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The term bard (Russian: бард, IPA:) came to be used in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, and continues to be used in Russia today, to refer to singer-songwriters who wrote songs outside the Soviet establishment, similarly to folk singers of the American folk music revival.
Bards were what is now called singer-songwriters living and working in Soviet Union. They were never "mainstream" while USSR existed, in that they almost never could make a career out of their music and had very little official recordings, unless one happened to find a place for his songs in a movie, but they were extremely popular nevertheless.
- Tourist Song
- Political Song
- Outlaw Song
- Other Songs
During the Brezhnev era of stagnation in the history of the Soviet Union, camping, especially its extreme forms such as alpinism, kayaking/canoeing, and canyoning, became a form of escapism for young people, who felt that these occupations were the only ways of life in which such values as courage, friendship, risk, trust, cooperation and mutual su...
Songs of this kind expressed protest against the Soviet way of life. Their genres varied from acutely political, "anti-Soviet" ones, perfectly fitting under the infamous Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code (or other way around), to witty satire in the best traditions of Aesop. Some of Bulat Okudzhava's songs touch on these themes. Vladimir Vysotsky was pe...
These songs originated far before the bards appeared in the Soviet Union. Their origin can be traced as far back as the first decade of the twentieth century. While not differing much in style from other bard songs, these outlaw songs can be compared in their content to modern rap: glorification of crime and city romance. These songs reflected the ...
Even more common than the Tourist songs were songs about life (usually life in the Soviet Union). Nearly every bard wrote a significant amount of songs on these themes. The setting very frequently is urban, often in major cities such as Moscow (particularly the Arbat, a commercial and tourist section of town). Some songs of this type, such as the o...
Feb 10, 2014 · The bard genre quickly became the favorite music of Soviet students and enthusiasts of backwoods camping trips. It also became part of the day-to-day lives of the Soviet intelligentsia, and...
Platonov deserves praise for helping revise our understanding of bard music in the Soviet Union, especially in shaping individual identities, forming communities, and promoting the values of sincerity.
- Gleb Tsipursky
- 2012
An underground movement called the Bard or Guitar-Poetry movement started in the late fifties and became big in Russia in the early sixties. The people that came out of this movement have changed the idea of Russian poetry, song, and style.
Soviet Bards were at the center of musical dissent and at the forefront of a movement of self-published and self-distributed music. This method known as samizdat, or magnitizdat for recordings, became the central tool for bards to distribute their music.
