Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

We all know too well that the ‘cultural importance’ of many a musical celebrity is proclaimed by the corporations backing his or her appearance on the stage and benefitting from it this way or another. (What can be done about this fact?) As a result, it quickly fades away after the death of the person. It has never happened to Tsoi whose music remains popular both in Russia and in post-Soviet countries. When stuck in a traffic jam somewhere in Moscow, you would hear Tsoi’s unmistakable voice playing from the car next to you. Participants of Russian-wide musical contests broadcast on the national TV channels make an eager use of his compositions. Popular artists of today cover his songs composed in the famous boiler room which is now a museum. Philharmonic orchestras create its symphonic versions. ‘Tsoi Is Alive’—such was the motto of his fans struggling to accept his shocking death. It has proven as true, at least when referring to his music which is still very much alive.

Apparently, there must be something in the personality of this half-Korean artist that strikes a chord with us Russians, something that finds its reflection in the depths of Russian soul. It is quite a challenge for me to put this something in words. In musical terms, Tsoi is sometimes described as the pioneer of Russian punk rock/gothic rock, but it is certainly not this doubtful or, at least, very specific achievement that has made him so popular with common people. (By the way, I would not overestimate the importance of such labels as ‘punk rock’ or ‘new wave’ that one musical theorist or another applies to Tsoi’s work. Labels can be helpful when we deal with figures of lesser significance. In Tsoi’s case, labels remain just labels.) The mystery of his impact seems to be hidden in the complete integrity of his musical and poetical talents, as well as in his moral integrity. When saying that, I do not attempt to depict Tsoi as a saint person. I am rather referring to my inability to find even the smallest pretension in his artistic work, even the tiniest crack between what Tsoi propagated as an artist and what he was as a human being.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton in his Saint Francis of Assisi gives an insightful description of the difference between the medieval Italian mystic and a number of English poets. Please forgive me a long quotation that follows.

Not to many poets has it been given to remember their own poetry at such a moment, still less to live one of their own poems. Even William Blake would have been disconcerted if, while he was re-reading the noble lines ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright,’ a real large live Bengal tiger had put his head in at the window of the cottage in Felpham, evidently with every intention of biting his head off. He might have wavered before politely saluting it, above all by calmly completing the recitation of the poem to the quadruped to whom it was dedicated. Shelley, when he wished to be a cloud or a leaf carried before the wind, might have been mildly surprised to find himself turning slowly head over heels in mid air a thousand feet above the sea. Even Keats, knowing that his hold on life was a frail one, might have been disturbed to discover that the true, the blushful Hippocrene of which he had just partaken freely had indeed contained a drug, which really ensured that he should cease upon the midnight with no pain. For Francis there was no drug; and for Francis there was plenty of pain. <…> He remembered the time when a flame was a flower, only the most glorious and gaily coloured of the flowers in the garden of God; and when that shining thing returned to him in the shape of an instrument of torture, he hailed it from afar like an old friend, calling it by the nickname which might most truly be called its Christian name [Chesterton, Gilbert Keith. Saint Francis of Assisi. London; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, [1923]. PP. 106-108].