THREE RECENTLY COMPLETED AND INTERCONNECTED MANUSCRIPTS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION WITH PUBLISHER(S)
BOOK 14
Russian Popular Song 1877–1917
(на русском)
A history of nascent celebrity in Russia, Ukraine, and surrounding lands after the emergence of recorded sound, yet before the Revolution. A wide range of instructive parallels transpire with recording industries of the present, be they artistic, political, technological, and/or financial. Based on such parallels, commonsensical proposals are made for a fairer, more legally robust, and democratically inclusive industry for the future. The book is structured as follows:
BUSINESS: The primary purpose of music journalism prior to 1917 is trade. Newspapers are run by and for music publishers, so objective information is often elusive (i.e., avoided). Companies big and small compete over “truthful” data, be it fiscal, technological, social, or––in times of war and revolution––political.
Topics: Shop talk / Organizations / Debt and bankruptcy / Statistics
LAW: Then, as now, copyright abuse is the most detrimental force in the music industry. Seemingly weeks after Russia’s first pressing plant is opened in 1908, criminals are learning how to cut counterfeit discs from a single original. Fake labels are carefully, colorfully drawn and then printed en masse. In the same way, soundalikes are illegally hired to make “additional” recordings for an artist’s discography, while the imperfect distribution of trade papers means lookalikes can also tour for extended periods, robbing real-life celebrities of their income (and presumed appearance). Nobody knows what they look like.
Topics: IP / Fakes / Censorship
TECHNOLOGY: Needless to say, the very existence of a music industry is predicated on new technology. Unique sounds are made in novel ways and sold by innovative companies. Confident uniqueness alone, however, raises a simultaneous issue of what to do with these recordings. How, put differently, should these discs be advertised to future customers, especially if the associated hardware is so expensive?
Topics: Museums / Uses / Technology
SPACE: One of the most commonly proposed applications is education. Recordings can help––in one dull example––to teach students a foreign language. Or––on a bolder scale––they might save the nation’s leafy backwaters from woeful ignorance. Trade publications, unnerved by their own cupidity, dedicate considerable time and effort in bringing popular and classical music to the most distant, rural audiences possible. They hope to enlighten.
Topics: Provinces / Locations
TIME: Those same non-urban spaces, which constitute most of the country, will become a significant, destructive force in both the forthcoming revolutions and Soviet society. They, as a locus of presumed, even inevitable violence, must be placated with a better awareness of Russia’s future promise. Culture will, one hopes, reduce socioeconomic disparity and increase the likelihood of safety. Time is running out as unrest––indeed, death––looks increasingly likely among the uncultured “lower depths,” to quote Maxim Gorky.
Topics: Death / Provinces (again)
PEOPLE: Commerce needs spokespeople. It needs celebrities––and the tools of mass production, replete with photos, posters, magazines, etc––slowly generate an industry of ostensible fame. Renown, however, snowballs to the point where the most famous performers are expected to be moral arbiters in a troubled land, especially on the eve of World War One. Apolitical fame almost becomes an impossibility, especially when artists flee the country altogether.
Topics: Personalities / Humor / Morals
FATE: Sure enough, global destruction and domestic revolt visit the world’s biggest nation––both of which are followed by a hellish civil war. Talk of fate, destiny, and so forth is common among those who hope to understand the workings of the world. That same outlook finds initial expression as shoptalk: why, in a word, do bad things such as bankruptcy or malicious ligitation happen so often? Why is the market is so unstable––and why do pressing plants and warehouses keep catching fire? Are, perhaps, my competitors to blame..?
Topics: Arson / Bankruptcy / Market predictions / War
Expected completion, Winter 2023
BOOK 13
Song and Dance / Love and Death
(на русском)
SOVIET LITERATURE AND ITS CONTINUATION IN MODERN MUSIC’S ‘Z-SCENE’
In a 2020 survey by the Levada Center, Russian citizens were posed a series of questions about their national identity. The first asked for associations with the word narod, i.e., the “Russian people.” The top three answers were:
“Our past and history”;
“The land and territory upon which we live”;
“Nature”.
