Vladimir Vysotsky Research Articles

The experience of the classification of linguistic and speech “Ambiguities” in the poetry of Vladimir Vysotsky

The experience of the classification of linguistic and speech “Ambiguities” in the poetry of Vladimir Vysotsky

Визуализация в песенно-поэтической культуре

On the one hand, the article is of an overview nature. It deals with modern ideas of Russian and foreign science on the role of visuality in modern culture. The popular thesis that modern culture is primarily visual is questioned. The visual component is shown to have already played a significant role in relict pre-literature forms. Many branches of knowledge, such as the philological profile, still study the intermedial arts without taking into account their complex nature. The article presents the history of the study of this problem in the context of research on author’s songs and rock culture. On the other hand, the article has got a practical part, where the theses stated are illustrated with specific material. According to the author’s hypothesis, the bards have devised various strategies for developing visual space over the decades of the existence of this phenomenon. The work with visual content within a music video is illustrated on the materials of two takes of the song “Morning Gymnastics” by Vladimir Vysotsky (the videos were made by the Hungarian Television in 1974). The poet employs two “types” of sign and scenographic visualization, i.e. the ones with theatrical and sports connotations. The strategy of developing the visuality in rock poetry is presented by the example of the concert by Alexander Bashlachev taken place at Boris Grebenshchikov’s* in 1986. Due to the poet’s performance without accompanists, the emphasis is made on gestures, primarily on the eye ones, appealing to the top of the ontological vertical. The deep and diverse connections to the Bashlachev’s poetic text are shown. * Recognized by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation as a foreign agent

Interview: Faust in Three Languages, or How to Translate Goethe without Knowing German

Abstract Vadim Astrakhan is a Russian immigrant to the United States who has made a name for himself as a translator and performer of songs by Soviet bard Vladimir Vysotsky. While his previous translations were all from Russian, Astrakhan’s latest project is an English verse rendition of Goethe’s Faust. Astrakhan does not know German. He begins by running Goethe’s original text through Google Translate. He then collates the result with various existing English-language versions of Faust as well as the canonical Russian verse translation by Boris Pasternak (published 1953), which was his main inspiration for putting Faust into rhymed English verse. Adrian Wanner, a professor of Russian and comparative literature at Penn State and a native speaker of German, discusses with Astrakhan what prompted him to translate Goethe’s tragedy. The conversation touches on Astrakhan’s use of English and Russian sources and his methodology and goals as a translator, including the crucial importance he ascribes to bringing to life the music and humor of Goethe’s original for a contemporary American theatrical audience.

Interview: Faust in Three Languages, or How to Translate Goethe without Knowing German

Abstract Vadim Astrakhan is a Russian immigrant to the United States who has made a name for himself as a translator and performer of songs by Soviet bard Vladimir Vysotsky. While his previous translations were all from Russian, Astrakhan’s latest project is an English verse rendition of Goethe’s Faust. Astrakhan does not know German. He begins by running Goethe’s original text through Google Translate. He then collates the result with various existing English-language versions of Faust as well as the canonical Russian verse translation by Boris Pasternak (published 1953), which was his main inspiration for putting Faust into rhymed English verse. Adrian Wanner, a professor of Russian and comparative literature at Penn State and a native speaker of German, discusses with Astrakhan what prompted him to translate Goethe’s tragedy. The conversation touches on Astrakhan’s use of English and Russian sources and his methodology and goals as a translator, including the crucial importance he ascribes to bringing to life the music and humor of Goethe’s original for a contemporary American theatrical audience.

