Abstract:
In the past two decades, the National Bolshevik Party (and its successor, The Other Russia) has had a significant involvement with the Russian music scene. NBP members have formed / contributed to such relatively unknown but very interesting and musically and geographically diverse bands as Den´ donora (Aleksandr Aronov) and Banda chetyrekh (Konstantin Mishin; both Moscow-based), Nozh dlia frau Miuller (St Petersburg), Zapreshchennye barabanshchiki (Ivan Trofimov, originally from Rostov-on-Don), Volshebnaia gora (Roman Konoplev, Briansk), Poslednii patron (Igor´ Zhevtun, Tiumen´), Krasnye zvezdy (Vladimir Selivanov, Minsk), Viselitsa (Artur Petrov, Daugavpils), Gosplan (Adol´f/Igor´ Ravich, Israel) and the rock bard Aleksandr Nepomniashchii (Ivanovo) - not to mention the well-known and much publicised Pop-mekhanika and Grazhdanskaia Oborona. Hitherto, the musical side of the NBP activity has remained largely neglected. Using Kurekhin and Pop-mekhanika as a case study, the paper will try to establish what, if anything, the above-named collectives have in common, and if there is such a thing as the National Bolshevik kind of music.
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