As for events creating the greatest sense of pride, the most popular answers were:
“Victory in World War Two”;
“Our leading role in space exploration”;
“Union with Crimea [in 2014].”
Taken together these show us an ongoing tension between limited and unlimited spaces (outer space, boundless nature, etc.) – both of which remain closely linked to Soviet experience. Domains that may be claimed or held and those which may not.
This book asks a similar and singular question: if these narratives of self-identity are still a consequence of Soviet life (“our past and history”), then how were they developed by Soviet literature, since scholars such as Evgeny Dobrenko claim literature as the only place where communism ever existed? Taken as true, a second conundrum arises: how in literary/textual narratives can one speak of a realm without borders? How might one describe limitlessness? What, indeed, is the relationship in Soviet literature between “everything” (a discernable, attainable goal) and “nothing” (total inclusion to the point of directionless and meaninglessness)?
Using Alain Badiou’s concept of “state revolutionaries” (potentially innovative artists within the state), this book reconsiders the 29 novels most commonly praised by the Communist Party and proposed by functionaries for emulation. The novels’ use of “everything” and “nothing” is explained through a triple prism: landscape, love, and music – none of which lend themselves to description or quantification. How do those three forces, each striving for nothing in particular, shape both ideology and, to a large degree, national self-identity today? Answers are found in the novels themselves, their reception by Soviet scholars and citizens, in cinema, music, and other artforms of that time – not to mention the way identical concepts are now employed by cultural forces such as Il’in, Gumilev, Dugin and the current administration.
The second half of the book concerns ways in which the language of socialist realism continues to inform the more conservative corners of Russian popular music, for example in the ubiquitous “Russian chanson” and so-called “z-artists” who overtly support the war in Ukraine.
The line from incipient Soviet prose to that latter-day tradition (from novels to song) begins in the 1920s under NEP, at the troubled outset of a stately artform, when free enterprise operates in awkward unison with an increasingly centralized government. Various forms of excess find expression as society’s outsiders and downtrodden are brought to public attention: “gypsy” romances, prison songs, rvanye pesni, “songs of [urban] poverty and woe,” etc. This subtext of crime–the synonymy of truth and transgression–will continue under Stalin as blatnyak (outlawed criminal song), yet frequently interweave with officially approved Soviet culture, either with literature itself or thanks to estrada performers whom the state both endorses and criticizes, simultaneously (the young Leonid Utesov, for example).
From here into bardic performance of the Thaw and then chanson under Putin, the “state revolutionaries” of modern Russian entertainment continue the spirit of Soviet literature, long after those books cease to have commercial impact––yet at the very moment when the Kremlin needs melodic, patriotic retrospection, following the invasion in 2022.
BOOK 12
Too Much of Everything
(на русском)
A POSSIBLE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN POPULAR AND UNPOPULAR MUSIC, 1987–THE PRESENT
This book asks a simple question: what is Russian popular music? Based on several decades of academic and curatorial work, this study proposes that a wide range of genres – all the way from provincial pop to experimental noise – can be defined as a nationally unique ecosystem. The strong and enduring connection between musicmaking and the state leads to the hypothesis that such uniqueness comes from an equally long-lasting debt to Soviet culture – in particular to notions of excess. What, for example, is too much noise, or money, or sex? Where is the line between a brave dedication to one’s craft and self-harm? What is enough?
The resulting problem of excess, mapped in the book from 1987 to the present day, draws upon domestic music, literature, cinema, history, sociology, and more. Russian popular music emerges as an artform (whether mainstream or underground) that has often defined itself through exclusion and rejection. By saying “no” to a host of possible influences. And so a hypothesis also transpires: that such exclusionary practices are best examined by considering whether Russian popular music is “fascist.”
