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The Quiet Rehabilitation of the Brick Factory: Early Soviet Popular Music and its Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Robert A. Rothstein
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Extract

A recent collection of Soviet song texts differs from its many predecessors in one interesting respect. It contains Pavel German’s “Pesnia o kirpichnom zavode,“ better known as “Kirpichiki,” one of the most popular songs of the late 1920s, and a song that for decades symbolized the survival of petit-bourgeois tastes and poshlosf after the Revolution. This quiet rehabilitation can serve as the occasion to examine an aspect of Soviet cultural history that is rarely discussed outside the USSR, namely, the beginnings of Soviet popular music.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1980 , pp. 373 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1980

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References

1. Kriukov, N. and Shvedov, la., comps., Russkie sovetskie pesni (1917-1977) (Moscow, 1977)Google Scholar.

2. Boris, Schwarz, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917-1970 (New York: W.W.Norton, 1972)Google Scholar.

3. Brown, Edward J., The Proletarian Phase in Russian Literature, 1928-1932 (London, 1953)Google Scholar.

4. Evg. Gershuni, , Rasskazyvaiu ob estrade (Leningrad, 1968), pp. 45–46 Google Scholar.

5. “O perestroike literaturno-khudozhestvennykh organizatsii” (Resolution of the CC CPSU, April 23, 1932), in Kommunisticheskaia partiia Sovetskogo Soiusa v rezoliutsiiakh i resheniiakh s “ezdov, konjerentsii i plenumov TsK, vol. 5 (Moscow, 1971), pp. 44-45.

6. Dovesti do kontsa bor'bu s nepmanskoi muzykoi (Moscow, 1931).

7. Zarzhevskaia, M, “Opyt izucheniia pesen na demonstratsii,” Proletarskii muzykant, 1930, no. 9-10, pp. 59-60Google Scholar.

8. L. N. Lebedinskii, “Nash massovyi muzkal'nyi byt,” ibid., pp. 7-30. Lebedinskii's article, an excerpt from a paper presented at the Komakademiia, was also published in essentially the same version in Literatura i iskusstvo, 1931, no. 1, pp. 59-80.

9. A., Sokhor, Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia (Leningrad, 1959), p. 122 Google Scholar.

10. Ibid., p. 113.

11. Il'ia Il'f was apparently among those who were not fans of the last-mentioned song. His notebooks contain the quatrain: , HBa neBn, a Ha cijeHe nera: “Hac no6HTi>, IIO6HTI> XOTMH” , — TaK OHH npOTHBHO HHJIB: , %o H BnpaBfly HX IIO6HJIH (Il'ia Il'f and Evgenii, Petrov, Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 5 [Moscow, 1961], p. 250Google Scholar).

12. Bolotov, In, “Prodavtsy poshlosti,” Novyi zriteV, 1929, no. 40, p. 10 Google Scholar.

13. For example, an album on the Monitor Records label (MP 566), “Marusia Sings Russian Gypsy Songs,” vol. 2, includes such works as “Serdtse,” written by Isaak Dunaevskii (text by Vasilii Lebedev-Kumach) for the 1934 film Veselye rebiata, and “Bublichki,” one of the most famous songs of the NEP period, written by Iakov Iadov for the Odessa kupletist, G. Krasavin (see Gershuni, , Rasskazyvaiu, p. 149 Google Scholar). Simon Karlinsky has noted in a personal communication that many of the Soviet-era “gypsy” songs were imported from Paris or the Baltic countries, where they had been written by such émigré figures as Peter Leshchenko, Iurii Morfessi, and Oskar Strok.

14. B., Shteinpress, K istorii “tsyganskogo peniia” v Rossii (Moscow, 1934)Google Scholar, is interesting despite its tendentious and polemical character. The author's methodology is strongly criticized in Druskin's review, “K voprosu ob izuchenii ‘tsyganshchiny, ’ ” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1934, no. 12, pp. 96-105.

15. Three of the best-known stars of the turn of the century have been honored by “monographic” treatment: Nest'ev, I. V., Zvesdy russkoi cstrady (Panina, Vial'tseva, Plevitskaia): Ocherki o russkikh estradnykh pcvitsakh nachala XX veka (Moscow, 1970; 2nd ed., 1974)Google Scholar. The author is a senior Soviet music critic, author of two biographies of Prokofiev and a monograph on Bartok (see Schwarz, Music and Musical Life, passim).

