Post-socialist punk: Beyond the double irony of self-abasement (Resubmission)

Lead Research Organisation: University of Warwick
Department Name: Sociology

Abstract

Despite some interest in youth cultural movements and practices in late and post-socialist societies and a slowly growing body of work on particular segments of contemporary independent music, punk has received virtually no serious academic attention. The proposed research rectifies this through the elaboration of an historically and spatially comparative study of punk in Eastern Europe conducted by an international, collaborative team of researchers from the UK, Russia, Estonia and Croatia.

The rationale for the proposed study of (post-)socialist punk is not one of 'gap-filling'. It is driven rather by the argument that this absence is the consequence of scholars shying away from addressing (post-)socialist punk because it disrupts deeply established canons of thought about the meaning of punk. Moreover, these very canons - which emphasise the authentic subcultural moment - facilitate readings of secondary, 'peripheral' punk scenes as mimetic and/or commercial and thus encourage their significance to be ignored.

In attempting to address the challenges posed by (post-)socialist punk, the proposed project focuses on two core tenets of understandings of punk: punk aesthetics; and the social and political meaning of punk. The project challenges the dominant reading of punk in the West as first and foremost an aesthetic articulation of late capitalist social relations. By situating punk in a different political context, the reading of punk as subcultural resistance to dominant class relations is replaced by a more open question about the political significance of the transnormative cultural practices of punk in both socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe. Answers to this question will enrich our knowledge not only of processes of 'transformation' in East European societies, but will be of interest to international scholarship in the field of cultural studies, which is increasingly engaged with issues of global-local cultural exchange.

The theoretical questions raised are operationalised through an empirical project with historical and spatial comparative dimensions. Three (post)socialist countries -Russia, eastern Germany and Croatia - are studied while a PhD student will work on parallel (West) European case studies (in the UK and The Netherlands). Five key research questions are employed, three of which function as cross-cutting themes facilitating comparison while the other two provide looser comparative parameters with capacity for 'thick description' of local specifics. The project will gather five sets of data - textual, audio, visual, interview and ethnographic - although there is flexibility built into the research design in terms of the sequential or parallel triangulation of these methods.

The project will be based in, and coordinated from, the University of Warwick. The Russian national case study will be conducted by the Research Fellow and the PI both based at Warwick. The Croatian and eastern German case studies will be conducted by collaborators. The collaborators are based in Zagreb and Tartu but will conduct field research themselves in Pula and Halle respectively, employing additional research assistance as necessary.

Outputs from the project include a multi authored, comparative research monograph, as well as books and articles on individual national case studies. The joint monograph will be published in both English and relevant local languages as part of a wider concern within the project to 'decentre' cultural production in practice as well as theory. Another aspect of this practice is the building of an electronic resource as a key project output. This resource will not only feature a quarterly renewed thematic, analytic e-zine on unsigned music and culture in Eastern Europe, but will also contain searchable archives holding interviews, music, videos, still photography and other artefacts. This resource is designed to become self-sustainable after the funded life-time of the project.
 
Title Ankylym live performance 
Description Ankylym performance in Liverpool, club Kazimier, 1 May 2011; London at The Others, 3 May 2011, and Boston Arms Music Room 5 May 2011; in Bristol at The Full Moon, 7 May 2011. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
 
Title The Zverstvo Live Recording 
Description The Zverstvo, Live in London, recorded in the framework of their participation in RottenBeat: Academic and Music Dialogue with New Russian Punk workshop, London, 5 May 2011. Released in 2012: http://www.last.fm/music/THE+ZVERSTVO/Live+in+London . Reviewed by Afisha.ru: http://www.afisha.ru/article/zvukvokrug270812/ .Myaso/Meet, a song recorded in London is selected by Afisha.ru as no.68 in the soundtracks of 2012. 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
 
Title The Zverstvo live performance 
Description The Zverstvo performance in London at The Others, 3 May 2011, and Boston Arms Music Room, 5 May 2011 
Type Of Art Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) 
 
Description The project posed five broad research questions. These are restated below followed by key findings in relation to each.



Research Question 1: Transnormativity.

The project hypothesises that the subjective meanings attached by individuals to punk culture centre on its 'transnormativity', understood as the active challenging of the norms and social rules governing everyday life. The project tests this as well as the relative importance, spatially and historically, of transnormativity in music, fashion, language, performance, bodily aesthetics, gender representations/relations, and understandings of (un)acceptable life paths.