The book considers, first and foremost, how that adjective applied by musicians, journalists, and other cultural figures to one another. It often means little more than “something I do not like,” yet there are more conventional fascist influences – say in rightwing noise. And recent events in Ukraine suggest that ceremonial, indeed ritualized cultural practices – often in celebration of dead heroes or an authoritarian government– bring even the most inoffensive, primetime performers closer to more historically objective notions of fascism. The book offers plenty of admirable, laudable, and loveable aspects of the Russian tradition, whilst simultaneously considering the increasingly powerful and predominant characteristics of its more extreme forms.
Chapters follow a general chronological order, from 1987 to 2022, yet loop back on multiple occasions to the earlier years of that timeframe, in order to consider the DNA of today’s practice. An opening chapter theorizes the meaning of noise (of excess sound) in political and social terms, before moving into a narrower focus on the music and those who make it. The book is designed for a wide audience, who nonetheless are familiar with the leading fashions and celebrities of popular culture, nationwide. Beginning with the demise of VIAs and the slow demise of Russian rock, the subsequent sections can be summarized as follows: excess and radicalism, death, retrospection, fantasy, television, glamor, hedonism, homosexuality, web culture, and – through them all – the theme of idealism and the excessive behaviors caused by idealism’s failure.
PUBLISHED BOOKS
BOOK 11
Понты по-русски: бесхитростные и бессовестные / (Bling à la Russe)
“When foreigners discuss the nature of Russians and the ‘mysterious Russian soul,’ usually it’s everybody except Russians who are interested. David MacFadyen, however, has succeeded in taking a very unusual approach. Avoiding every one of the worn-out stereotypes, he has produced something that’s brilliant not only in its erudition, but also its sense of humor. There’s truth in the saying that if Russians have anything in common with another nation, it’s with Scotland. When it comes to this Scotsman in particular, you could have great discussions until dawn... at least!”
“David MacFadyen navigates his material beautifully… This is, without doubt, a very, very interesting book. The author is really immersed in Russian culture. There’s a good reason he has researched the history of Soviet light entertainment, the [animation of] Souyzmultfilm, Russian poetry, modern rock music, and Russia’s primetime television.”
––Kirillitsa
“The book contains all manner of historical detours, together with the most salient aspects of today’s society... What leaves an especially strong impression is the breadth of vision. We travel from the origins of ‘ponty’ (swagger / posturing) on the school playground to its more serious manifestations - in the context of Russian rock music. The author also pays close attention to the supposedly ‘trivial’ aspects of this phenomenon, such as primetime pop culture, ‘chanson’ radio, TV, cinema––and then continues all the way to the Russian internet... Having read the whole book from start to finish, I tried unsuccessfully to find the name of the translator; that’s when I made the amazing discovery that the entire volume was written by the author in Russian! This publication deserves - at the very least! - a score of 10”
“The word ‘ponty’ [showing off/bling/ostentation] when combined with the author’s English surname may seem like an awkward translation––a flirtatious attempt to attract readers with something modish: ‘another foreigner writes about Russia.’ The Scotsman David MacFadyen is a professor at UCLA and himself none other than a foreigner writing ‘another book about the mysterious Russian soul.’ Yet [on this occasion] he is responsible for every word, since the text is written in Russian. This is not MacFadyen's first volume about Russia: he has already written others about Russian animation, Russian pop music, and Russian culture in Uzbekistan. His first two books are dedicated to the poetry of Joseph Brodsky. The unprepared reader will, first of all, be struck [in the newest publication] by the author's incredible awareness of––and acquaintance with––his subject, including everything from numerous television series to the songs of Tanya Bulanova. The word ‘ponty’ in the title is not just coquetry, therefore––it is, according to the author, the quintessential Russian gesture.”
