Conference has been held on popular music under Soviet authoritarianism

On May 2–3, 2026, the first international academic conference in Latvia fully dedicated to popular music studies took place in Riga at the bar and cultural venue Aleponija. The conference was titled “‘Primitive and Noisy Music’ in the Late Socialist Period: Producing and Controlling Popular Music in the Soviet Union and Beyond.”

More than 20 researchers from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, the United States, and Poland presented papers at the conference. The programme included three keynote lectures and one round-table discussion. The conference was interdisciplinary, bringing together historians, sociologists, musicologists, and representatives of other academic fields. Importantly, the event featured both established specialists — professors and leading researchers — as well as students, independent scholars, and representatives of the music industry, fostering the exchange of knowledge not only across different academic disciplines and generations of researchers, but also between academia, music professionals, and citizen scholars.

Chronologically, the papers addressed issues related to popular music during late socialism, covering the period from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. Presentations and discussions explored the functioning of various genres, scenes, and subcultures of popular, jazz, and rock music under conditions of Soviet authoritarianism and late socialism.

The conference was organized by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia within the framework of the project “‘Primitive and Noisy’ Music in Soviet Latvia (1956–1986): Mechanisms of Control and Practices of Evasion under an Authoritarian Regime” (lzp-2024/1-0059).

Conference Organizing Committee:

Jānis Daugavietis1, Kaspars Zellis1, Maarja Merivoo-Parro1, Brigitta Davidjants2, Reinis Jaunais1, Krišs Dzenītis1

^{1 — Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art, University of Latvia, Riga
2 — Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre}

The conference abstracts have been published in open access:

Daugavietis, J., Zellis, K., Merivoo-Parro, M., Davidjants, B., Jaunais, R., & Dzenītis, K. (2026). 'Primitive and Noisy Music' in Late Socialist Period: Producing and Controlling Popular Music in the Soviet Union and Beyond [Riga, May 2-3, 2026] - Book of Abstracts. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19572385