While discussing Russian music in class on Friday, we noticed a repetition of several folk tunes in song after song. Musicians used Russian peasant music and culture as a means of representing and branding the elusive concept of Russian Culture. Interestingly enough, it is in these pieces of literature on Russian peasants that I get a sense of this previously vague and hazy mass that is \u201cRussian Culture\u201d as a whole. Once more, peasant culture serves to represent all of Russian culture.<\/p>\n
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In \u201cSketches from a Hunter\u2019s Album\u201d, Turgenev writes, \u201cA Russian is so sure of his strength and robustness that he is not averse to overtaxing himself: he is little concerned with his past and looks boldly towards the future. If a thing\u2019s good, he\u2019ll like it; if a thing\u2019s sensible, he\u2019ll not reject it, but he couldn\u2019t care a jot where it came from\u201d (31). These overly confident blanket statements are wonderfully Russian. With this sureness in \u201cstrength and robustness\u201d, individuals are propelled forward into outrageously ambitious drinking competitions. The tone of those sentences mirrors that of Gogol\u2019s mad humor, what with the certainty in absurdity.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
These trends in Russian culture are clear in \u201cThe Singers\u201d. The characters are all engaging in an energetic exercise in alcohol-oriented endeavors. \u00a0The story hold all of your classic insults: \u201cyou stupid insect\u201d, you \u201ctwister, you!\u201d, \u201cyou great milksop!\u201d. And with the description of each character comes the description of each character\u2019s nose of course\u2014a remarkably important feature in the Russian man\u2019s face. Each character has a nickname; Booby, Yashka the Turk, and the Wild Gentleman formed a motley crew. And once more, the true Russian heart and soul emerged with the Russian peasant\u2019s song: \u201cA warmhearted, truthful Russian soul rang and breathed in it and fairly clutched you be the heart, clutched straight at your Russian heartstrings\u201d (18). The beauty of this song lies in a \u201cgenuine deep passion\u201d and a \u201csort of charmingly careless, mournful grief\u201d. I find the pairing of the words \u201ccharmingly careless\u201d grief to be particularly poignant. This phrase captures the tone of Gogol\u2019s mad, mad stories and the words of Kozma Prutkov and all of the Russian humor we have witnessed thus far. In both Russian literature and music, artists use peasant culture to embody all of Russian culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While discussing Russian music in class on Friday, we noticed a repetition of several folk tunes in song after song. Musicians used Russian peasant music and culture as a means of representing and branding the elusive concept of Russian Culture. Interestingly enough, it is in these pieces of literature on Russian peasants that I get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,105],"class_list":["post-259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russian-culture","tag-kozma-prutkov","tag-the-singers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/russian-2240-fall-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}