Frenchman Yauheni Kryzhanouski is a doctor of political science and a university researcher. He just published Contesting through music under authoritarian rule (Editions du Croquant, 2022). He explains the return of censorship and the contestation of rock in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
How did you become a scholar of rock in Russian?
Often, at the origin of the thesis subjects, there are personal interests. This is my case: my interest in this music comes from my youth. I was born in the city of Hrodna, Belarus, near the Polish and Lithuanian border. In the 1990s and early 2000s, much of the local rock movement was politicized and spoke out against President Lukashenko’s power in various ways, in songs, interviews, protests and concerts. I was studying in Minsk, at the European University of Human Sciences, created in 1992 after independence and closed in 2004 by the authorities. I completed my master’s and doctoral studies in France, in Strasbourg. I chose the subject of protest through music. I then worked on new forms of protest in Russia and Belarus.
How do you define protest music?
I had to answer this question when I started my research. Protest, like politicization, can be defined differently. In Western societies, we understand that the field of politics is fairly well delimited with parties, demonstrations, etc. The protest is immediately perceptible in public criticism. In authoritarian regimes, it is more complicated. Access to the classical political field is blocked by power. Political debate therefore tends to generalize in other fields of intellectual activity—in art, literature, university research, community life. Public debate is also controlled there. We don’t say things openly; we contest by hiding the messages, with ambiguities that are decoded. I therefore define contestations as political, social and economic heterodoxies, which go against the ideological and political doxa.
What was the place of rock in the protest in the Soviet context?
A certain protesting and non-conformist mythology surrounds the rock genre, including in the West. In the Soviet Union, there were accepted and sanitized forms of rock: concerts prohibited electrical distortion, and the volume remained quite low. Other forms, such as punk or heavy metal, were considered undrinkable. In the 1970s and 1980s an underground movement emerged in Russia and Belarus, which did not respect the official frameworks of legitimate rock. The same is happening in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. This rock is not anti-Soviet, but not Soviet. It does not respect the canons of socialist realism. He is heterodox.
How did this genre change around the fall of the USSR?
The glory era of Soviet rock arrived with glasnost, the 1986 freedom of expression policy. Underground rock became a symbol of the social reforms of perestroika. He kept away from political questions until then and he suddenly became politicized, even more from 1989, because the public demanded it. Rockers from Leningrad and Moscow fill stadiums. The old groups Aquarium, Machina Vremeni and Kino are becoming very popular. An even more openly politicized wave emerges with younger formations like Grajdanskaïa Oborona (Civil Defense), a very radical punk group.
And what happens to this music after the demise of the USSR?
The genre went into crisis at the beginning of the 1990s. The protest on which the groups relied became obsolete; it is no longer necessary in a liberal society. In addition, there is the opening up to competition from Western popular music, which is much more professional. The return of authoritarian regimes, first in Belarus in the mid-1990s and then frankly in Russia in the late 2000s, brought back censorship, and therefore protest and a new wave of popularity. In the last decade, censorship remained fairly diffuse and informal — by club managers, for example — except for exceptional cases, such as Pussy Riot. More often, the system created an atmosphere in which holding concerts proved unlikely. Since 2021 in Belarus and 2022 in Russia, censorship has been operating at full speed. It has become extremely difficult to take a stand against the authorities.
How is the protest expressed in Belarus and Russia in this context?
There are two attitudes. Either the groups are silent because they risk a lot by expressing themselves, or they go into exile. The protest movements are therefore expressed from abroad, where charity concerts are organised. This locked situation also applies to other forms of political and cultural dissidence. Journalists and independent media have all left the two countries — that is, those who are not in prison. The political opposition no longer exists except in exile.
How has Ukrainian rock stood out since the country’s independence in 1991?
The situation had been very different in this country for decades. Before independence, there was a wave of anti-Soviet groups who wanted to participate in the construction of national identity. After the end of the USSR, Ukraine did not experience authoritarian powers or censorship, as in Russia and Belarus. This freedom meant that we could express ourselves freely and at the same time, we didn’t necessarily do so politically. There were indeed mobilizations of artists during the Orange Revolution and the second Maidan revolution to support the protesters, but it was an effect of commitment concentrated during these periods.
And since the war?
A very large number of musicians were mobilized against the war. Some groups that were not politicized took this turn. They do concerts to raise funds for the Ukrainian army or the refugees, but without making protest songs. Others make it up. Musicians who have always been engaged are stepping up their efforts. Slava Vakartchouk, leader of the Okean Elzy group, created a party and was elected as a deputy. He started to create protest songs and he goes to see the soldiers on the front lines. Serhiy Zhadan, of the ska punk band Zhadan and the Dogs, has been involved in territorial defense and has raised funds with concerts all over Europe. It should also be said that before the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian music was extremely popular in Russia. Several Ukrainian singers and bands dominated the Russian pop scene. This is obviously no longer the case.
Rock is an old musical form that is less and less popular. Are other musical genres taking up the challenge?
This is the case with hip-hop, although this genre appeared in Russia as entertainment music. We now see collaborations, hybridizations, because there is this very prophetic image of Russian rock of the 1980s. When we imagine an active social position, we immediately think of this old musical genre, even on the side of rappers . Rock is defined by its non-conformism, not from a musical point of view. When Oxxxymiron, one of Russia’s most famous rappers, stopped his recent tour in London, he welcomed Boris Grebenchtchikov, one of the pioneers of rock in Russian, on stage and they sang together.