The project found significant variance across the scenes studied in the degree to which 'punk' was invested with meaning at all, and if it was, what the dominant meanings of punk were. On the developed, cosmopolitan scene of St Petersburg, the significance of identification with 'punk' as such is often downplayed and those who so identify may be derided as outsiders or 'wannabes'. In Krasnodar, the meaning of punk was also loosely articulated from inside the scene and applied to 'self' only reluctantly by bands and underground communities. The punk label itself was seen as unimportant even though value was attached to the ideas of punk that were felt to shape attitudes to music-making and the punk aim of making an aesthetic response to post-Soviet transition. On the more marginalised scenes of Vorkuta and Halle, in contrast, significant meaning was attached to 'punk' since recognising oneself as part of a translocal music scene gave validation to music and cultural practice lacking, if not actively opposed, in the local environment. Even here, however, many respondents indicated that the identification of their music or outlook as 'punk' came initially as an appropriation of an external characterisation. In both these field sites, indeed, 'punk' is often the end rather than starting point for young people who had started out on rock, metal, psychobilly or stoner scenes. In Pula, scene members did identify as 'punks', even if they did not frequently articulate this directly. Moreover, when talking about the scene, respondents would use the term 'pankerija' - an Istrian dialect form of standard Croatian for 'punks' ('pankeri') - signalling a strong emotional connection to the term.



The specific meanings attached to punk by respondents reflect and respond to the diverse external environments in which they are embedded. In Vorkuta the everyday intrusion on independence and freedom to 'do what I want' (from local thugs, local authorities, everyday encounters with the general public) makes self-expression or personal enactments of 'anarchy' the most frequently noted meaning of punk. Strong scepticism about the degree of real freedom from 'the system' actually achievable, however, also leads scene members to invest significant meaning in the performance of everyday acts of transnormativity. These ranged from simply standing out from the 'grey mass' (in terms of outlook and attitude, although to some extent stylistically too) to demonstratively stopping the traffic by walking into the middle of the road and sitting down 'to take a shit'. The isolation of the city from the front-line of Russian politics and the absence of any commercialisation of music that might be an object of resistance, on the other hand, means that while punk is assigned meaning as a mechanism for 'protest', the object of protest tends to be a generalised notion of 'system' rather than be associated with a particular political cause or movement (anti-fascism, anarchism etc). In Vorkuta, punk was understood as 'a condition of the soul' - a designation that elevated the spiritual over the material and expressed a will to freedom and independence that could not be tempered even by the tightly constraining structural conditions encountered in a deindustrialising, former Gulag city in Russia's Arctic north.



In contrast to Vorkuta, the dominant understanding of punk in Krasnodar is one of 'aesthetic revolt'. This revolt is conducted against the 'grey mass' that symbolised the mediocrity and rural mentality characterising the biggest agricultural region in Russia. The revolt is constituted in acts of individual creativity; music performance is thus a central to 'doing punk'. The Krasnodar scene is virtually indifferent to punk paraphernalia and other visual markers of belonging to any punk 'subculture'. Equally, involvement in street protest or other direct action of political dissent is not understood as an integral part of what constitutes punk.



The meanings attached to punk in St Petersburg reflect the fragmented nature of the scene. Observation suggests that it is more politicized than in either Vorkuta or Krasnodar; in this sense it is more akin to the Halle scene. However, the pop punk strand of the scene disassociates punk from politics and protest altogether and most respondents preferred punk to be apolitical on the level of song lyrics and devoid of too direct political or ideological agitation, since this is regarded as somewhat aesthetically banal and limiting. Even so, most of the research participants from St Petersburg position punk lifestyle in relation to key political reference points and many take part in direct street actions and public protest. They are often reluctant, however, to associate with concrete political movements, formal politics or the support of opposition politicians. Instead they are active in national and international DIY networks. In this sense 'protest' is central to the meanings attached to punk in the city. References to punk as being 'a condition of the soul' were also encountered on the St Petersburg scene among respondents from both DIY punk, street punk and hardcore scenes, suggesting this understandings of punk reaches beyond the Vorkuta scene.



In eastern Germany, as in Vorkuta, 'punk' is strongly associated with conditions of deindustrialisation and lack of opportunity for poorly educated working class youth. Thus it is

often envisaged by scene members as a means of resistance to the highly structured social hierarchy of mainstream society; as a Freiraum (free niche). The scene's latent left wing ideology makes it closer to the St Petersburg than the Russian provincial scenes and being 'left-wing' is, as in the St Petersburg case, more a signalling of a general opposition to the state and to mainstream society than a concrete political positioning. In conservative small towns in eastern Germany, simply being punk can constitute a transnormative act, drawing attention or comment from the general public.



