‘Primitive and Noisy Music’ in Soviet Latvia (1956-1986): Control Mechanisms and Practices of Avoidance Under Authoritarian Rule (2025-2027)

Project No: lzp-2024/1-0059

Implementation period: 2023-2025

Project funding: EUR 300 000

Head of the project: Dr.Sc.Soc. Jānis Daugavietis

Project team: Jānis Daugavietis, Kaspars Zellis, Maarja Merivoo-Parro

The research aims to explore the history of control mechanisms and practices of avoidance in post-Stalin (1956-86) Soviet Latvian popular music, including ‘unofficial’ music, approaching it from the analysis of formal and informal institutions. It focuses on the processes of political and social control, normalisation, and adaptation and avoidance tactics after the arrival of modern ‘Western’ popular music idioms and practices. Academically, the subject has so far been virtually unexplored. The research is interdisciplinary (the team includes representatives from the humanities and social sciences), which implies the use of paradigms, theories and instrumentation from different disciplines. The main, but not the only, corpora of research data will be built from primary and secondary sources of oral history and documents (e.g. interviews, memoirs, personal papers, archival documents). Material culture has always been important in pop music, so as well as exploring institutions and values, we also plan to explore materials and technologies. The research will use both qualitative and quantitative methods (including experimental and creative methods) and systematically involve citizen scientists. In the field of theoretical research, the study is embedded in debates on cultural production and the cultural resistance of creative personalities and/or their coexistence with authoritarian regimes in late socialism, Soviet cultural policy, tastes, scenes and DIY practices.

Key words: late socialism, popular music, institutions of cultural production, control, oral history

Last time modified: 06.11.2024 13:57:49