Thus the Steel Was Tempered

Social Issues in Russian Society Through the Music and

Videos of Experimental Band Shortparis
Background - Members

❖ Nikolai Komyagin - vocals

❖ Aleksander Ionin - guitar, bass, accordion

❖ Pavel Lesnikov - drums, sampling

❖ Danila Kholodkov - drums, percussion

❖ Aleksander Galyanov - guitar, keyboards
Background - History
❖ members Nikolai Komyagin, Aleksander Ionin, and Pavel Lesnikov (from
Novokuznetsk, Siberia) formed the band in Saint Petersburg in 2012
❖ Danila Kholodkov joined later in 2012, and Aleksander Galnyanov joined in
2014 and later left in 2022
❖ Albums: «Дочери» (2013), «Пасха» (2017), «Так закалялась сталь» (2019),
«Яблонный сад» (2021)
❖ EPs/mini-albums: The Daughters (B-Sides) (2013), «Зов озера» (2022),
«НОВОЕ НОВОЕ» (2022)
❖ various soundtracks
Background - Who Listens to Shortparis?
❖ mainly popular in the Russian-speaking world
➢ NOT limited to Russia!
❖ young people
❖ women, LGBT people
❖ those opposed to the Kremlin
Art and Culture
❖ culture shapes art
❖ art influences culture
❖ historical background of all art
❖ art as a political tool? art as a form of political resistance?
❖ political suppression, censorship of art
❖ responsibility of the artist
French Influence
❖ 20th century French aesthetics, philosophy, politics
❖ surrealism
➢ André Breton, psychic automism
❖ structures
➢ relations of things to each other, the whole
❖ situationism
➢ Guy Debord
➢ recuperation
❖ post-structuralism
➢ social context
➢ sign value (Baudrillard)
➢ Derrida
Early Years
❖ 2013: «Дочери», The Daughters (B-Sides)
➢ lyrics in French and English
➢ lack of explicit political lyrics
➢ LGBT themes, gender roles
❖ Amsterdam
➢ “Je vais à la salle rouge, je danse avec tout/Je reçois la salle rouge”
➢ “Dans le port d'Amsterdam, il y a des marins qui dansent/En se frottant la panse sur la panse des
femmes”
➢ “I go to the red room, I dance with everyone/I receive the red room”
➢ “In the port of Amsterdam, there are sailors who danse/Rubbing their bellies against women’s
bellies”
❖ Your Queen
➢ “Hello! Hello!/I’m your queen! Your queen!/All that’s mine! All mine!”
❖ 2014: Russian invasion of Crimea
➢ Shortparis states opposition
➢ does not want to play in Crimea
Пасха: Turn to Russian
❖ 2017
❖ personal, apolitical lyrics
❖ Ma russie
➢ “homeland” as a subject of embarrassment
➢ nonsense lyrics
❖ “For me and my band, it is both enemy and friend… we want to enter into
dialogue with this culture, but only as an equal partner.”
❖ Туту
➢ “Папа, у меня с утра болит ключица/Где-то посреди двора зарыта птица/Папа, дай мне молока
я вылью в ямку/Папа, мы с тобой друзья, мы славим мамку”
➢ “Papa, my clavicle has hurt since morning/The bird is buried somewhere in the middle of the
yard/Papa, give me some milk, I’ll pour it in the little hole/Papa, you and I are friends, we’re
glorifying Mama”
❖ first album with Galyanov
Так закалялась сталь (2019)
❖ Как закалялась сталь, Nikolai Ostrovsky
❖ political turn
➢ economic problems
➢ domestic violence
➢ ignorance of problems
➢ cult of strength
➢ xenophobia
Как закалялась сталь
❖ How the Steel Was Tempered, Nikolai Ostrovsky
❖ publication: 1932-34 (serial), 1936 (book)
❖ socialist realism, autobiographical
➢ Russian civil war, injury, healing
❖ heavily edited for book form
➢ home life
➢ suffering after injury
➢ separation from wife
❖ Soviet communism creates ideal men
➢ like iron from steel
Socialist realism

