War Songs: the Genre Characteristics, Contexts of Interpretation, and Cultural Memory

Abstract

The article examines the problems of the cultu ral memory embodied in the genre of war song. Analyzing the book by E. Polyudova “Soviet War Songs in the Con text of Russian Culture”, published in English, the author poses such questions as the perception of the culture of the Other, the translation of cultural texts in a different culture, the specific features of the song genre in the Russian musical culture, the transformation of cultural forms in the mass cul ture, and the problem of cultural memory in the postmodern epoch with its accent on playing and loss of the historic fee l ing. Even though some positions of the book by E. Polyudova might seem disputable and not elaborated enough, the publi cation as a whole receives high evaluation, from both points of view - the introduction of the theme of Russian war song to the Western academic discourse and the importance of this theme for the Russian audience, brought up in the in formation epoch and needing the value orientation based on the rich cultural heritage of our country.