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"Being vnye": Mylène Farmer and French Pop Music in Post-Soviet Russia
Kaznacheeva, Anna ; Havelková, Tereza (advisor) ; Kratochvíl, Matěj (referee)
The thesis examines how French popular music is experienced in post-Soviet Russia based on the Russian reception of the contemporary French singer Mylène Farmer. Farmer has remained popular in Russia ever since her songs and music videos entered the country following the collapse of the USSR. Producing complex and intellectually demanding audiovisual projects, the French artist attracts the audience aspiring to be perceived as today's Russian intellectual elite. The following analysis proves that while popular music is marginalised inside Russian cultural hierarchies, highbrow French songs tend to function as acknowledged sources of cultural capital. The thesis outlines the history of the Russian reception of French (popular) culture to show that Farmer's success in the country is closely connected with traditional Russian fascination with France. Drawing on the concept of the Imaginary West developed by the anthropologist Alexei Yurchak, the research follows how Russian attitude towards the West has shaped - and has been shaped by - the reception of French popular music. Key words: Mylène Farmer, popular music, videoclip, French pop, Russia, Imaginary West
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The Band HRISTINA and Queer Aesthetics in Today's Russian Popular Culture
Kaznacheeva, Anna ; Havelková, Tereza (advisor) ; Turek, Pavel (referee)
This bachelor thesis focuses on work of queer musicians in Russia during the period following the approval of the so-called gay propaganda law (2013). This law has been broadly criticized both in Russia and abroad and has notably influenced the development of domestic queer culture. The work examines social and cultural background of the post-soviet period in relation to queer aesthetics focusing on music production by the band HRISTINA as a case study. The band was founded in 2017 in Moscow. Apart from composition, singer and lyrics writer Hristina Zarembo is engaged in posting in social media on her sources of inspiration and the meanings of her music. Being a queer woman, she also comments on the issues of gender and sexuality. The work aims to study the relationship between music and text in HRISTINA's songs. Accompanying texts, comments on social media and an essay dedicated to one of the songs discussed are also part of the analysis. The analysis discovers the way the singer reflects the legacy of the early post-soviet period on behalf of her own experience of the queer. The period of the 90s is therefore taken into account as the time after the fall of the Soviet Union when an immense growth of queer aesthetics took place. The work also shows that both musicians and critics consider this...
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