❖ “realistic”, highly idealized genre

❖ simple interpretation, propagandistic

❖ official style of the USSR from 1932-1988

❖ limitation of popular culture

❖ optimism

❖ New Soviet Man

Domestic Violence in Russia
❖ Так строят на века/Так женщин бьют в живот//Так закалялась сталь/Так
предают жену
➢ Thus they build for centuries/Thus they hit women in the stomach//Thus the steel was
tempered/Thus they betray their wives
❖ 70% of Russian women have experienced physical, psychological, economic, or
sexual violence at home
❖ 2013: up to 26,000 women and 36,000 children face daily domestic abuse
❖ decriminalization of violence that does not result in “serious bodily harm”
➢ 2017, 380-3 vote
Яблонный сад (2019)
❖ continuation of political themes
❖ increasing militarization of Russia
❖ “Спит большая страна/Вечным кажется вечер/Над собором
Кремля/Поднимается ветер, а”
❖ “Рыба ищет сетей/Тело ищет событий/Пуля стала умней/В ходе
кровопролитий/Как на улочке солдат/Булочку ест, сладкому рад/Он тебе и сын
и брат/Мёдом цветёт яблонный сад”
❖ “A great nation sleep/The evening seems eternal/Over the Kremlin cathedral/The
winds are rising, and”
❖ “The fish seeks a net/The body seeks events/The bullet became smarter/As a
result of the bloodshed/Like a soldier on the bystreet/Eats pastries, happy for some
sweets/He is your brother, your son/The apple orchard blossoms with honey”
КоКоКо / Cтруктуры не выходят на улицы
❖ Les structures ne descendent pas dans la rue
➢ Structures don’t take to the streets
➢ May 68
❖ “Врёт как всегда/Ложь не делится на два/Но вам не достанется/Нет нам не
до...//Ни прощения, ни креста/Скукой пахнет нищета/Нет, всё не
исправится/Так всё не испра…”
❖ “Lying as always/Lies can't be divided by two/But you won't get your share/No,
we won't get...//No forgiveness, no cross/Poverty smells of boredom/No, nothing
will get better/This way nothing will…”
❖ “Структура-ду-ду-ду-ду-дура/Сама себя снимала шкура/Стремясь всем
показать в чём сила/Трава сама себя косила”
❖ “The structure is a f-f-f-f-fool/The hide skinned itself/In order to show everyone
what power is about/The grass became its own skinner”
Двадцать
❖ “С виду тихий, молодой/Пролетарий заводской/Ищет в песенке покой/Глаза
полны тоской”
❖ “A young and quiet-looking/Factory proletarian/Searches for peace in a
song/Eyes full of longing”
❖ “В сентябре пятнадцать/В октябре пятнадцать/В ноябре пятнадцать/Но
хотелось двадцать”
❖ “In September fifteen/In October fifteen/In November fifteen/But he wanted
twenty”
❖ Socialist realist Lenin statue
❖ bleak outlook
➢ can art bring change? (recuperation)
Говорит Москва
 Говори мне!//Эти сны/В пол страны/И дыра/В пол ведра/Говорит
Москва//Говори Ма!
 Speak to me//These dreams/Half-country wide/And a hole/half-bucket
wide/Moscow speaking/Speak Ma!
 Breton: The simplest Surrealist act consists of dashing down the street, pistol
in hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull the trigger, into the crowd.
 recontextualization
2022-present
❖ Feb. 26: Komyagin arrested & fined for participation in anti-war protest
❖ Mar. 11: Shortparis, Хор ветеранов им. Ф. М. Козлова – Яблонный Сад
➢ significantly different from the original version
❖ change in aesthetics
➢ turn from military aesthetic
❖ stay in or leave Russia?
❖ «НОВОЕ НОВОЕ» (2022)
➢ “Тихо точила родина нож/Нож - это сила, пой молодежь // Вот оно, вот оно - новое царство/Вот уже,
погляди, бьет заря/Новое новое, крепкое братство/Только не подведи, милая”
➢ “Silently the homeland sharpened its knife/The knife is power, sing, youth!//Here it is, here it is: the new
tsardom/Look, the dawn is already breaking/The new new, strong brotherhood/Just don’t let me down,
love”
❖ «Зов озера» (2022)
➢ «Берегите ваши лица»
«Берегите ваши лица» & Gogol Center
❖ originally opened in 1925 for railway workers
➢ The Drama and Comedy Theatre
❖ passed to government control in 1930
➢ 1935: Nikolai Gogol Drama Theatre
❖ reopening as Gogol Center in 2014
➢ home to avant-garde theater
➢ Valeriy Pecheykin, openly gay playwright
➢ constant fight with government censorship, 2017 raid
❖ June 2022: shut down by Moscow Department of Culture
➢ Nikolai Gogol Drama Theatre
➢ I Don't Take Part In War
■ Yuri Levitansky: “I don’t take part in war, it takes part in me”
➢ Agranovich: "The Gogol Centre is closed. Forever."
«Берегите ваши лица» & Gogol Center
❖ «Берегите ваши лица»: one of the last plays premiered by the Gogol Center
❖ Inspired by a play of the same name by Vladimir Vysotskiy
➢ anti-establishment Soviet musician, actor, poet
➢ 3 performances before being censored by authorities
➢ Охота на волков
■ “legalize Vysotskiy”
■ “Идет охота на волков, идет охота/На серых хищников - матерых и щенков/Кричат
загонщики, и лают псы до рвоты/Кровь на снегу и пятна красные флажков.”
■ “They are hunting for wolves, they are hunting/For grey predators - mothers and puppies/The
hunters shout, and the dogs bark until they vomit/Blood on the snow and red spots of flags.”
❖ one of the reasons for the closing of the Gogol Center
❖ parallels between repression then & now
Questions

1. Do you think artists have a responsibility to use their art in a certain way?
2. Are there times when art goes too far?
3. Can art be an effective protest?
4. What are the responsibilities of Russian artists in particular?
a. Should they stay in Russia?
b. Does political repression in Russia mean they have more or less of a duty to speak out?

5. What do you think about ambiguity in political art?

THANK YOU!