In Croatia, punk is understood as more than music; punk is an attitude and way of life. However, specific meanings attached to punk practices were diverse and contested. This was evident on the main fieldwork scene in Pula, where there were frequent passionate discussions (and arguments) about the meaning of punk and practices were judged in terms of whether they conformed to the shared principles of those on the 'Monteparadiso' punk scene. Pula respondents demonstrated a determination to retain the original ethos of punk and protect it against more commercial 'punk' streams; to this end veterans of the Monteparadiso festival insisted that it should be called a 'hard-core punk festival'. On the Pula scene, 'Do it Yourself', in relation to concerts and other events, was considered central to punk. In contrast, and akin to the Russian case studies, 'style' was not seen as an integral element of punk by a substantial part of the core group of punks in Pula. However, those choosing to adopt visual style markers of punk were not criticised or derided and the display of Mohicans, badges, leather jackets etc continued to have meaning for the youngest generation of scene members (aged 15-23 years) and the oldest (those in their late thirties and older). In contrast, the middle generation adorned few style markers beyond piercings. Some of those who rejected any stylistic expressions of their belonging to the scene emphasised instead the importance of their musical activities to their punk identity. Although punk style had become relatively familiar from popular culture and the media, some scene members reported continued problems in school because of their punk image.



The research conducted suggests that, on all scenes studied, punk retains its vibrancy because it provides an artistic space for the enactment of transnormative practices that challenge the norms and social rules governing everyday life. The predominant site for transnormativity encountered was music, or more accurately, its performance. In contrast, and as noted already above, style or fashion had ceased to be an important site of norm-breaking. It is also the case that conventional rules and norms were rarely challenged in the relation to gender and sexuality. Each scene enacted transnormativity in its own peculiar practices.



In Krasnodar transnormativity is practised through a playful engagement with imagined official discourse and mainstream culture. One expression of this is local punk bands' avoidance of performing in specialised punk or underground clubs, choosing to play instead in front of unsuspecting audiences at mainstream venues such as restaurants, schools, theatre festivals or commercial promo actions. This is not seen as unfitting of punk culture, but, on the contrary, as a 'true' enactment of punk since it directly evokes the shock, disgust, and anger of ordinary citizens. Mainstream style is similarly played with in the practice of some bands of dressing in 'ordinary' or even 'office manager' clothes rather than punk style. Stylistic experimentation and mix is also central to transnormative practice in the 'biggest village on Earth'. Thus the lyrics of bands often fuse Western hardcore and local folk motifs and musicians are comfortable playing simultaneously in various stylistically different bands (e.g. in a radical, politically engaged hardcore and an indie-rock dance club formation, in an emo-punk crossover and in electronic dance music, psychobilly and grindcore ensembles). In this sense Krasnodar punk transnormativity challenges the norms of not only mainstream culture, but also the cultural and artistic identity of punk and related sub-genres.



In contrast to Krasnodar, where transnormativity is mainly enacted through performance, in St Petersburg it is usually practiced as a form of alternative lifestyle. Although the diverse and fragmented St Petersburg scene does not allow the determination of a single and unified form of transnormativity, the scene's greater politicization means that transnormative practices are enacted largely as opposition to the corrupt norms of the political regime. Some members of the scene refuse to enter conventional economic relations relying on shoplifting, downshifting, squatting, and begging. Others actively engage in the production of punk zines and promotion of anarchist and broadly left-wing literature, and in the support of DIY labels and distributional networks. In contrast visual (stylistic) and performative transnormativity is an exception rather than a norm; in a city that for several decades was famous for its liberal attitude to performance and musical experimentation, there are few norms left that can be broken on stage.



In Vorkuta, the harsh realities of everyday life leave little space for the formation of alternative lifestyles. Transnormativity was thus practised by punk scene members in a process of 'mutation'. Punk musicians often described this mutation in terms of an eruption of feelings or energies during live performance. While respondents argue that mutation cannot be narrativised, observation in the field revealed it to be a set of gesticulations, facial grimaces, bodily poses and verbal engagements that recur in rehearsals, performances and intersubjective relations. In this manifestation 'mutation' is a process of cultural debasement, bringing performers 'down to earth' and creating affective bonds between performers and between performers and audience. However, 'mutation' signalled a wider practice of transnormativity; it constituted the passage to another state in which the mutant begins to shout, smoke, drink and behave in a way that deviates from the norms and values of everyday life. Thus punks on the scene, whether musicians or not, referred to themselves and 'others like us' as 'mutants'. Although the narrativisation of transnormative practices as 'mutation' was specific to the Vorkuta scene, it is a useful metaphor for understanding more widely the process by which everyday norms and constraints are transcended, if only temporarily, through punk practices.



