НАИВ – Heroes of Our Time
Герой нашего времени (Hero of Our Time) is a novel (from 1840) by Mikhail Lermontov, but you probably already knew that, and if not, check Wikipedia. If you change the й to и, you turn the hero into heroes (an explanation of plurals in the nominative case can be found here), and we’re right where we need to be: with the song (from 2018) with a striking video by НАИВ (or NAIV, Naïve).
Antihero(es)
Just as the protagonist Pechorin is no hero at all, НАИВ also features characters far from any heroic roles. They can be seen in the video, and two are mentioned by name in the lyrics. The смелый вождь (brave leader) can only be Putin. He leads us forward (вперёд ведёт нас), with Alexander Zaldostanov (Александр Залдостанов) and Ramzan Kadyrov (Рамзан Кадыров) nearby or by his side. And it’s hard to call them heroes.
Night Wolves
The Ночные волки (Night Wolves) make it even worse. A motorcycle club, also with a questionable reputation, but one that enjoys the support of the aforementioned. See for instance (besides the clip) The Nightwolves: Putin’s Bikers (I Love Docs, 2020, 42 m), Putin rides with Night Wolves bikers in Crimea (Euronews, 2019, 1 m), and Are the Night Wolves Putin’s motorcycle gang? (TRT World, 2018, 2 m). You could almost think they are.
Propaganda
Spectacular footage in the clip, but it was easy to get. Весь исходный материал для видеоряда был позаимствован из открытых источников (военпроп – gracias!): all the footage for the video was borrowed from open sources (military propaganda, thanks!). The English subtitles – every prop wants wide reach – might even be seen as a form of агитпроп ( agitprop).
From the album Make Naïve Great Again (2018)
More
Learn more about Lermontov’s main book and improve your Russian at the same time (in three parts) with Reading in Russian – Герой Нашего Времени in Russian, by Russian With Max (2020). See on YouTube part 1 (84 m), part 2 (46 m), and part 3 (59 m), and continue from there. Also available on Spotify.
More НАИВ on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and VK. Interview with singer Aleksandr (or Чача) Ivanov (1968) on Sadwave. «Не хочу быть угрозой для государства»: I don’t want to be a threat to the state. His profile on Rockperson (RU).
Most of the music here is also in an
R1 playlist on YouTube (in order of release).
See also
Best Russian Music and
Russian Song Lyrics.
More
Music
Anyone who wants to present Russian music cannot ignore Zemfira. Popular and mainstream – millions of records sold – but also distinctly idiosyncratic. The music is usually accessible (we categorize it under Pop), but the attitude is rock.
Raw Anti-Putin punk from
Nizhny Novgorod /
Нижний Новгород. Loosely based on ‘Maggie’ by The Exploited.
From the green city of
Zelenograd /
Зеленоград. Dreamy indie-folk with a melancholic undertone. Created by
Mikhail Rodionov (1992).
The alarm blares (Ревёт тревога), the road awaits (ждёт дорога). They are many (Их немало), we are few (нас немного). We are in an unjust world (Мы в несправедливом мире) tin wolves in the shooting range (Жестяные волки в тире).
The word offret is Swedish and means ‘sacrifice’; the band Offret is Russian and makes heavy music. The link between the word and the band: a
1986 film in Swedish by the Russian Andrei Tarkovsky.
A band from Saint Petersburg that makes a kind of post-punk/indie-pop. Not for long yet, so not much material yet. However, they already have a few very successful tracks with original music videos. До свиданья, дорогая is the
Russian title for the film
The Goodbye Girl (1977), but it has nothing to do with it.