–– Kommersant
“Brilliantly combining the widest range of sources––from the works of great philosophers to internet forums ––David MacFadyen has analyzed a phenomenon we all know too well: bling! He finds it everywhere: in our everyday lives, in politics, and in love, too. The sources of Russian bling are shown to be in the depths of Russian history, but their appearance in the tough times of our post-Soviet society is also explained through our modern fears and worries––not only regarding the future, but ourselves, too. With much humor and a genuine desire to help all people suffering from an attack of bling, this British writer has, it seems, watched all of our TV series and cartoons. It looks like he has plowed through everything done by our pop and rock stars, too, all with the goal of showing Russians what it means to be Russian”
“Big things, as we all know, are best seen from a distance. As a result, it took someone from Los Angeles to explain our huge attachment to bling. (Which, by the way, is an extremely ‘’blingy’’city itself... perhaps the world capital of bling!) It took an 11-hour time difference to get to grips for the very first time with all the details of this phenomenon and put it all in historical perspective, too. The person who did this is a professor of Slavic Studies at UCLA, David MacFadyen. He has a stunning knowledge of Russian popular culture. In his office, for example, you’ll find everything from [arthouse] film director] Andrei Tarkovsky to [media celebrity and music manager] Yana Rudkovskaya. This book isn’t a banal collection of anecdotes fit for the tabloids, but an elegant study of our Russian bling all the way from Catherine the Great to today’s oligarchs and magnates. Bling is examined through the prisms of psychology, culture, and society. As a result, bling and its exponents are turned from very intuitive notions into the objects of ‘blingology.’ And the result isn’t just interesting, it’s useful, too... Even if you don’t suffer from this yourself!”
BOOK 10
Russian Television Today: Primetime Drama and Comedy
“Enhanced by high-quality images, MacFadyen’s discussion of individual series is informative, concise, and conceptually rich. Not only does he provide information on their production, but also situates them within both current and historical public debates…. Undergraduates will enjoy an overview of contemporary Russian TV’s themes, whereas culture and media scholars will find here thought-provoking insights into the nation’s self-imaging, the significance of which far transcends television.”
— Russian Review
“An encyclopedia of television dramas and comedies in Putin’s Russia: its filmography is exhaustive... A very useful resource for Russian Studies students, academics and the general public interested in television and culture in Putin’s Russia”
“Richly referenced, nicely illustrated, and well researched... A serious piece of original research, his book can be recommended as a course reader for postgraduate students of contemporary Russian film and culture, as well as a good introduction for members of the general public keen to know more about Russian televised drama and the complexities of the new sense of nationhood emerging in post-Soviet Russian society”
“David MacFadyen has written extensively on Russian literature and on fictional television. This book is a comprehensive and detailed study of primetime fictional television that manages to incorporate without distortion the richness of pre-Soviet (and in some cases, Soviet) literature as the primary formative stratum of contemporary television. This study is far more than an account of literary themes in today’s fictional television programs. True, the author recounts the plots and filming information about an enormous number of movies and television series of all genres. It might have been overwhelming for the reader, but for the author’s felicitous style, thorough knowledge, and the constant motion traveling across time and type of art form, with political events neither absent nor unduly stressed”
BOOK 9
Я всем прощение дарую. Ахматовский сборник (I Grant Them All Forgiveness) / National Library of Russia
“This collection presents, on one hand, the memories of Anna Akhmatova’s contemporaries, especially regarding her funeral on March 10, 1966. On the other hand, there are articles devoted to study of her work. A significant portion of the book consists of previously unpublished materials from public archives and private collections around Russia. There is a wide range of contributors: all the way from friends and acquaintances––people close to the poet––to those who never met her or simply admired her work. Multiple contemporary researchers are included, both Russian and international academics. Plenty of the materials allow for a fresh look at both Akhmatova’s personality and her readers’ attitudes. The book is enriched with commentary, illustrated documents, and unique photographic materials.”