In Croatia, punk scenes are characterised by explicit transnormativity in relation to dominant national discourses although the forms this takes has varied in different periods of time and different localities (see below). In Pula, for example, the city's unusual political make-up - here mainstream political parties themselves adopted policies to promote multiculturalism and ethnic tolerance - meant punk positions were not a clearly transnormative as they would have been in other cities, where nationalism thrived. Other expressions of transnormativity - public drinking, drug use, noise, rebellious behaviour and 'doing nothing' (and thus, for example, dropping out of school) - were commonplace across the Pula punk scene and this kind of 'drop out' mentality was often seen as the ultimate distinction between real punks and 'fake' punks. At the same time, the Monteparadiso scene was committed to active social engagement and undertook the organisation of public activities (concerts, discussions, movie showings, cooking etc) with a sufficient degree of responsibility.



The Halle scene was the exception to the general finding concerning the relative insignificance of style to transnormative practices. Here style remained an important mode of differentiation and tattoos, including face tattoos, and heavy piercing were important markers of transnormativity. As in the other field sites, heavy drinking, fighting and other anti-social behaviour were also widespread on the Halle scene, although the larger scenes also included Straight Edge elements.





Research Question 2: Social and political positioning.

The project maps (spatially and historically) the shifting political engagements of punk, from their expression as pure fun or 'carnival' (Bakhtin 1986), to more or less coherent protest movements with fully fledged political philosophies (Graffin 1998). It locates punk cultural practices in relation to traditional forms of social and cultural participation and asks whether positioning on the social margins is a precondition for, or a consequence of, transnormative cultural practice?



The findings of the project suggest that claims made about the political significance of alternative cultural movements in the late socialist, early post-socialist period - that they were central to bringing about the collapse of sate socialist regimes (Ryback 1990; Žižek 1988; Barber-Kersovan 2005) - are unfounded. On the basis of our research, we argue that it is more accurate to understand the state socialist context as having produced high external politicization of 'alternative' music scenes while members of those scenes themselves were more likely to eschew political readings of their activity in favour of its aestheticization. This is reflected in narratives of late socialist rock communities (see, for example, Troitsky 1987), which posited rock music as 'first and foremost, an aesthetic practice' (Cushman 1995: 94) as well as in the statements of respondents in the project, which include categorical declarations that 'We don't understand punk from a social point of view but as part of culture and art.'



However, the relationship between art and politics on post-socialist punk scenes, is also quite different from that posited in classic understandings of punk as the outcome of engagements with avant-garde Dadaism (Marcus 1989) or a classic example of Debord's notion of 'detournement' (Nehring 1993). The Situationists were engaged with the understanding of modern capitalist society in which alienation of individuals 'not only from the goods they produce and consume, but also from their own experiences, emotions, creativity, and desires' (Plant 1992: 85) could be overcome by 'rediscovering play' (Reynolds 2005: 96). In state socialist societies of the late 1970s and the 1980s, however, conditions of consumer abundance did not prevail making the production and even consumption of popular music an activity requiring significant personal investment and creativity. At the same time, the price potentially paid for wearing a Mohican, or simply standing out from the 'grey mass', rendered these aesthetic gestures political rather than playful.



In this context of ideological and social constraint, however, another aspect of the punk aesthetic - its heavy use of irony and parody - takes on a political significance. Irony has always been central to East European punk practices, not least because ironic declarations of the 'positive' aspects of state-socialist reality was one way of negotiating its censorship systems. In Soviet Russia, such irony has been considered within a wider cultural tradition of 'steb'; an 'ironic aesthetic' that differs from sarcasm or other forms of absurd humour in that it requires 'such a degree of overidentification with the object, person, or idea at which this stiob[steb] was directed that it was often impossible to tell whether it was a form of sincere support, subtle ridicule, or a peculiar mixture of the two' (Yurchak 2006: 249-50). On the post-socialist Russian punk scene, ironic communication and aesthetics continue to be employed extensively; one respondent in the project declared that 'everything has to be self-ironic'. And, while the post-Soviet Russian state may not have quite the political reach of its Soviet predecessor, the contemporary political system still 'makes it very difficult to express political dissent or social critique in straightforward, politically constructive ways' and thus aesthetic statements continue to be difficult to separate from political as they always contain the possibility of 'ironic overidentification with an object that is otherwise immune to critique' (Gabowitsch 2009: 8).



