thing that is for certain, is that it has a long track record of rebelliousness, an attitude of anti-establishment, in any form.

As such, it has always been repressed, save for one brief period of time, in the early days of the Soviet Union, a time known as the “New Economic Policy”. This was a period of time, initiated by Lenin around 1922, shortly before his death (1924), in which there was a policy of economic freedom, a relaxation of the economic oppression which had brought about a devastating depression in the fledgling Soviet economy.

During this period of time, private businesses were allowed to compete freely with the state owned and operated businesses. All good comunists, of course, were expected to patronize the state run businesses, and to be sure many did. However, the private businesses proved to be too much for the state to compete with. For a time, Russian business, and the economy, experienced a revitalization.

And Chanson became the popular music of the day, in the cafes, in music halls, and on the streets. They ridiculed the Soviet regime, they romanticized the time of the Czar and the days when the Chruch was respected, they mocked the Soviet officials who shopped at the private stores, sometimes in secret. It was too much for a good communist to bear.

The brief, embarrassingly successful experiment in open markets was summarily ended, and Chanson once again went underground. Shortly afterward, Lenin died. But Chanson did not. It thrived in the shadows, much like the secret Soviet shoppers it briefly satirized. It evolved with the times, adapted to them, but always remained in the shadows, save for very brief intermittent periods when it would rise to the surface, such as during the Khruschev years, thouh very tentatively, and then resubmrged during the dark and stagnant days of Leonid Breshnev.

There were recordings, but always in secret, with distribution by way of private courier, directly to the households of fans. Sometimes the recording would be done in private homes, sometimes they would be done in studios in France, Britain, and America, and smuggled into the Soviet Union.

Now, it is once again recorded in Russian recording studios, and played in Russian clubs and cafes. Yet, it continues to be frowned upon by polite society, and by the officials of the Rusian governemnt, as always. Unless there is a crackdown, however, there is ever reason to believe the music form will continue to grow, to evolve musically and stylistically, and may even become a popular export, given the amount of Russian imigrants to American and to Western Europe from the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union.

Todays Russian immigrants seldom have to sing for their supper, and they have, in the Russian Mafia, the perfect patrons to promote the production and the distribution of their native music, fitting ones since this is, after all, the “music of criminals”.

However, even if there is an ultimate censoring of the music, it will survive as it always has, possibly even thrive. It says a lot about Russian culture, and about Russian officialdom. Russian bureaucrats are by nature heavy handed, intolerant, and oppresive, mainly because they not only abuse their powers and responsibilities, they simply take themselves way too seriously.

The Russian people, however, do not, while at the same time recognizing and appreciating the dilemna due to their oppression. The music of chanson- at times melancholy, at other times hopeful and spirited, rebellious as well as satirical- has served them well throughout the years as a culturally and socially binding release mechanism. And that is precisely why the Russian governemnt still looks with disdain upon this music. They can’t bear to be ridiculed and maligned as being on the same level as past Soviet and Czarist regimes. But even more than that, they can’t abide the thought of lowering themselves to demonstrate that they are not.

The past history of Russia, and it is a long and bloody one, suggests that the way to deal with enemies is to destroy them. Anything that theatens your hold on power is an enemy. Anything that gives aid and succor to that enemy is likewise a threat. And to be laughed at, satirized, ridiculed, is the most injurious of insults. And if somebody puts such rebellious and disrespectful thoughts to music, and the song spreads throughout the land, that is looked upon as a type of character assassination.

When you think about it in that way, it is no wonder that the most popular single subject of Russian Chanson is the Gulags.