—Moscow Dept of Culture
“Along with many studies, scorned by the [Soviet]] press in years gone by, this collection also includes outstanding articles by today’s researchers”
“This collection brings together important material, both from [Russia’s]] philological history and from writers’ daily existence under the Soviets. The book is a true monument to human dignity, to a loftiness of spirit, a fidelity to verse and to friendship”
“Not only are the articles wonderful; so are their commentaries, which read like separate works of research”
BOOK 8
Russian Culture in Uzbekistan: One Language in the Middle of Nowhere
“An erudite fusion of theory and empirical content that is rare amongst studies of Uzbekistan. MacFadyen has crafted a text that is both historically informative and highly original in its conceptualization of the Russian engagement with Central Asia”
“Russian Culture in Uzbekistan’provides an excellent contribution to debates around Russian national identity and the Russian’diaspora’ experience, both past and present. The scope of the text and the complexity and subtleness of the author’s analysis, encourages the reader to reflect not only on Russia ‘in’ Central Asia, but also on the contested understandings of Russia’s historical and contemporary positioning between East and West”
“The author is to be congratulated on his extremely good and resourceful research. I found [the manuscript] most interesting and valuable...[It] reflects] both elaborate and intensive work”
“MacFadyen provides a sophisticated view of the Russian experience in Uzbekistan that is far removed from traditional ‘black-and-white’ accounts of the past in its complexity. Thoroughly researched and with an exhaustive bibliography, there can be few books that provide informative insights into a wide range of cultural products while dealing with complex issues of Russian national identity and the nature of the Diaspora experience. Russian Culture in Uzbekistan will no doubt be an invaluable source for anybody interested in the omplex relationship between the cultures of East and West and a model that could be applied to other parts of this contested region”
BOOK 7
Yellow Crocodiles and Blue Oranges: Russian Animated Film since World War Two
“David MacFadyen’s phenomenological reading of Soviet animation film breaks new ground both in film and Russian studies... I strongly recommend this unique volume to both film and Russian culture students”
“[The book offers] original and comprehensive coverage [of this subject]. It combines a breadth and depth of scholarship with the author’s obvious intellectual and affective engagement with the subject matter. It is likely to remain an important reference source in the study of Russian popular culture for many years to come”
“MacFadyen’s book, a survey of Russian animation, includes an exhaustive bibliography of (mostly Russian) publications on the subject, an extensive filmography and a listing of more than 400 screenplays. The product of voluminous research, it will be a fundamental resource for readers seriously interested in the subject”
“Pathbreaking... The chief strength of this book is MacFadyen’s effort to bring new theoretical and analytical paradigms to bear on the study of Soviet cinema, which has heretofore been dominated by historical, socio-political, and literary approaches.”
“This will be a key reference text for university courses in Russian film studies and also animation courses in general”
“A well-researched and important contribution to the field of Slavic cultural studies... the volume is highly original in its interpretations”
“For many, Soviet animation is a blind spot on the map of animation history, and therefore expectations run high when a book promises to shed light on this field. David MacFadyen, who has written extensively on popular culture in the Soviet Union and in Russia, can be regarded as the appropriate author to undertake such a task. The previous monographs in his formidable record have contributed much to the understanding of Soviet cultural life... This book’s chief strength is MacFadyen’s successful endeavor to apply new theoretical and analytical methods to the study of Soviet cinema”
“A significant contribution to our understanding of Soviet animation through the prism of phenomenology. This daring approach also reveals the author’s profound knowledge of the difficult fate of alternative Western philosophies in the Soviet Union”
BOOK 6
The Sad Comedy of Eldar Riazanov: An Introduction to Russia’s Most Popular Filmmaker