ДВЕ ПЕСНИ О СТРАШНОМ ДОМЕ: ЛИРИЧЕСКИЙ СТАТУС ЭПИЧЕСКИХ ЭЛЕМЕНТОВ

The article compares two songs from the second half of the twentieth century describing similar events. They are “The song about an Old House in New Arbat Street” (music by Mikael Tariverdiev, words by Vladimir Vysotsky and sung by Vladimir Vysotsky) and “The Little House” (music by Igor Korneliuk, words by Regina Lisits, sung by Igor Korneliuk). The analysis covers such elements as the storyline, the system of points of view, and the motive structure; the similarities and differences are traced between the two songs. That follows with a conclusion on the specific generic nature of those elements, which are realized in the text as epic, but at the same time acquire a lyrical status. Particular attention is given to the way in which in both songs the lyrical theme supersedes the epic storyline. That is to say, the epic plot loses its dominance, becoming rather the pretext for the emergence of the lyrical theme. In both texts the epic generic element is reduced and the lyrical one accentuated.

Anti-Fairy Tales in the Works by Vladimir Vysotsky and Robert Rozhdestvensky: Genesis and Artistic Findings

The author explores, for the first time, Vladimir Vysotsky’s anti-fairy tales (“The Fairy Tale Song about Evil Spirits”, “There is no more Lukomorye”, “Verses of Evil Spirits”) and Robert Rozhdestvensky (“The Tale of the Blacksmith who Stole a Horse”, “The Monologue of the King of Animals”) in a comparative aspect. These texts have common foundations with folklore genres (myth, bylichka (folkloric account), byvalschina (true story), fairy tale) and literary fairy tale. The purpose of the article is to disclose the artistic features and the genesis of the anti- fairy talesby Vysotsky and Rozhdestvensky. It is revealed that the roots of folklore works go back into the mythological layers of Russian national culture associated with the development of artistic consciousness of people of prehistoric times. The myths that reflected a person’s idea of the world were of a religious nature and did not cause doubt as long as they were believed in. After the belief in animate gods disappeared, myths began to be perceived as fiction and become a bylichka (folkloric account), byvalschina (true story), fairy tale, etc. It is concluded that the anti-fairy tale is based on the attributes of a fairy-tale model, which are used by the authors of works to identify the imperfections of the real world, to ridicule it. One of the means of creating comic effects in the studied anti- fairy tales is hyperbole. In turn, hyperbolization reveals the ideological intent of the works, enhancing their aesthetic and authorial sound. Bearing the traditions of folklore genres (myth, bylichka (folkloric account), byvalschina (true story), fairy tales, etc.) and literary fairy tales, the anti-fairy tales by Vysotsky and Rozhdestvensky help the reader to create a contrast between the fabulous idea of the world and the imperfect world of reality.

Стеб как социально-культурный феномен: "культурная самооборона" или "нравственная амбивалентность"?

The article discusses jeering (styob) as a style of communication. This style is interpreted as a specifically Russian phenomenon of a certain period. Jeering is defined as ambivalent and morally and intellectually irresponsible humor. The view of jeering as a way to defend group values as those opposed to official culture is questioned. The article argues that, unlike satire, jeering does not give a moral evaluation at all. From socio-ecological view, jeering should be considered a negative phenomenon. Jeering is found in poetry and journalism of the sixties along with the fashion for a play on words (the so-called "paronymic explosion"). Gradually, however, the play on words acquires a satirical tone in uncensored author songs. In this regard, the most popular Soviet author was Vladimir Vysotsky. In contrast to jeering, the author's moral position is clear; it is analytical satire that makes one think. Nevertheless, jeering did not completely disappear but it became more widely spread in the post-Soviet period, when, on the one hand, one could laugh at the Soviet past; on the other hand, there arose new social realities that were to be comprehended. Satire again gave way to jeering, and researchers discussed not only paronymic explosion but paid close attention to language game. The article makes a prudent conclusion regarding the future of jeering in Russian culture. Jeering (styob) is expected to fade giving way to more mature forms of humor and satire.

THE STUDY OF VLADIMIR VYSOTSKY'S PERSONALITY IN HISTORICAL SCIENCE AS A HISTORIOGRAPHIC PROBLEM

The article examines the research that aims to study the personality of Vladimir Vysotsky within the framework of historical science. The main directions of scientific research are specified and their interdisciplinarity is characterized. Special attention is paid to two monographs and several scientific articles, which are an attempt to characterize the emerging trend in the historical science in the study of Vladimir Vysotsky and his place and role in the context of socio-cultural development of the country within the framework of socio-cultural issues.

