Rock in the reservation : songs from Leningrad Rock Club 1981-86

Abstract

On the seventh of March 1981 a rock club opened in Leningrad. This happened five years before Soviet cultural authorities were prepared to acknowledge that rock music existed in the USSR. According to official ideology, rock was a symptom of the moral and cultural decay of western capitalist societies, and therefore by definition unsuitable for Soviet audiences. Half a decade later, rock music broke out of its Leningrad reservation and onto public stages to become the soundtrack of perestroika. Rock tapes were distributed and recopied by the millions. The phenomenon received massive attention and generated fierce debates on home soil. Soon, western journalists and academics began arriving to study this curious phenomenon. By 1990, members of the rock community, regional cultural authorities, and the KGB were all claiming the honour of being the initiators of the Rock Club.