“This is a thorough, pioneering introduction to Eldar Riazanov. MacFadyen challenges the Cold War oppositions of state vs. entertainment, dogma vs. dissidence, and public vs. private that have dominated Western academic discussion of Soviet and post-Soviet art and media, elucidating their much more complex emotional and psychological structure in the light of post-Freudian French analysis. He also provides an overview of Riazanov’s work that allows readers to place each film within its own historical framework and which situates the filmmaker within the context of Soviet-Russian cinema”
“David MacFadyen’s work here is much more than an introduction to the oeuvre of this artist and showman. MacFadyen traces the interplay between subjective, ‘lived’ life and the public rhetoric of the State. A close reading of more than a dozen films is informed by a tightly-argued deployment of psychoanalytic and postmodern ideas. The scholarship is exemplary. The writer draws widely on primary sources, almost all in Russian, comprising excerpts from the press and other media, specialized magazines, theoretical works, official statements, government edicts, etc. Equally importantly, his excerpts are shrewdly deployed to clarify the often highly-nuanced ‘understanding’ between the official culture and its practitioners in the field. This is an important contribution to research”
“A good example of how the chronological approach to a filmmaker can be abandoned for a thematic, psychoanalytical approach with great insight into a significant Soviet and post-Soviet Russian filmmaker”
“This is] the first in-depth analysis of the oeuvre of one of Russia’s most remarkable directors... MacFadyen’s book is a valuable contribution to the scholarly field of Russian cinema and popular culture. It sheds light on the enduring appeal of Riazanov’s comedies and will spark further interest in Russian cinema.”
BOOK 5
Songs for Fat People: Affect, Emotion and Celebrity in the Soviet Popular Song 1900 to 1955
“The trilogy [Red Stars, Estrada?! and Songs for Fat People] represents the most detailed and informative portrait of estrada available in the English language. It is essential reading for anybody with an interest in Soviet culture and should be of interest to scholars of popular culture in general. Through his captivating narrative and insightful analysis, MacFadyen presents a tour de force of the history of Soviet culture”
“MacFadyen provides a sophisticated view of Soviet popular culture that focuses on the genuine popularity of estrada and on the extent that popular appeal operated independently from, if not in opposition to the main trajectory of Soviet politics. He presents a unique and valuable perspective and there is currently nothing comparable available in English or Russian for this period”
“Through careful examination of archival materials, newspaper interviews, and selected memoirs MacFadyen exemplifies the interaction between the individual performers’ talents and aspirations and the banal, impersonal, and often degrading institution of the Soviet State... Through a clever reading of archival documents the author analyzes what types of popular music Russians enjoyed and how these preferences operated within the ‘linear workings of Soviet dogma’... The book provides a unique and valuable perspective on how popular songs operated within - yet often against - the ruling ideology of the Soviet regime”
BOOK 4
Estrada?! Grand Narratives and the Philosophy of the Russian Popular Song 1982-2000
“Russian cultural studies in general, and in particular the examination of
‘’estrada’ and popular music, is certainly underdeveloped and under-represented in the literature. MacFadyen indicates estrada’s popularity and importance, and his book goes a long way to locating it within contemporary Russian culture. This is a well-written and well-documented addition to the field. It will not only serve the needs of the scholarly community as a significant contribution, but is almost certain to encourage other work in the same and contiguous areas”
“MacFadyen has undoubtedly succeeded in writing a theoretical work of a highest standard which will be welcomed by those interested in various aspects of traditional and popular cultures. Readers with a specific interest in pop culture will not find a better and more up-to-date book of Russian stardom. His conclusions are as original as the method of his analysis of all possible sources. This is a truly interdisciplinary study”
“These books [Estrada?! and Songs for Fat People] join Red Stars as welcome additions to Russian cultural and popular music collections ... These books are important additions to any collection supporting significant programs in popular music or Eastern Europe. Summing up: Essential”