In western canons, punk is posited politically as a movement with revolutionary, or perhaps more accurately, transformative, potential although containing both a purely subversive but nihilistic moment (exemplified by the Sex Pistols, and the early work of the Clash) and a more politically engaged and socially constructive moment. While this second mode has been most frequently associated with anti-racism or anti-fascism, women's rights and peace campaigns (within a wider tradition of left-wing dissent) as well as with a DiY ethic that allowed the participation in building alternative social institutions, punk's political engagement is far from unambiguous. Recent research demonstrates how punk in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980 was seen as a fertile recruiting ground for both far left and far right movements and remained a contested site of political engagement (Worley 2012).



This political ambiguity is something that is manifest both within and across the punk scenes studied in our research. Indicative here are the differences between the St Petersburg and Vorkuta scenes. The St Petersburg scene is highly diverse including significant RASH and anarchist elements and underpinned by a strong DiY ethos. The Vorkuta scene, in contrast, was characterised by significant 'communication interlocks' between (racist) skinheads and punks as many respondents had participated earlier in their subcultural careers in skinhead groups and activities and continued to share musical taste, spaces and friends with skinheads. This was translated into widespread xenophobic attitudes among the younger generation of punks and the self-identification of a number of them as Nazi-punks.



The particularly traumatic nature of the former-Yugoslav experience of 'transition' made the scenes there more politicised than elsewhere. Thus while under 'socialist self-management', punks liked to be seen as potential enemies of the socialist system, after the war, during the first years of the transition period, punk became linked with strong anti-nationalism and left wing discourses in opposition to the nationalistic discourse that characterised mainstream politics and media in Croatia in the 1990s, This connection was particularly strong in Pula, which was not affected directly by military conflict and retained its multicultural character.



However, at the broader level, our research suggests these paradigmatic understandings of the relationship between punk and politics are difficult to transfer to a post-socialist context due to: the relatively recent experience of the capitalist spectacle as an existential 'oppressor'; the practice of 'DiY' (especially in provincial cities where there is little if any infrastructure for musical production) is less the expression of an ethos than a practical necessity and constraint on creativity; and the experience of 'revolution' not as an imagined, future, libratory moment but as a heavy historical millstone whose consequences continue to be felt. This reshapes the notion of the political fundamentally since it constitutes not only an aversion to party politics common across punk scenes but a rejection of the very implication of politics in everyday life. As one respondent from the Krasnodar scene commented, 'to be involved in politics, regardless of whether you are pro or against someone, is, in principle, crap'. This attitude must be seen in the context of the evolution of punk in the socialist context, where the sphere of informal communication was often the only arena in which political pluralism could be exercised. Punk thus emerged as a practice of hanging out literally in 'undergrounds' in the form of cellars and boiler rooms, which may not have been proactively political, but was rendered so by the system. In this regard, 'apolitical' Russian punk had, and still has, more material consequences for punks in Russia, then the overtly articulated political protest in Western punk. This is evident today from minor incidents, such as the arrest of members of one of the bands participating in our research in St Petersburg for swearing during their concert performance, to the more serious and infamous case of Pussy Riot.



Political engagement today remains rarely of a formal party-political nature; it is rather, according to one respondent from the Vorkuta scene, a 'spiritual state that rejects any kind of pressure on you from above'. This state often expresses itself in an individual struggle for the 'right to be different' in which extreme artistic gestures, acts of behavioural provocation, and self-marginalisation are at the centre of an 'aesthetic protest'. In Krasnodar too, the scene does not take up a specific social and political position within society and avoids articulating its attitudes towards official political debates, figures and institutions. For most of the people on the scene politics as such is 'total crap' and 'shit' of which 'we had enough' (a reference to the decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union). Socially punks do not distinguish themselves from the mainstream society, mostly having conventional jobs and being involved in the normal practices of a settled middle-class society, such as having families. In this regard, many in Krasnodar see punk not as the antithesis of capitalism, but a call for a better and more 'proper' version of capitalism, devoid of corruption, lawlessness of official institutions, and based on principles of democracy, respect of the individual and human rights, and the valuing of individual merits.



This non-engagement with politics continues the tradition of, and nostalgia for, 'sitting out', the 'big prison' that constituted the Soviet Union from the safe havens of punk bunkers (podvaly, lit. cellars). As one group of respondents from Vorkuta commented, such cellars remained a physical space for informal communication and provided a sense of security and freedom 'from the thought that someone would hear us, would come.' Thus, according to a Krasnodar respondent, punk in Russia 'is not an aesthetic phenomenon' at all but exists 'literally in the boiler rooms. [It is] actually under ground'. The underground, in contemporary post-socialist punk thus retains a much more literal connotation and constitutes the first condition for the enactment of, if not revolutionary, nonetheless a transformative, potential in post-socialist punk in that it provides a safe haven from the constraints of what remains an intrusive 'system'.



