Russian Rock: Beyond Common Sense and the Ethos of Consumption

Abstract

Addressing the phenomenon of Russian rock, the authors proceed from the theoretical assumptions that the process of “disenchantment” (M. Weber), which began in the new European world in the 16th century and is still going on, has led to the inescapable domination of the logic of ordinary sensus communis or common sense in it, which has betrayed the sacred and is rooted in the structures of everyday life. One of the very few domains that exist on grounds other than common sense is the world of rock music. This is the point of view from which the article analyzes Russian rock. The authors show that the otherness of the worlds of Russian rock music is established by musicians in various ways. The article explicates what symbolic resources are used for their establishment and assembly. These are Buddhist symbols (“Aquarium”), and images of the ancient Egyptian and Medieval worlds (“Piknik”), and the grotesque and paradoxical poetics of the OBERIU members (“AuktYon”), and the tradition of alchemy (“Orgia Pravednikov”). The article reveals that the overall otherness of Russian rock can be clarified by the concept of carnival modification by M.M. Bakhtin, who wrote that over time, the carnival would move from the square to the symbolic dimension of culture. One of these manifestations of carnivality in the cultural and symbolic dimension of the world is Russian rock, where everything is built on a game that unfolds on the other side of the “common sense-feeling” with its inherent monologism and absolute indifference to the experience of a unique “I”. In general, the game element serves in Russian rock for questioning the values of the mass world, their problematization. It is also important that Russian rock manages to develop its own special language of symbols to express the carnival worldview. This article discusses those of them that cast the position of “here-being” “I” and value orientations of the authors of Russian rock poetry: the mortal or macabre symbolism, the kingdom or tsardom, the images of zoomorphic and ornithomorphic creatures, and the carnival itself as a symbol of otherness and freedom. By abolishing social givens, predicates and assignments, rock music attacks the “I” form as a “package” of the self, produced by a certain subject positionality, and the “I” is drawn into the game of both “I” forms and subject positionalities. This inevitably leads to a “re-evaluation of the value” and “I” form, and subject positionality — renewal of the perspective of vision of the “world” and yourself in it — behind which stands “the acquisition of a new spiritual state” (W. Benjamin). Russian rock is puzzled by the search for a way of spiritual transformation, transformation of the “I”, and this is why it is valuable for us.