“MacFadyen’s book reveals the author’s thorough knowledge and extensive research of the socio-cultural milieu of estrada performers and their audiences. He provides a noteworthy view of contemporary Russian estrada song at the turn of the twenty-first century ... Estrada?! unquestionably fills a gap in the still under-explored area of contemporary Russian popular culture”
“An important contribution to this relatively neglected field, MacFadyen’s volume is well written and provides a sophisticated critical introduction to Russian estrada”
BOOK 3
Red Stars: Personality and the Soviet Popular Song after 1955
“An original, well-informed, and beautifully written overview of post-Stalinist culture. MacFadyen draws together a wealth of material and presents it in a meaningful, lucid way. His command over the vast body of information on which he draws is impressive and enables the reader to connect in a significant way with what might otherwise have been an embarrassment of riches”
“In Red Stars, David MacFadyen provides a highly original and often engaging study of the seven foremost stars of Soviet variety (estrada) in the post-Stalin period: Edita Pekha, Iosif Kobzon, Irina Ponarovskaia, Sofiia Rotaru, Lev Leshchenko, Valerii Leontev, and Alla Pugacheva ... MacFadyen ties together the different tangents of his argument with his conception of subjectivity. He argues that the songs of the estrada stars were so widespread that they fostered a ‘disassembling’ of the Stalinist pattern of subjectivity, which he characterizes as the ‘relationship between imperial subject and venerated, lofty object.’ [This is] a provocative piece of scholarship that is sure to attract a wide audience. MacFadyen challenges readers to look beyond the realm of literature when considering the cultural vehicles of personal freedom after Stalin’s death”
“Red Stars is the first of three volumes that David MacFadyen is devoting to the study of Russian and Soviet popular songs since 1900. Described by the author as a ‘sentimental journey,’ it does more than merely chart the development of the popular song primarily, but not exclusively, from the Khrushchev thaw to the end of the Soviet Union ... MacFadyen convincingly argues that estrada was a more important vehicle of lichnost’ than literature in post-Stalinist Russia, and that the cultural significance of song and the popularity of radio stations, such as Retro-Kanal or Nostalgie, is greater than a mere expression of nostalgia for a time when life was better for the majority of Russian citizens. Moreover, as befits the subject, Red Stars is entertainingly written in a reader-friendly style ... MacFadyen manages to display his undoubted enthusiasm for the subject ... [and] also successfully rights the wrongs of the past in proving the cultural significance of estrada, which ‘had often been on the defensive, struggling against accusations of triviality or, worse still, decadent maximalism’ ... I warmly recommend Red Stars to anybody who wants an insight into post-Stalinist culture and look forward to the other volumes that David MacFadyen is writing on popular song”
“This is the first serious consideration of post-Stalinist Soviet estrada - officially approved popular songs and singers ... MacFadyen has adapted the philosophy [of Evald] Il’enkov] to explain the interaction [between] performer and audiences] that created Soviet star personalities. In tracing the dialogue between audience and performer, which morphs into Pugacheva’s monologue by the 1980s, MacFadyen relies on an impressive array of published sources. He has worked like a Cold War-era Kremlinologist, reading thousands of articles from the Soviet press to ferret out the subtleties that reveal the poverty of Stalinist and Cold War ideologies ... This study breaks much new ground”
“A noteworthy contribution to the study of estrada”
“MacFadyen brings a number of invaluable assets to his study of the Soviet popular song, not the least of which are an understanding of music and an expertise in the Russian poetic tradition... What makes Red Stars unique, however, is MacFadyen’s combination of exhaustive research and undeniable erudition with the ability to tell a good story. One need not share MacFadyen’s enthusiasm for estrada to find Red Stars an informative and entertaining book”
BOOK 2
Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet Muse
“MacFadyen’s strong command of the texts and contexts of Brodsky’s formative years makes this book a must read for anyone who has an interest in the cultural milieu which molded a whole generation of poets. Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet Muse is an eloquently written, meticulously researched, perspicacious work of great value to Brodsky studies”