Punk in socialist Croatia also was positioned as a 'critical artistic' movement, being politicised less by design than as a result of the political, one-party, context. Punk became associated with a certain lifestyle - emphasising rebellion, provocation, orgiastic hedonism - that cut across the left-right wing spectrum. Moreover, although rarely acknowledged in depictions of the 'golden eighties' in the Croatian media, punk (and even hardcore punk) was appropriated also by football hooligans, who, in the process, revealed their own 'critical and creative' face (Perasovi_, 2012). This situation changed dramatically, however, with the collapse of the socialist system and Yugoslav state and the outbreak of war. The fact that key moments in Croatian post-socialist transition took place in the context of war cannot be underestimated when considering the specifics of Croatian transition (Rogi_ 2000, 2009). However, the war affected Croatian society differentially, especially in relation to the direct experience of military operations and destruction, and this impacted also on cultural scenes. Thus, in the early nineties, especially in Zagreb, a radical separation of punks from any context linked with nationalism was evident. This meant that, for a period of time, punks were absent from football stadia and right wing skinheads took their place. Punk became synonymous with anti-war and anti-nationalist discourse. In Zagreb, the punk scene became closer to 'new social movements' (such as environmental, peace and feminist movements) than to previous, less politically articulated punk scenes of the eighties. In Pula, the positioning of the punk scene in the (post)war period was similar although in the very different context of a local political environment that was more tolerant and less ethnically mobilising. Another difference from Zagreb is that the Pula scene preserved punk traditions and practices, including the employment of left-wing and antifascist symbols, but without being significantly influenced by the 'Crass paradigm'. This meant without any traces of the Straight Edge or feminist punk movement also. Although Pula was not directly attacked, all respondents stated that the war had affected everyday life. Some lost school friends who left the city 'overnight' because they were the children of the Yugoslav National Army officers (Pula was traditionally an important military base). Many refugees arrived in the city while some respondents (or their peers) left the country or went to serve in the army. Those who remained in the city became more committed to punk as their way of life. Thus, even in Pula, respondents perceived the punk scene to be a product of, and a reaction to, the war situation. In contrast, despite the several armed conflicts that shook the Caucasus at the end of the 1980s and 1990s and the Georgian war in 2010, war found no reflection in Krasnodar punk even though Krasnodar krai sheltered thousands of refugees, some of whom were involved in the scene. Indeed, war motifs were more prominent in other Russian sites investigated in the research as one of the key members of Vorkuta scene served as a contract soldier and some of the research participants from St Petersburg were actively engaged in associations affiliated with Food not Bombs and other anarchist programmes.



During the period in which punks engaged in frequent conflicts and brutal fights with right-wing skinheads (see below), the core of the Pula punk scene (the Monteparadiso family) began to play a key political role in organising public actions and protests against fascism and violence. These events drew in large numbers of people from outside the punk scene and succeeded (from around 2004) in quelling conflict with right-wing skinheads. Punks in Pula are not only critical of nationalistic parties; they oppose also Istrian parties and local politicians. Indeed, one band (Figli di Bruno Atomico) was formed precisely to criticise and ridicule political figures from the city government.



Punk culture in eastern Germany has a long history of resistance and a clear anti-state position. In the 1980s punk appeared in the German Democratic Republic as a spontaneous cultural protest against the socialist state and its ideology although, unlike its counterpart in Western Germany from where punk was adapted, the GDR scene did not need any explicit oppositional ideology to reflect its position - the sheer fact of the existence of a 'non-normative' youth was enough to irritate state officials (Westhusen 2005). Punk emerged, as in other state socialist societies as part of a wider counter-cultural movement and existed in symbiosis with hippies, the oppositional left, the green movement, religious activists, early skinheads, heavy metal fans and other 'non-normative' groups. Punk's close link with these groups was also a result of the fact that, in the GDR, the church acted as the only autonomous institution hosting all oppositional groups and cultural activities. Nonetheless, GDR punk was not homogeneous and politically incorporated both left-wing and right-wing sentiments; this led to violent confrontations shortly before the end of socialist Germany (Hasselbach 1993). Today Halle is characterised by small-scale civil war between left and right-wing factions with the city divided into 'our' and 'their' districts. This conflict goes largely unnoticed by the rest of society being conducted between actors on the scene who have known each other often from the 1990s alternative scene or from school or work.



