Viktor Tsoi, Leningrad rock poetry and the cultural politics of glasnost

Viktor Tsoi rose to prominence during perestroika with songs and performances suggestive of notions of
freedom, youth and political change. By his sudden death in 1990, glasnost had made Tsoi a public
figure: he had appeared in feature films (Igla, 1986; ASSA, 1987) and documentaries; his group Kino were
selling out stadiums. In death, Tsoi became a cultural icon for Soviet citizens who had participated in the
processes of perestroika and glasnost. Taking Tsoi's career and creativity as a case study, this project will
provide insights into the appropriation of underground phenomena into public culture during glasnost,
breaking significant new ground in understanding the cultural politics of the Soviet 1980s. It will also
constitute the first serious study of Russian 'rock-poetry' in English by digging deeper than existing work
into the notion of Tsoi as a 'rock-poet', arguing that his lyrics wrote themselves into a
Leningrad/Petersburg literary tradition even while creating their own form. My close readings will situate
Tsoi's texts within this canon and identify important poetic influences, revealing what the emphasis
placed on verbal texts tells us about the cultural politics of glasnost and providing a new analysis of the
consequent view of Russian rock as distinct from Western rock (Troitsky 1987).