How rock 'n roll is being used to preserve language, cultural heritage

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Byelorussian rock groups "Mroya" "Dream"), above, and "Bonda," below, are two or the most popular ensembies. Many of the new groups were influenced by the Polish and Hungarian rock scene. 10 SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1992 In Minsk, the capital of Byelorus, in mid-September, I talked to Vitaut Martynenka, an expert on the Byelorussian rock music movement and a participant in it. He is a journalist writing for a newspaper directed to youth, a poet who writes rock lyrics, and coauthor of a book in Byelorussian on rock music in the former USSR, Praz Rock-prysmu, "Through the Prism of Rock Music," (Belaruski Instytut Navuki i Mastatsva, New York, 1989)

The Byelorussian cultural movement is radical, similar to the cultural movements of minority peoples in Western Europe, where national culture is identified with the movement for national independence.

Although the young Byelorussian intellectuals often describe themselves as "rightists," in opposition to everything associated with the Communist Party, their cultural aspirations are in clear conflict with the logic of capitalism. Privatization has offered a certain space for independent artistic activity.

However, as the following interview indicates, the market offers no solution for popular cultural movements. Only a democratic control of the economy and the society could do that. Thus, the solution for the Byelorussian cultural movement is the same as for the Irish and Welsh, a democratically run socialist economy.

Socialist Action: What is the relationship between the national movement and Byelorussian rock music?

Vitaut Martynenka: When we first started writing about rock music, we didn't know yet what influence it would have on the national renaissance. There was a group of journalists who wanted to write about rock music, which in general was banned in the Soviet Union. We simply wanted to help musicians who wanted to play this music. Why should this style of music be banned? It was on that level.

The idea of a Byelorussian renaissance already existed. It gradually became expressed. We started writing about rock music in the early 1980s. At first people wrote only about rock music in the West, mostly about American. But gradually under the influence of nationalist organizations, we began looking for our own kind of expression.

SA: What sort of nationalist organizations, cultural or political?

VT: Politics were still illegal. It is just a club of lovers of the Byelorussian language. They were only concerned with speaking Byelorussian. But it didn't end there. They wanted to study history, and that got them into a number of dangerous areas. Then they started down another road. The organization was banned. They started another organization, called "The Bell." This organization already functioned in Byelorussian. That was basic. They decided to do anything that was allowed. They decided to work on certain historical themes. They worked on preserving Byelorussian monuments. There was politics, but it was concealed.

We journalists began thinking, "We write about music, why not write about music in our language?" "We write about music in English, in Polish, in Russian." That was one stage. At later stage, I understood that a people that does not have its own mass culture can't have any culture. In our country, they wrote that mass culture isn't serious. It's something silly, done in a cabaret.

But ordinary people in discoteques, in stores and so on are constantly listening to music. And it's all Russian. You can't expect them just to go to museums to look for something Byelorussian, something of their own, and have everything else be foreign.

Mass culture forms consciousness. We fought for high culture. But that is an abstract struggle. In our conditions, it was essential to fight for a mass culture of our own, because there was no such thing.

There were a few ensembles. They went to the U.S., to Europe. They sang Byelorussian songs. They even performed in Siberia. But they fell under the influence of mass culture, and began to sing in Russian.

When we started writing about Byelorussian rock music, we ran up against a problem. There was a kind of Byelorussian popular music. But the artists spoke Russian at home. Everything was Russian. Only when they performed, they sang in Byelorussian. They weren't able to inspire the people with enthusiasm for Byelorussian culture. We found musicians who were under the influence of the underground political organizations—that is, those who officially study history.

Some of them were poor musicians. Some were better. We encouraged the desire to develop a Byelorussian culture. They got better when they started to perform in public, and their numbers increased. Because we reached a level where it was possible to criticize them, to distinguish their strong points from their weak ones.

At the beginning, everything that was in Byelorussian was good. I would say we were afraid of the Russians. We wanted to show them that we had something. We were afraid to be critical and praised everything. Gradually this problem disappeared.

Today, Byelorussian rock music is on Across the Continent I met young Byelorussian intellectuals who identified the cause of Byelorussian national culture with that of the cultural-political movements in the Celtic countries, in particular Ireland, which are generally socialist-oriented.

In the case of the Welsh Language Movement (Cymdeithas yr laith Gymraeg), which is most like the Byelorussian cultural movement, the manitesto of the organization says explicitly that the cause of the Welsh language cannot triumph under capitalism.

The position of the Belorussian language, however, is most similar to that of Welsh or Basque or Scots.

That is to say, as a natural means of communication, it has receded to some poor rural areas. Without basic social and political changes, therefore, it could be expected to die out in a generation or two. Its situation most resembles that of Scots because unlike Basque and Welsh, it is closely related to the language of the oppressor, Russia.

A young Byelorussian intellectual told me that the impulse for the Byelorussian national renaissance came from the rise of Solidarosc in Poland in the 1980s. The country became formally independent after the collapse of the neo-Stalinist putsch in Moscow in August 1991, before the national movement had been able to oust the Communist Party from power. The local national-democratic movement, the Popular Front, is strong in certain regions, notably Minsk, but it is still a minority movement.-G.F.

an international level. Records of Byelorussian groups are being released in Poland. But there is a problem with the Melodiiya record company. It monopolized the whole business. It had factories in several cities, and everything went through Moscow. Now, by nature, records are mass-production business. If you look at Melodiiya's catalog, it includes more than 400 pages, in which Byelorussian records take up half a page. And all the other peoples of the USSR [other than Russian] take up maybe 20 pages. All the rest is in Russian.

SA: Obviously, before rock music developed there was Byelorussian folk music. What sort of a relationship did you have to the folk music scene?

VT: A kind of folk music was broadcast over TV. The scenarios were worked out in the Communist Party Regional Committee. This repelled people from folk music.

"The Bell" people collected folk music that had survived in the countryside, authentic folk music, which had a political aspect. "The Moscovites shout, but we are not afraid." In Byelorussian folk songs, the neighboring people are always called "Moscovites." Because, "Rus'" or Russia was the name our people used for themselves, for historical reasons. This was preserved in folk songs. These songs therefore aroused additional feelings besides musical. Because the folk music played on TV was artificial folk music. It referred to "our Russian brothers," or "Russian older brother," and so on.

The first Byelorussian rock group sang folk songs, but with a rock rhythm. They had arrangements of pure folk songs and purely rock arrangements. And they • had their own songs based on folk traditions. Then independent rock music developed. It might use folk poetry or classical poetry. The "Pyesnyari" [named for traditional wandering singers] concerned themselves with arrangements of Byelorussian folk music. They were noted for that. But they did not have a big influence.

But in America there is Danchyk. He is a cabaret-type singer. He started out under the influence of traditional strolling singers. He took music arranged by the Pyesnyari. And then he started to use the work of Byelorussian emigrant poets and Byelorussian folklore. What the Pyesnyari (continued on next page)