16. The first variant is given by M. I. Zil'berbrandt, “Pesnia na estrade,” in Uvarova, E. D., ed., Russkaia sovetskaia estrada 1917-1929: Ocherki istorii (Moscow, 1976), p. 221 Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Estrada). The second is given in Mezentseva, L., comp., Starinnye russkie romansy dlia golosa v soprovozhdenii jortepiano (Moscow, 1974), p. 2 Google Scholar; and in Henry Lefkowitch, comp. and ed., Russian Songs: Collection of Most Popular Russian Folk Songs, Love Songs and Gypsy Romances (New York, 1960), p. 1960 Google Scholar, which reproduces a 1924 edition of “Iamshchik.” Although Fel'dman is always listed as the composer of that song, the melody bears a striking resemblance (noticed by Karlinsky) to the aria “Erbarme dich” from Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion.

17. Sokhor, , Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia, pp. 246–47Google Scholar. “Katiusha” was written in 1938 and was especially popular during World War II.

18. N. I., Smirnova, “Kukly na estrade,” in Uvarova, Estrada, p. 389Google Scholar. In the United States “How Strange” became a pop hit, having been introduced in the 1939 M.G.M. film Idiot's Delight with Norma Shearer, who played the role of a Russian emigre.

19. See E. V. Pomerantseva, “Ballada i zhestokii romans,” in A. A. Gorelov et al., eds., Problemy khudozhestvennoi formy, Russkii fol'klor, vol. 14 (Leningrad, 1974), pp. 202-9Google Scholar. Literary parallels to the “cruel romance” are discussed in Vladimir, Markov, The Longer Poems of Velimir Khlebnikov (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962), pp. 42–45 Google Scholar; and in Simon, Karlinsky, Marina Cvetaeva: Her Life and Art (Berkeley, 1966), pp. 188–89 Google Scholar.

20. The original text by Ammosov and one “folk” variant can be found in V. E. Gusev, ed., Pesni i romansy russkikh poetov, Biblioteka poeta, Bol'shaia seriia, 2nd ed. (Moscow- Leningrad, 1963), pp. 719-21, 942-43. The more recent version was published (with melody and guitar chords) in A., Averkin, ed., Russkie pesni: Pesennik (Moscow, 1972), p. 44 Google Scholar. While the “cruel romance” is typically urban and proletarian and “Khas-Bulat” is set in a romanticized Caucasus, Pomerantseva, for example, views the former as an outgrowth of ballads like the latter (see Pomerantseva, “Ballada i zhestokii romans” ).

21. See Sidel'nikov, V. M., Russkaia narodnaia pesnia: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel’ 1735- 1945 gg. (Moscow, 1962)Google Scholar.

22. Maiakovskii, V. V., Sochineniia v trckh tomakh (Moscow, 1965), 2: 218–24 Google Scholar.

23. Sokhor, , Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia, p. 25 Google Scholar.

24. Sokolov, Iu., Russkii jol'klor, part 4 (Moscow, 1932), pp. 34–72 Google Scholar. Unfortunately, the version of Sokolov's textbook that is best known in the West is the 1938 edition, reprinted in 1941, which does not contain this material. An English translation of the 1938 edition by Catherine Ruth Smith was published in 1950 and reprinted as Sokolov, Y. M., Russian Folklore (Hatboro, Pa., 1966)Google Scholar. Studies from the 1920s include Maro [M. Levitina], “Pesni besprizornogo, kak otrazhenie ego byta,” Shliakh osvity (Put’ prosveshcheniia), 1924, no. 3 (23), pp. 154-63; Viktor, Petrov, “Z fol'kloru pravoporushnykiv,” Etnografichnyi visnyk, book 2 (Kiev, 1926), pp. 44–60 Google Scholar; and Mikhailo, Haidai, “Melodii blatnykh pisen1,” Etnografichnyi visnyk, book 2, pp. 61-62, 161-66Google Scholar.