On the question of social position and engagement in transnormative punk practices, the findings from our research confirm Hebdige's recognition of the importance of structural context in the emergence of punk. However, they suggest the need to expand the notion of 'parent culture' beyond the understanding of 'class location' embedded in CCCS subcultural theory (Hall and Jefferson 1976). This is because the notion of the 'working class' as understood by Hebdige and other CCCS theorists in relation to British society in the 1970s-80s cannot be transposed to late socialist and post-socialist societies where notions of the primacy of the interests of the 'proletariat', if not realised, were embedded at least in Soviet ideology and rhetoric. Contrary to Hebdige's (1979: 122) claim, our research suggests that punk practices are not disembedded from, but steeped in, the experiences of 'parent culture' but, at the same time, 'parent culture' is understood to be rooted in complex socio-spatial, socio-economic and socio-cultural structures rather than in the realignment of class relations. Indeed, the research in Russian revealed that how differing constellations of social structures in particular local contexts can produce different relationships to the 'working class' even within a single country. Subjectively, class identities are rarely expressed by punks in Russia. This is typified by the St Petersburg case where one of the few references to 'class' consisted of the ascription of the band to the 'middle class', were such a thing to exist in Russia. Indeed, in both St Petersburg and Krasnodar, the fact that members of the scene had studied or were studying for higher education was perceived as a marker of non-working class belonging. In none of the three Russian cities studied, however, was the punk scene a removed, intellectual, bohemian or radical political stratum.
Exploitation Route The project provides insights into and information on contemporary alternative cultural scenes of use in the creative industries and in the promotion of cultural links with countries in and beyond the EU.
Sectors Creative Economy
 
Description This research explored the political significance of punk in both socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe. It created a publicly available cultural artefact, Rotten Beat; this is an electronic resource which presents high quality analysis and information on contemporary music scenes in Central, South Eastern and Eastern Europe as well as searchable and accessible archives of audio, textual and visual materials. It supported new forms of artistic expression by bringing academics, journalists, artists and musicians into dialogue with each other thereby changing their understandings of punk and contributing to public debate about the need to protect human rights in Russia. The research created a publicly available cultural artefact, RottenBeat (www.rottenbeat.com) in Spring 2009. This is a web-resource which streams the music of territorially and linguistically isolated scenes, making their music available to English speakers and enabling musicians to promote their work internationally. Its main objective was to 'translate' the culture of post-socialist punk into the languages of potential audiences, and to combine accounts from the research sites with academic, journalistic, and media accounts. RottenBeat averages 4,166 views a month, approximately 90% of which are external to Warwick. The research team supported new forms of artistic expression. As well as creating RottenBeat it provided opportunities for live performance which enabled post-socialist punk bands to bring their music to international audiences. Over a hundred musicians participated in the research and, for many, it was the first time English-speaking audiences had been able to appreciate the views and music of these artists. One of the participants from Saint Petersburg explained that he wanted 'people abroad to know that Russia is not only about Putin, Abramovich, oil, and mafia, but that here there are also people like us, who are fighting'. The project provided a new platform for previously 'undiscovered', non-commercial underground music and art to an English speaking audience. Some of the bands and performers participating in the research were invited to project workshops where they were able to perform their music and to discuss it with British peers, journalists and other interested people. This had not previously happened and was the first time the voices of Russian punk musicians were heard by an English speaking audience. One of the workshops led to much wider coverage of the group, Zverstvo. The project invited Zverstvo, a provincial avant-punk band from Krasnodar, Russia, to London in May 2011 to take part in a workshop, 'RottenBeat: Academic and Music Dialogue with New Russian Punk', organised in collaboration with Pushkin House. As a result of this visit the band attracted substantial media attention in Russia. In 2012 they were reviewed by Artemiy Troitsky, the most prominent musical critic in Russia (http://finam.fm/archive-view/5766/), and one of their songs, which had been recorded live in London, was included as one of the best songs in the official 'playlist of 2012' by Afhisha.ru, the central Russian internet portal devoted to contemporary Russian popular culture. It was referred to as the 'refrain of the year - as illogical, absurd, straightforward and unavoidable as the last 12 months' (http://www.afisha.ru/article/best2012_songs/). The project also contributed to an exhibition of politically engaged artists in London such as Nikolai Kopeikin, the leader of the art-collective KOLKHUi (http://www.pushkinhouse.org/single-exhibition/items/kopeikin-meets-london). Gololobov was a member of the organising committee and the project team organised an introductory workshop on the day of the official opening. These activities give additional credibility and status to artists' and musicians' work at home, and more space and security to create where they live. Impact through media profile On the basis of the experience and expertise gained during the project, Gololobov was invited to be a freelance author and content supplier for the new Calvert Journal, A Guide to Creative Russia, to be published in London from 2013 onwards. This online magazine attracts over 1000 readers per day, from across the UK, the US, Europe and the world, appealing to those interested in Russian art and culture. This article considers the provisional phenomenon of Russian punk, in particular relation to Zverstvo, a provincial band that produces its own version of punk. Since its publication in mid-July, the article has been read over 300 times. In 2012 Gololobov was consulted in the aftermath of the Pussy Riot protest in Russia when two members of the female punk band, Pussy Riot, were arrested. The expertise of the researchers has been drawn on in media discussion of Pussy Riot, their relation to the underground music scene and the human rights issues raised by their detention. Gololobov contributed to the debate on human rights issues in Russia, being interviewed for various Russian media programmes. He also prepared a confidential report for Nature on the case of a Russian chemist who was imprisoned for her scientific views and who shared a cell with a member of Pussy Riot. This report followed the publication of an online interview with Gololobov which was extensively cited by the Russian media. By raising the profile of the Russian chemist's case, this coverage helped to secure her release on bail, and significantly contributed to raising awareness of the human rights situation in Russia. The research has attracted considerable media attention; it has engaged the public by means of public lectures, a series of talks on Post-Socialist Punk published on iTunes, and has an entry in Wikipedia.
First Year Of Impact 2003
Sector Creative Economy
Impact Types Cultural,Societal
 