“Through interviews, archival research, and textual analysis, MacFadyen reveals much about the cultural and literary milieu in which a young man from Leningrad - before the arrests, exile to the far North, forced expulsion from the Soviet Union, and fame as a Novel laureate - first tried his hand at poetry and established his own ethical and aesthetic sense”
“This is the first monograph dealing exclusively with the literary contexts shaping Brodsky as a poet in late 1950s-early 1960s Leningrad ... MacFadyen not only evokes a concise cultural portrait of this time period in Brodsky’s poetic biography, but also constructs an intriguing argument for how the poet refashions the voices and intents of what he read as an individual creative quest... In a nod to Leningrad cultural influences, MacFadyen cleverly structures his thesis to match a proposed ‘jazz-like’ rhythm in Brodsky’s poetic development, that is, free movement between fixed, opposing poles ... The study is enriched by reference to extensive interviews with a number of Brodsky’s Leningrad contemporaries and by samples from the poet’s manuscript archives and unpublished poems ... He does Brodsky scholars a great service in documenting Slutskii, Bagritskii, and Galczynski as early influences on the poet’s voice. MacFadyen’s book is an engaging contextualization of Brodsky’s early artistic endeavors, and represents a thoughtful and convincing treatment of the poet’s evolving creative philosophy”
“The comparative analysis of anti-Stalinist poems by B. Slutskii and Brodskii merits special attention, as well as the discussion of allusions in Brodskii’s Zof’ia and Kholmy to Pasternak and Tsvetaeva respectively... [Another] strength of the book lies in periodicals and certain poets that Brodskii first published in provincial periodicals which had not been re-reprinted or analyzed... [This] marginalized poet’s irreverent tampering with the aesthetic canon, captured so aptly in MacFadyen’s analogy to jazz improvisations, is the subversive legacy of Brodskii’s playful ‘Soviet Muse.’”
BOOK 1
Joseph Brodsky and the Baroque
“This subtle and ambitious reading of Brodsky cannot be ignored ... While much summing up of the poet’s career in the five years since his death has concentrated on the political drama of his biography (trial, exile, emigration, Nobel Prize) and its supposed reflection in his work, MacFadyen makes a strong case for seeing Brodsky’s existential journey as directed, even scripted, by the protean force of his words themselves”
“This book is as important [to the] study of Brodsky] as...Lotman’s commentary to Eugene Onegin”
“A treasure trove of valuable information”
“This [study] fleshes out our picture of Brodsky’s relation to his most urgent predecessors.... There is a wealth of valuable information in this book”
“[The study] affords stimulating insight into this relatively neglected period, and offers a challenging account of Brodskii’s artistic origins and essence... The argument is bold, ingenious and fundamentally persuasive ... This is a pioneering study”
“The extensive research that informs this study is impressive.... MacFadyen’s originality and insight shine through, and his argument about the power of poetic language to transcend political realities has implications that go well beyond the particular context of 1950s Leningrad”
“MacFadyen demonstrates in exquisite detail the various ways in which these [Joyce, Dos Passos, Hemingway, Salinger, Dickens, Frost and Byron] entered the poet’s imagination and sensibility”
“Directions in this investigation [of Brodsky] combine to provide a coherent, enriched picture that lends crucial oversight into the poet’s life and work. David MacFadyen’s love for and profound understanding of Brodsky’s poetry translate into fine scholarship for his readers...”
“[The book] offers stimulating insight into this relatively neglected period, and offers a challenging account of Brodsky’s artistic origins and essence .. The argument is bold, ingenious and fundamentally persuasive ... A pioneering study”
“Among the numerous monographs dedicated to Brodsky’s work, Joseph Brodsky and the Soviet Muse occupies a special place. MacFadyen offers a most convincing contextualization of the writer’s early work. He shows how the formation of a young poet’s aesthetic related both to Soviet and English-language or Polish poets of the time. This is the first study to focus so closely on the Soviet context and the ways - either positively or negatively - in which Brodsky engaged it.”