25. Petrov, “Z fol'kloru,” p. 44.

26. Ibid., p. 52.

27. Ibid., p. 58.

28. Gershuni, , Rasskazyvaiu, pp. 210–11Google Scholar; Utesov, L., £ pesnei po zhizni (Moscow, 1961), pp. 117, 147-48, 159Google Scholar; A., Beilin, ed., Voobrazhaemyi kontsert: Rasskazy o masterakh sovetskoi estrady (Leningrad, 1971), pp. 104–5 Google Scholar. Zarzhevskaia's list includes a song, “Tovarishch, tovarishch, boliat moi rany,” the title of which is a line included in some published versions of “Kichman,” such as Chernoff, Alexis J., ed., Russian Folk Songs (Narodnye russkie pesni i romansy), vol. 2 (New York, 1953), pp. 412–13 Google Scholar, but not, for example, in Petrov's materials (Petrov, “Z fol'kloru,” p. 57), collected in 1925-26. Textual analysis suggests that there may have been contamination of two songs.

29. Although many, if not all, of the songs mentioned were recorded in the 1920s, the only recent recording seems to be “Yulya Sings Songs of Russian Street Urchins,” recorded by the late Yulya Zapolskaya Whitney (Monitor Records, MFS 759).

30. Bolotov, “Prodavtsy,” p. 10.

31. Blium, V, “Tiazhelye razmyshleniia o legkikh veshchakh,” Vechemiaia Moskva, 1930, no. 151Google Scholar, cited by Korev, S, “O volkakh v ovech'ei shkure,” Sovetskii teatr, 1930, no. 11- 12, pp. 32-33Google Scholar. See also Lebedinskii, “Nash massovyi muzykal'nyi byt,” p. 21.

32. Shukhman, A. and Tesh, S., “Protiv khvostizma,” Muzykal'naia noif, 1924, no. 12, p. 6 Google Scholar.

33. Samuil Iakovlevich Pokrass, born in 1894, was the oldest of a musical family of five brothers and sisters. (Lebedinskii, “Nash massovyi muzykal'nyi byt,” p. 18, says sarcastically: “ikh, kazhetsia, bezdna.” ) Two of his brothers, Dmitrii and Daniil, became major Soviet composers of the 1930s, writing a number of famous songs individually or together (such as “Konarmeiskaia,” “Esli zavtra voina,” “Moskva maiskaia,” “Tri tankista,” “Proshchanie” ). Samuil left the Soviet Union in 1923 and ultimately achieved some success as a film composer in Hollywood. His obituary in the New York Times (June 16, 1939) states that his film career began after he recognized a work of his (the “gypsy” song “Chto mne gore” ) used in a film without credit.

34. Lebedinskii, “Nash massovyi muzykal'nyi byt,” p. 17. He characterizes the refrain of “Smena” ( “My idem na smenu utomivshimsia boitsam” ) as extremely popular. Perhaps the most extreme case of new wine in old bottles was the song “A serdtse-to v partiiu tianet” (music by Ol'ga Tikhonova, words by Chuzh-Chuzenin [N. Faleev]), cited by Lebedinskii, ibid., pp. 18 and 20; and Sokhor, , Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia, p. 98 Google Scholar; and quoted in Mayakovsky's poem “Stabilizatsiia byta” ( Maiakovskii, , Sochineniia, 2: 120-23Google Scholar).

35. Evgenii, Dolmatovskii, Rasskasy o tvoikh pesniakh, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1973), p. 60 Google Scholar.

36. Bolotov, “Prodavtsy,” p. 10.

37. Sokolov, , Russkii fol'klor, pp. 91–95Google Scholar. See Appendix to this article for one such variant. Commenting on the song's popularity, a contemporary observer wrote that “from Meierkhol'd's theater ‘Kirpichiki’ swept over the streets and villages. It found a hospitable reception in all the beer halls and taverns” ( Gladkov, A, “Po povodu odnoi melochi,” Zhizn’ iskusstva, 1929, no. 1, p. 17 Google Scholar, quoted in Rudnitskii, K. L., Rezhisser Meierkhol'd [Moscow, 1969], p. 314Google Scholar). The melody of “Kirpichiki” was also used for a Yiddish song ( “Dem shnayders tekhterl,” words by Chaim Towber) printed in New York in 1933.

38. Zil'berbrandt, “Pesnia na estrade,” pp. 236-37.

39. Sidel'nikov, , Russkaia narodnaia pesnia, p. 59 Google Scholar.

40. Groman, A, “O muzyke dlia derevni,” Muzyka i Oktiabr', 1926, no. 1, pp. 7–8Google Scholar, cited by Sokhor, , Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia, pp. 110–11Google Scholar.

