Music geography in Russia: non-auratic places and institutionalization “in becoming”

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the Tsoi Wall in Moscow, an iconic place on Russia's music map that appeared in Moscow in 1990 in memory of the cult Soviet rock musician Viktor Tsoi, to develop a framework for studying non-auratic music place – that is, places that are not connected with the biographies of musicians or musical events, but emerge directly from the experiences of visitors and fans. These places are constantly negotiated and only lightly formalized, but are nevertheless enduring. To analyze this type of place, we propose a concept of institutionalization “in becoming”. The case of the Tsoi Wall reveals that light formalization (vague and changing positions and rules, and openness to different interpretations of a place and ways of using it) leads to the recognition of the place as a significant one and to its popularity. We put institutionalization “in becoming” in a wider context and juxtapose it with well-studied musical places in Europe and the US.

KEYWORDS:

• Music geography
• Tsoi Wall
• Russian rock music
• music fans
• institutionalization
• Moscow

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank our informants for inspiring walks, talks and for sharing their experience and passion for Tsoi's music and personality. We are grateful to our colleagues for their assistance and thought-provoking discussions, and to our anonymous reviewers for their invaluable and constructive advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Oksana Zaporozhets is a Leading Research Fellow at Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities and an Associate Professor at School of Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). Her research interests include micro-urbanism, mobility studies (everyday practices, transit spaces), graffiti and street art, visual sociology and visual studies.

Alexandra Kolesnik is a Senior Research Fellow at Poletayev Institute for Theoretical and Historical Studies in the Humanities and a Lecturer at School of History, National Research University Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). Her research focuses on history of popular culture, history of British popular music, sociology of culture, and new cultural history.

ORCID

Oksana Zaporozhets http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7301-0128

Alexandra Kolesnik http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2690-1048

Notes

1 Tsoi's music is occasionally played by international rock bands and musicians, sometimes as a tribute to Russian fans at concerts in Moscow (Metallica in Moscow, July 2019), sometimes as a gesture of respect for Russian rock (for example, American indie band Brazzaville's song “Star Called Sun”, October 2012), or simply as cover versions (South Korean band Yoon Do Hyun recorded a cover version of the Tsoi's song “Gruppa krovi” (“Группа крови”/“Blood Type”) in Korean in 1999 and in Russian in 2010).

2 The Wall “adjoins” with the Moscow District Military Court (37 Arbat Street); it is a part of one of the buildings located on the territory of the court. This “neighborhood” has often put into question the existence of the Wall.

3 In 2018, a biopic about Tsoi “Leto” (“Лето”/“Summer”) by the famous director Kirill Serebrennikov became popular in Russia and was presented at the Cannes Film Festival.

4 Viktor Tsoi and his band Kino, URL: https://vk.com/rozhdenie_dnya, 316,451 members (25 October 2019). There are many social network groups devoted to Tsoi with thousands of members.

5 Leningrad Rock Club was closed in 1991 but reopened in 2012. It is located in St. Petersburg (Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg after the collapse of the USSR).

6 Originally Kamchatka is the name of the peninsula in the northeastern part of Russia. At some point it was common to jokingly call any remoted places “Kamchatka”.

7 Street art is a form of urban communication and control in Moscow, as well other cities (Scott 2015).

8 In this case, the most prominent example is the Liverpool John Lennon Airport. It was renamed in honor of the famous musician in 2002 as part of the reconstruction of the airport and the opening of a new terminal. However, it was an initiative of the city authorities and investors who sought to make the airport more recognizable on the world map (Lashua, Sara, and Schofield 2005b).

Additional information

Funding

The article was prepared within the framework of the Academic Fund Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2018 [grant number 17-05-0003] and by the Russian Academic Excellence Project “5-100”.