by Anthony Williamson
Sun Jan 27th, 2008 at 08:24:09 AM EST
Public tributes in Russia for a folk idol who fell out of grace with the authorities conjure up specters of a Cold War past that hung over our lives not so long ago. Reminders of how the USSR tried to silence talented artists who didn't toe the official line bring back unpleasant memories of those threatening times. When an artist in a totalitarian State without access to the necessary official promotion of his talented work for most of his life becomes an idol of the largest nation on earth, solely through underground distribution, then one cannot help but ask who that artist was.
His name was Vladimir Vysotsky, the gifted bard, poet and actor, who, had he lived, would have been 70 years old on January 25, 2008. He was officially ignored in the Soviet Union for many years of his life because of his songs that dealt critically, among other things, with the hard life of the people. To Western ears, his voice sounds rough, even coarse, while his song texts in verse are difficult to translate in a manner to do them justice, but understanding the overwhelming popularity of Vysotsky in Russia is a challenge to Westerners who want to grasp what makes Russians tick. The story of his incredible underground fame among millions of people from one end of the USSR to the other is without doubt one of the most remarkable tales of the 20th century.
ITAR-TASS, the successor to the Soviet official news agency TASS, reported in a headline that "Russia Marked the 70th Birthday of Vladimir Vysotsky." For the occasion, a monument to Vysotsky was unveiled in the city of Samara near the Volga River. It was Samara where in 1967 he had his first solo appearance at a local sports facility. The crowd was huge. ITAR-TASS says:
| Рассчитанный на 6 тыс человек зал был набит до отказа. | | Built for six thousand people, the auditorium was jam-packed, to overflowing. |
A sculpture was also unveiled in honor of Vysotsky in the city of Krasnoyarsk. The artist said he had been inspired by one of Vysotsky's songs, "Идет охота на волков" (There's A Hunt On For Wolves), which the bard wrote in 1968. The hunters are vastly superior to their hunted victims, for whom they have no mercy. It doesn't take much imagination to see the text in the light of Soviet life:
Не на равных играют с волками Егеря, но не дрогнет рука! Оградив нам свободу флажками, Бьют уверенно, наверняка.
| | Not as with equals play with wolves the Hunters, but their hand does not quiver! Limiting our freedom with markers, They kill confidently, for keeps. |
ITAR-TASS
Vysotsky sings There's A Hunt On For Wolves at the following Russian site with the text. Click on the first top button on the left to hear the song:
There's A Hunt On For Wolves
ITAR-TASS also reported on birthday celebrations:
| Под знаком юбилея проходит весь сегодняшний день культурной жизни Москвы. В родном театре на Таганке, на сцене которого раскрылся его драматический талант, сегодня состоялась презентация нового проекта - книги "Владимир Высоцкий. Две судьбы". | | The entire day of cultural life in Moscow today is under the sign of the anniversary. In the Taganka Theater where his talent for drama unfolded, there was a ceremony today to introduce a new project, a book entitled Vladimir Vysotsky - Two Fates |
Вечером там же в театре на Таганке был показан спектакль "Владимир Высоцкий" в постановке создателя и руководителя прославленного коллектива Юрия Любимова.
| | In the evening, at the same theater, there was a performance of a play entitled Vladimir Vysotsky in a production by the creator and director of the celebrated collective, Yuri Lyubimov |
Since the official route to recording his songs was closed to Vysotsky for most of his life, for years he recorded them at home on a tape recorder. Many people were keen to buy a tape recorder, which was atrociously expensive at the time, in order to be able to hear his songs. The tapes passed privately from hand to hand and were copied for more times than anyone can count. In time, the underground tapes made their way to every corner of his vast homeland and gave him fame that hardly anyone can achieve without professional promotion.
How the West first got wind of Vysotsky is the subject of several legends. One of them is that Soviet seamen had tapes with his songs when their ship docked in Japan, and they traded tapes with people there. Another version is that Western embassies and correspondents in Moscow got hold of some tapes and passed them to their countries. It is likely that few people in the West were initially able to assess the enormous impact of Vysotsky's songs on Russians in all walks of life, but clear recognition that he was out of favor with the Soviet authorities because of his songs was enough for some Westerners to want to learn more about him and to follow his career.
Russians talked about having seen him in Soviet movies, and Moscow theater-goers who had managed to get a ticket to a popular production of Hamlet at the Taganka Theater talked about Vysotsky's magnificent performance as Hamlet for years afterwards. Here's his introduction on the Taganka stage to that unusual Russian theater production:
One Vysotsky's most interesting songs is a parody from Ruslan and Lyudmila by Alexander Pushkin, the beloved national poet whose poems many Russians know by heart, including the well-known excerpt У лукоморья дуб зеленый (There's a Green Oak at the Cove). In fantastically lyrical verse Pushkin describes a cove where there's a green oak tree that's got a golden chain wrapped around its trunk. One end of the chain is attached to a wise cat that's on the move night and day. If the cat walks to the right, it starts singing a song. If it walks to the left, it recites a fairytale. In his protest song, Vysotsky sings there's no more oak tree at the cove because it was cut down long ago to make hardwood floors. In fact, local goons cut down all the oak trees to make coffins out of them. Click on the link at the top left of this Russian site to hear Vysotsky sing it:
There's No More Cove
Vysotsky married French actress Marina Vlady, his third wife, in 1969, and spent some time in France. In 1980, he died in his sleep at his Moscow apartment. He was 42 years old. The exact cause of his death is in dispute. Vosotsky, who suffered from alcoholism and depression, is said to have died of either a heart attack or asphyxiation from an overdose of sedatives.
Few Westerners who followed the artist's career would have predicted that the Soviet system would collapse in our lifetime and monuments would even be erected in Russia to Vladimir Vysotsky. Understanding what Russians feel when they hear his songs gives us insight into one of the many fascinating nations that make up Europe.