Description 'Rottenbeat: academic and musical dialogue with new Russian punk'
Amount £5,850 (GBP)
Funding ID CEELBAS 
Organisation Centre for East European Language Based Area Studies (CEELBAS) 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2011 
End 06/2011
 
Description 'Rottenbeat: academic and musical dialogue with new Russian punk'
Amount £5,850 (GBP)
Funding ID CEELBAS 
Organisation Centre for East European Language Based Area Studies (CEELBAS) 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2011 
End 06/2011
 
Description Drink! The Pleasure of Destruction
Amount £6,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Warwick 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2012 
End 02/2013
 
Description Undergraduate Research Support Scheme
Amount £1,000 (GBP)
Organisation University of Warwick 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2010 
End 10/2010
 
Title NVivo9 Database on Russian case studies 
Description NVIVO9 database including coded materials from three case studies in Russia (Vorkuta, St Petersburg and Krasnodar. Data set comprises: recorded interviews (50); field diaries (4); selected photographs; selected song lyrics; selected other documents gathered in field. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Year Produced 2012 
Provided To Others? No  
 
Description Academic collaboration 
Organisation Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences
Country Croatia 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Professor Benjamin Perasovic, Ivo Pilar Institute, Zagreb.
Start Year 2003
 
Description Academic collaboration 
Organisation University of Tromso
Country Norway 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Dr Yngvar Steinholt, Tromso University
Start Year 2009
 
Description Academic collaboraton 
Organisation University of Tartu
Country Estonia 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Collaboration with Dr Aimar Ventsel
Start Year 2009
 
Description '"Tales from Underground": from the Sociology of Popular Music'. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Public lecture at Saint Petersburg Centre for Independent Sociological Research
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2010
 
Description 'Mutants of the 67th parallel north' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Paper presented at University of Bristol
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description 'Mutants of the 67th parallel north' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Paper presented to Department of Sociology seminar, University of Surrey
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description 'Riot out of Control? Pussy Riot meets Western media' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Series of three guest lectures given at universities of Nottingham, Sheffield and Manchester
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description 'Rock, Church and State in Putin's Russia' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Guest lecture as part of Media Studies Seminar Series,Salford University.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description 'The Return of Extreme Art Activism: Voina and Pussy Riot' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Public lecture, The Pushkin House, London
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description 'The Sound of Silence: Absent Narrative and the Meaning of Style' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Oral presentation and discussion of working paper on research method and analysis relating to punk research
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description 'Vedvarende selvmord: Egor Letov og Sovjetunionen' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Seminar presentation at Tromso University
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2009
 
Description Consultancy to BBC 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Research consultant to BBC Arctic Live series presented by Simon Reeve (aired November 2016).This included putting the BBC team in contact with a punk group in Vorkuta who were central to the research carried out for this award. As a result the BBC team travelled to Vorkuta and the programme included a storyline around respondents in this research. The programme was aired on BBC2 in November 2016. I am currently helping the same team with a new series of programmes focused on contemporary Russia.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/news/simon-reeve-we-are-part-of-a-wild-planet-life-i...
 
Description Guest speaker at Anti-fa festival, Pula, Croatia 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Presentation to public audience at Anti-fa festival, Pula, Croatia

Invited to give a public presentation and engage in dialogue with those attending annual punk and anti-fa festival, Pula, November 2011.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2011
 
Description Ten Centuries of Russian Art "in search of identity" 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience
Results and Impact Public talk at Pushkin House in collaboration with The State Russian Museum
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012