МИФ О В.С. ВЫСОЦКОМ И ЕГО ТРАНСФОРМАЦИЯ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ СОЦИУМЕ

The article is focused on the myth of Vladimir Vysotsky to be formed by Soviet and Russian critics as much as the further transformation in the perception of his personality in the modern Russian society. The legacy of Vladimir Vysotsky is “appropriated” by the official culture, in fact, immediately after his death. From an unrecognized singer during the lifetime, he becomes a classic included in school curricula. In the process the figure of the poet/ singer is banalized as much as classified. The contexts behind it lose their former meaning and are transformed to please representatives of certain socio-groups depending on their interests: from nativists to intellectuals.

“... I FEEL TO MYSELF AS LIKE THEIR SUM...” (Review of the book: Korman Ya.I. Vladimir Vysotsky and writers of the twentieth century. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2022. 1320 pages)

“... I FEEL TO MYSELF AS LIKE THEIR SUM...” (Review of the book: Korman Ya.I. Vladimir Vysotsky and writers of the twentieth century. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoria, 2022. 1320 pages)

"КАКИЕ К ЧЕРТУ ВОЛКИ?": СЛОВО ВЫСОЦКОГО В "ОХОТЕ НА ОВЕЦ" БОРИСА БЕЛОКУРОВА (УСОВА)

The article deals with the reference to the song by Vladimir Vysotsky “Hunting for wolves” in the text of Boris Belokurov (Usov) “Hunting for sheep”. The conclusion is made about the specific role of someone else’s word in the strong positions of the text – in the title, refrain, final verse, on the basis of which the author’s attitude is also characterized.

The duality of Vladimir Vysotsky's “creating soul”

The “creating soul” of the poet and actor Vysotsky is divided into angelic and demonic. Early showing up demonic more and more captures the power over the poet's self and his work, taking different looks. The choice between creative and destructive forces determines not only the creative, but also the human destiny of Vysotsky.

The great social experiment: when dreams did not turn into reality

The great social experiment in building socialism, which was supposed to develop into communism, was based on a number of attractive political myths, for the creation of which a special symbolic universe was created, a wide range of various sign systems were involved, among which language played the most important role: as a means of creating a political myth and the means of its constant feeding (the myth-making function of the language). This allowed (in conjunction with other means of subjugating the totalitarian state) for a long period to manipulate the consciousness of the masses, educating the younger generation in the given ideological framework. However, being the most important means of creating myths, language at the same time has enormous potential for its destruction. An analysis of texts criticizing the political ideology prevailing in the Soviet empire allowed us to single out two main types of myth-destroying texts: 1) texts criticizing the existing order (anecdotes, caricatures, parodies, political fables, etc.) and 2) texts that destroy the “information vacuum» (photographic documents, archival documents, autobiographies, etc.). The artistic works of dissidents of socialist ideology (Vladimir Vysotsky, Nikolai Guberman, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Mikhail Bulgakov, etc.), which often combined both functions, had a special appellative-influencing force. Analysis of the role of language in the creation of myth as a socio-cultural phenomenon on the example of the myths of the Soviet era in the context of modern globalization of knowledge and the interdisciplinary scientific paradigm demonstrated the semiotic mechanism of myth creation and the dynamics of their destruction.

