War of Songs: Popular Music and Recent Russia-Ukraine Relations

by Andrei Rogatchevski, Yngvar B. Steinholt, Arve Hansen, David-Emil Wickström, Andreas Umland (Editor)

Overview

This multi-authored monograph consists of the sections: “Pop Rock, Ethno-Chaos, Battle Drums, and a Requiem: The Sounds of the Ukrainian Revolution”, “The Euromaidan’s Aftermath and the Genre of Answer Song: A Musical Dialogue Between the Antagonists?”, “Exposing the Fault Lines beneath the Kremlin’s Restorative Geopolitics: Russian and Ukrainian Parodies of the Russian National Anthem”, “‘Lasha Tumbai’, or ‘Russia, Goodbye’? The Eurovision Song Contest as a Post-Soviet Geopolitical Battleground”, and “(Post-)Soviet Rock Soundtracks the Donbas Conflict”.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783838271736
Publisher:	ibidem
Publication date:	05/30/2019
Series:	Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society , #203
Sold by:	Libreka GmbH
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Arve Hansen is a doctoral student of Russian at the UiT – the Arctic University of Norway. Dr. Polly McMichael is Lecturer in Russian and Slavonic Studies at the University of Nottingham. Dr. Andrei Rogatchevski is Professor of Russian Literature and Culture at the UiT – the Arctic University of Norway. Dr. Yngvar Steinholt is Associate Professor of Russian at the UiT – the Arctic University of Norway. Dr. David-Emil Wickström is Professor of Popular Music History at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg in Mannheim, Germany. The author of the foreword: Artemy Troitsky is a prominent music critic and author of Back in the USSR: The True Story of Rock in Russia (1987), Tusovka: Who’s Who in the New Soviet Rock Culture (1990), and Subkultura: Stories of Youth and Resistance in Russia, 1815-2017 (2017).

Editorial Reviews

War of Songs brings original insight into the tensions and conflicts between Russia and Ukraine in recent years by tracing how they have been played out not only in political discourse and military battle but also in popular culture. Drawing on ethnographic field research, analysis of music, lyrics, and videos, and setting popular cultural production in the context of the contemporary political context, the volume provides a valuable, critical contribution to our understanding of one of the major international conflicts of the last decade.

Hilary Pilkington

With attention to Euromaidan and Crimea alone, it is clear that the relationship between Russia and Ukraine has become increasingly tense (and perilous) over the course of the past decade. Understanding that these tensions and conflicts occur not only on geopolitical but on cultural levels as well, War of Songs is an important and essential contribution to the analysis of this ongoing, often violent struggle. Featuring works by some of the leading scholars in the realm of post-Soviet studies and engaging a wide range of locations, genres, and dynamics, the volume is a significant addition to the literature on the intimate relationship between popular music and politics.

Stephen Amico