Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

Arthur Miller, a prominent American playwright, has visited the Soviet Union in 1965. The result of this journey was In Russia, an insightful book written in collaboration with Inge Morath, in which his candid impressions from his stay in Russia are conscientiously narrated. I vividly remember Miller’s talk to a person who is both a Soviet writer and a functionary of the Communist party. During the conversation, Miller expresses his doubts on the necessity of censorship. Functionary’s answer is worth quoting at full length.

His reply was not only unexpected but, I thought, devastating. ‘You mean we should spend the people’s money publishing the pornography I have seen on your newsstands, books which interest young people in done addiction, plays which espouse homosexuality, paintings which even your own critics admit are made for publicity and money? All this, you are telling me, will be an improvement for Russia? We do not consider that an improvement.’ As he spoke I could hear the Knights of Columbus applauding, as well as many a member of the PTA, the United States Congress—and, quite frankly, myself to a degree.

I wish you could comment this ‘devastating reply’ and Miller’s hearing himself applauding to it (to a degree).

The situation changes in 1981 after the establishment of the Leningrad Rock Club which was perhaps the first legal rock music scene in the Soviet Union and a legendary institution in itself. Very gradually, rock music in Soviet Russia becomes something that can be talked about and that can coexist—even if not very easily—with Communist principles and guidelines. Over the following years, numerous rock bands emerge. Nautilus Pompilius, Aquarium, Kino, Korol i Shut, Grazhdanskaya Oborona, DDT, Sector Gaza, Alisa are just some of their names I can now recall. All these bands become immensely popular and enjoy a colossal influence on their audience, partly due to their criticism of Soviet reality and partly due to the fact that their members are young, energetic, sincere, and ‘very much alive,’ unlike the ageing leaders of the Communist party whose TV addresses even the ardent Communists now find very hard to be inspired by. It is exactly the excessive vitality that scares me away from the artistic legacy of such rock bands as Sector Gaza and the like. Do you think you want to listen to a short sequence from a song by Korol i Shut, to understand what I mean?

Here it was. Authentic, rough, very ‘Russian,’ in a sense—and simply horrible, in artistic terms. I hope it does not sound Russophobic; after all, I do admit the gigantic impact of such songs on the Russian younger demographics at the end of the twentieth century. However, you should pardon me for my inability to see this animal growling as music. (What is your own opinion on its musical value, by the way?) People in each country must be provided with spaces where they can safely express their bestiality, such as sports stadiums, but there is hardly any need to call such expressions high art, or art at all. My judgement is of course purely subjective, but human culture in general knows no true objectivity. The increasing number of people who pretend to know the hard-and-fast rules according to which any work of art can be categorised as ‘positively bad’ or ‘positively good’ normally serves as an indicator of the fact that the culture in question is quickly deteriorating. The party functionaries who started judging works of art by the rules of the Communist ideology — something which Joseph Stalin is said never to do—were signalling the near end of the Soviet Union. The social justice warriors of today who want to censure or even to ‘cancel’ Rudyard Kipling or William Shakespeare for their racist views or sexist ideas might be indicating that… well, I have said enough.