Singing the Self: Guitar Poetry, Community, and Identity in the Post-Stalin Period

Chapter Four

The "KSP State": Audience Reception, Self-Fashioning, and "Conversations Between Friends" Chapter Four INEFFABLE LICHNOST' WAS both a defining component of gnitar poetry and one ofits chiefproducts. A fundamental duality of lichnosf io discourse about guitar poetry mapped onto a larger discourse of lichnost' in the post-Stalin period. In its official variants, this larger discourse saw subtle competition for currency between lichnosf as spectacular iodividual (a status attainable only by the few) and lichnost' as individuality (a characteristic inherent in everyone). In guitar poetry, lichnosf identified specific bards, "spectacular iodividuals," whose talents and personal charisma elevated them above the broad mass of amateur sioger-songwriters. Yet in this same contest, lichnost' was also an abstract quality or force that was '1iberated" by guitar poetry; and this second type oflichnost' was accessible to anyone, with the help of "bad sioging" and a guitar. Building on the preceding analysis of iodividual bardic lichnosti and their role in fashiOning guitar poetry ioto a means of (meta)communication among soot, this chapter examioes the role of bardic lichnosti in promoting a broader ideal of lichnost'. Particnlar attention will be paid to patterns of influence, to accounts ofhow particular bards encouraged others-whether iotentionally or not-to fashion their selves, their lives, and their values through and around guitar poetry. In tum, this discussion will help to illumioate the perils (from an official standpoiot) ioherent io guitar poetry's potency as an agent of self-fashioning, irrespective of the specific characteristics oflichnost' that were being fashioned. Much of this analysis will concentrate on the activities of Clubs of Amateur Song, because KSP activities represented an important forum for the flowering of both iodividual bardic talents and lichnosf. However, the fact that Clubs of Amateur Song never operated entirely free of offi77 Singing the Self cia! interference illustrates the extent to which they were a marginal zone for both creative activity and individual self-fashioning. Similarly, the heterogeneous views and values espoused and expressed by KSP members underscore the extent to which both the individuallichnosti and the ideal of lichno8t' fostered through guitar poetry were neither unambiguously "conformist " nor unambiguously "oppositional" in natnre. LICHNOSTI NURTURING LICHNOST" The interactions described in the previous chapter suggest that in guitar poetry, communication between bard and audience was not perceived by either party as a one-way process, but rather one of mutual engagement. In understanding this process, some of Alessandro Duranti's observations on "the audience as co-author" in verbal communication may be brought to bear. According to Duranti, "speaker and audience are equals ... because their roles are interchangeable" (the speaker one moment may become the listener the next) and also because "every act of speaking is directed to and must be ratified by an audience."' Adapting Duranti's observations to the case ofguitar poetry, we may argue that "ratification" tnok place through the broad-scale consumption and spontaneous redistribution ofsongs that were, to borrow Vysotsky's description, "intended for ... close friends.'" Such redistribution (through secondhand live performance and via magnitizdat) may have "deprived listeners of a true picture of the authorship" of songs and even delayed recognition of particular bards' talents,' but it also underscores the extent to which songs were accepted as "their own," or ratified, by bards' audiences. Continuing with this Durantian interpretation, we may argue that bard and audience became equal because active engagement from both was required in order tn generate the characteristic atmosphere of guitar poetry; and because ultimately, their places became interchangeable. Perhaps the most basic way in which audiences "changed places" with bards was through the common, informal practice of passing a guitar from person to person around a table or a campfire (gitara po krugu). A similar interchange between bard and audience was possible at more formal concerts, too. Introducing the first concert in the 1965 Leningrad series "Youth, Song, Guitar" ("Molodost', pesnya, gitara"), for example, Vladimir Frumkin commented as follows: We hope that the goal of these evenings will be achieved: and that both Sides-professional and amateur authors-will draw out for themselves much of value, [much that is] fresh. And surely you, the viewers and listen78 The "KSP State" ers, will be none the worse off for it, either. Incidentally, not just viewers and listeners; we were very pleased by the telephone calls that have come in over the past few days. A series ticket-holder rings up and asks: "And could we...