Neural reading

AbstractThe creation of poems via neural networks is relatively easy nowadays and the internet is replete with corresponding examples. However, it largely lacks interpretive concepts. What should be done with the results generated in this way? How can we draw scientific conclusions from them? This is all the more difficult to answer as it still remains unclear where to position deep‐learning approaches in the canon of digital‐humanities methods. But it is clear that humanities scholars must reckon with machines being responsible for, or at least involved in, the creation of their objects of study. After a historical introduction to automated poetry generation, we try to conceptualize neural‐net poetry and argue that its interpretation, i.e. the close reading of texts generated that way, based on large source corpora, can be an insightful addition to the toolbox of computational literary studies, an approach in development that we suggest calling “neural reading.” Our main argument is that artificial neural networks are able to reproduce parts of the stylistic features of a training sample, in our case poetic corpora, acting as a kind of digital echo chamber of literary history. These features are mainly observed in smaller language units, at the level of morphology, vocabulary, syntax, and prosody. Our findings open new directions for the study of style in larger corpora. We will illustrate this with three Russian corpora (a selection of translated hexameters from the eighteenth to the twentieth century and the poetry of Natalia Azarova and Vladimir Vysotsky) and one German corpus (collected poems of Friedrich Hölderlin).

Метонимия в поэзии Саши Черного и Владимира Высоцкого

The article deals with the description of lexical metonymy in Sasha Cherny and Vladimir Vysotsky’s poetry. The author notes the most frequent models of the metonymic transfer of meanings characteristic of the works of both poets, illustrating them with numerous examples from the texts. The article identifies models of substantive, adjective and verbal metonymy. The author emphasizes that in Sasha Cherny’s poems substantive metonymy prevails. Adjective and verbal metonymic transfers of meanings are less represented. Specific features of metonymy in Vladimir Vysotsky’s poetry are noted. Characteristic features of V. Vysotsky’s poems are such linguistic phenomena as metonymic concretization and generalization, an abundance of verbal metonymic hyphenation, as well as inverse actant metonymy in nouns. The observations made by the author can be useful for both linguists and philologist experts in literature.

Особенности лингвокультурной адаптации стихов В. Высоцкого при переводе на мальтийский язык

Особенности лингвокультурной адаптации стихов В. Высоцкого при переводе на мальтийский язык

"Doctor Stockmann" by Stanislavsky in the Light of Criticism and History

«Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Искусствоведение» — научно-теоретический рецензируемый журнал, обобщающий результаты исследований ученых всего мира в различных областях искусства, включая музыковедение, культурологию и художественное образование.

Interview with Dr Olga Markovna Tabachnikova, Head of Russian and The Director of The Vladimir Vysotsky Centre for Russian Studies at the School of Language and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan, Preston, England)

Interview with Dr Olga Markovna Tabachnikova, Head of Russian and The Director of The Vladimir Vysotsky Centre for Russian Studies at the School of Language and Global Studies at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan, Preston, England)

The Interpretation of the Authorial Creation of Vladimir Vysotsky on Contemporary Moscow Stages

Abstract The study presents an overview and analysis of contemporary Moscow productions inspired by the personality and work of the legendary Russian actor and poet of the latter half of the 20th century, singer and songwriter Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky (1938 – 1980). The authoress covers both the older productions which have been on the repertoires of theatres for several years and more recent productions staged this year on the occasion of the artist’s unlived 80th birthday. Researching on the productions by different theatre makers, staged by various theatres and drama ensembles, points at the importance and up-to-dateness of the creative legacy of Vladimir Vysotsky and at the significance of him as a personality that has become a legend and a component part of the cultural history of Soviet and post-Soviet eras. The productions constitute a significant part of the unwavering cult of his personality.

Inspirations, interactions and associations: On some links between the works of Vladimir Vysotsky and English-, French- and German-language poetry, theatre and pop music

The threads binding the poetry of Vladimir Vysotsky with Russian and foreign literature have a diverse character – some convergences, similarities of his works to those of other authors can be identifi ed in the content, the subject, and the metre of the poems. Some of the literary associations are easily detectable for any recipient, others are more diffi cult to fi nd. The article focuses on the identifi ed links between the works of Vysotsky and those of foreign authors such as Pierre-Jean de Béranger, Robert Burns, and Bertolt Brecht. The convergences observed between Vysotsky’s and de Béranger’s poems, in the subject, form, and metre, indicate the affi nity of the way of thinking and ideals, as well as both poets’ love of freedom, despite the 150 year gap between their birth dates. The presented links with literature of the 18th, 19th, and 20th century widen the opportunities for interpreting the works of Vladimir Vysotsky.