41. Kaufman, L. S., Pesni pervykh let Oktiabria (Moscow, 1969), pp. 17–18 Google Scholar. A recent bibliography lists only fifty-three of his songs (see N. N. Grigorovich and Shlifshtein, S. I., comps., Russkaia literatura v muzyke: Spravochnik, vol. 1: A-L [Moscow, 1975], pp. 169- 72Google Scholar). This reduction in German's “output” may not have been intentional since, judging by the introduction, the authors apparently failed to check the VUOAP files.

42. B. M. Dobrovol'skii, “Sovremennye bytovye pesni gorodskoi molodezhi,” in Novikov, N. V., ed., Fol'klor i khudozhestvennaia samodeiatel'nosf (Leningrad, 1968), p. 183 Google Scholar.

43. Shvedov, la., comp., Poet sovetskaia strana (Moscow, 1962)Google Scholar.

44. Zhivtsov, A, “Zametki o legkom zhanre,” Sovetskaia muzyka, 1940, no. 4, pp. 69–72Google Scholar.

45. Ledogorov, I, “Protiv opportunizma i detskoi bolezni levizny v muzyke,” Sovetskii teatr, 1930, no. 11-12, p. 28Google Scholar.

46. Lebedinskii, “Nash massovyi muzykal'nyi byt,” p. 22.

47. L., Kulakovskii, Pesnia, ee iasyk, struktura, sud'by (na materiale russkoi i ukrainskoi narodnoi, sovetskoi massovoi pesni) (Moscow, 1962), pp. 309 and 145Google Scholar.

48. Popov, In., Nekotorye cherty sotsialisticheskogo realizma v sovetskoi muzyke (Moscow, 1971), p. 137 Google Scholar.

49. Sokhor, , Russkaia sovetskaia pesnia, p. 93 Google Scholar.

50. M., Druskin, Russkaia revoliutsionnaia pesnia: Issledovatel'skii ocherk (Moscow, 1954), p. 153 Google Scholar.-

51. Khutorok: Sobranie luchshikh i linbimeishikh pesen, romansov i opernykh i vodevil'- nykh kupletov tevestnykh pisatelei (St. Petersburg, 1874) is the first such example listed in Sidel'nikov's bibliography (see Sidel'nikov, , Russkaia narodnaia pesnia, p. 24 Google Scholar). The more recent collections include Kol'tsov, N., comp., Dorogoi dlinnoiu: Populiarnye romansy dlia golosa v soprovozhdenii fortepiano (Moscow, 1970)Google Scholar ; and Gofman, B., comp., Umchalisia goda …: Starinnye romansy dlia golosa s jortepiano (Moscow, 1977Google Scholar). The 1974 collection (Mezentseva, Starinnye russkie romansy) is similar in content if not in name.

52. Lebedinskii, “Nash massovyi muzykal'nyi byt,” p. 13.

53. See, for example, Voobrashaemyi kontsert, pp. 130-32; and E., Krasnianskii, Vstrechi v puti, Stranitsy vospominanii: Teatr, estrada, tsirk (Moscow, 1967), pp. 75–78 Google Scholar. The texts of many of Vertinskii's songs were published in the United States in Aleksandr, Vertinskii, Pesni i stikhi 1916-1937 (Washington, D.C., 1962Google Scholar). Twenty-one of his songs were published in Poland (with music for guitar and with both Russian and Polish texts) as Wertyńiski, Aleksander, Lilioivy Negr i inne romanse na gtos i gitare, ed. Janusz Jgdrzejczak (Cracow, 1974)Google Scholar.

54. Domanovskii, L. V. et al., comps., Russkii sovetskii fol'klor: Antologiia (Leningrad, 1967), p. 73 Google Scholar.

55. Ibid., p. 171.

56. Found in Kriukov and Shvedov, Russkie sovetskie pesni.

57. Domanovskii, et al., Russkii sovetskii jol'klor, p. 27 Google Scholar.

58. Dzerzhinskii, I, “Pozdravliaiu tebia, pesnia!,” Sovetskaia estrada i tsirk, 1966, no. 1, p. 7 Google Scholar.

59. Dobrovol'skii, “Sovremennye bytovye pesni,” pp. 183-84.

60. Ibid.