War, Love, and Campfires: Bards in the Soviet Union

Miriam MogilevskyWhen my dad was thirteen years old, he learned how to play the guitar. The firstsong he learned was a syrupy pop tune, and when he came home to his Moscowapartment and demonstrated his new skill, my grandfather, horrified at thekitschy music my dad was playing, decided it was time to bring out his oldrecordings. Throughout the history of the Soviet Union, one particular group of people stoodby, watching the horrors that unfolded. They were the bards. They wrote beautifulpoetry about horrible things and set it to music, first strumming chords softly onseven-stringed Russian guitars, and then writing their own melodies. Many of theearliest songs they wrote were echoes of the Second World War, still fresh in thecollective memory of the people. Others dealt with political themes—subtlecritiques of the Soviet system and sorrow for the millions killed in Stalin's purgesor sent to labor camps. But the bards also wrote about love, about the beauty of nature, and about the places they had seen.After my dad first listened to the songs of Russia's first bards, he never againplayed a single pop song, and he never put down his guitar. Instead, he taughthimself to play the same songs that these poet musicians had written.When my dad was fifteen, his friends told him about a song festival known inRussian as a

slyot

, held twice a year near Moscow. Thousands of young peoplegathered in the woods, bringing tents, food, and guitars. Together, they rejectedthe culture and music imposed on them by the Soviet government, playing andsinging freely. These were mostly university students studying to be engineers,physicists, and chemists. Something brought them together for a weekend tocamp out and celebrate their music.Of course, my dad immediately decided to go. His parents tried to forbid it, notunderstanding this relatively new expression of the bard tradition. But my dad,probably urged by both his friends and the music itself, went anyway, travellingby train with his friends. From that point on, he attended every single

slyot—

eventually with my mom, later with my older brother, and always with his friends.I have never been to Russia. I was born in Israel and have lived in America since Iwas six years old. All I knew of the bards was from the tapes that my parentsalways played in the car and around the house, often annoying me.However, when I was thirteen, I was in trouble. My schoolwork worried meincessantly and had me in tears of frustration and stress almost every night. I hadfew friends and no distractions to lessen my fear. One evening, a CD in the livingroom stereo was playing the music of Sergei Nikitin, a Russian bard of my parents'generation. The song's name translates roughly as “My Country Will Not Miss MeMuch”—a ballad of lament, but with a strangely light tone. I think I realized, evenat that age, that I couldn't

possibly

understand the full depth of this song. And