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(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: Leningrad 80s • No.115 >>
The correspondence between Mannick and Kozlov covers not only a remarkably long period of time, but a period which was in itself remarkable, the pre-perestroika and perestroika years, that is, the first and second halves of the 1980s, respectively. Between October 1986 and January 1990, Mannick was not able to visit the Soviet Union herself, and Kozlov tried to keep her updated about some of the changes that affected his personal life, his activities as an artist, the international promotion of his art, but also society as a whole. Kozlov’s letters illustrate how Gorbachev’s economic and other reforms – perestroika – gradually led to a more liberal state policy granting individual initiative and freedom of expression – “glasnost”, literally “openness”. Mannick, on her part, wrote how perestroika in general and the Leningrad music scene in particular left an impact on the cultural life of her country.
 During the Cold War, the general knowledge about the other side was rather superficial and full of clichés, but there was a difference. While Soviet citizens never lost interest in Western culture and intellectual and artistic circles were purposefully striving for the latest information, conversely, Soviet culture was perceived in the West as nothing much worth of interest, with the exception of the Bolshoi Theatre ballet as a positive example and dissident literature, such as Solzhenitsyn’s acclaimed Gulag Archipelago, revealing the negative side of communism. Accordingly, some few examples of Soviet pop art, like that of Moscow conceptualists and New York residents Komar and Melamid, were embraced as an ironic statement on Soviet history. After Mikhail Gorbachev’s appointment as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985 and the beginning of his policy of perestroika, interest in the life of ordinary Soviet people grew dramatically. With Gorbachev’s visits abroad, the West experienced a kind of “Gorby Fever”, as Mannick wrote in Letter 41 from December 1987 – not least thanks to his elegant and charming wife Raisa, whose cosmopolitan appeal stood in plain contrast to the stereotype of the graceless, grandmotherly Soviet woman prevailing in capitalist countries. In Kozlov’s letters, the first signs of changes appear in December 1986 with a New Artists exhibition in Moscow “in the main exhibition hall” (Letter M). The Moscow exhibition could be identified as “The Laboratory – Young Artists from Leningrad” at the Kuznetsky Most premises of the Moscow Union of Artists. This is interesting insofar, as none of the New Artists was a union member – as “unofficial” artists they were denied membership. Having their works shown by the Moscow Union of Artists was one step towards official recognition.[1] The following five letters, preserved from the period of 1987 to 1990, show how individual freedom steadily progressed. In Letter P, written in March 1989, Kozlov compiled a slightly satirical list of twenty-six items he called “hot news”, mixing personal experiences and general expectations related to recent political and economic shifts:
✮ The situation in grocery stores has become even worse, but there are rumours that it will become (even) better. ✮ Almost everything is said and written about history. Stalin is a murderer and an enemy, Khrushchev is a good fellow, Brezhnev is a fool, Gorbachev is a revolutionary and the hope of the whole world. (Letter P, March 1989) Thrilled by these memorable occurrences, Mannick enthusiastically answers:
Mannick’s expectations to see her friend’s art in the USA, besides expressing her personal feelings, weren’t unfounded at all. In the Soviet Union, artists and musicians benefitted from the new rapprochement at an early stage, since bilateral agreements and summits, like the American/Soviet Geneva Summit from November 1985, opened new opportunities for cultural contacts and projects. What is more, Leningrad’s “unofficial” artists benefitted doubly from perestroika – because of their personal international contacts and because foreign partners were looking for creative projects “off the beaten track”. This was the case of Stockholm’s municipal gallery Kulturhuset. Based on the Swedish-Soviet programme on cooperation in the field of culture, science and education, signed in Moscow on 17 December 1986, Stockholm’s cultural administration initiated a festival of Leningrad underground culture with a large New Artists exhibition Kozlov mentioned in Letter N from autumn 1987:
The Kulturhuset had to coordinate the work of numerous official partners – the Soviet Ministry of Culture, Swedish Institute, Soviet Embassy (Stockholm), Leningrad Komsomol, and the Swedish General Consulate (Leningrad). This was in itself a highly complicated task, but it also had to consider the at times anarchical behaviour of artists and musicians, especially regarding the selection of paintings. As a result, The New from Leningrad, postponed several times, eventually opened in August 1988 with those works participants decided to bring along more >>. Paradoxically, the main work of the exhibition, Kozlov’s large portrait of Timur Novikov, “Timur on Horseback”, featured on the catalogue cover and posters, was not among them more >>.
At the same time, private endeavours were also bearing fruit. Los Angeles-based Joanna Stingray gave a striking example of – risky – individual entrepreneurship outside an institutional framework. In 1986, with tapes she had smuggled across the border, she released the album “Red Wave”, a compilation with music by four Leningrad rock bands – Aquarium, Alisa, Strange Games, and Kino (see Letter N, autumn 1987).
The troubles this brought Stingray demonstrate that perestroika was a slow and contradictory process. In the Soviet Union, none of these bands had been allowed to record on vinyl previously, and the Soviet authorities reprimanded Stingray by denying her a visa for her marriage to “Red Wave” musician Yury Kasparyan,[2] planned for April 1987. Stingray, who had been a regular visitor to Leningrad since 1984, won the support of high-ranking American politicians who put her case on the agenda in bilateral talks. After a long and determined fight, she was finally able to celebrate her wedding in Leningrad in November 1987.[3] Mannick had briefly met Stingray during her October 1986 visit to Leningrad and asked Kozlov whether he attended the wedding (Letter 41, December 1987). Kozlov attended the wedding dinner, of which he gave an impressive report:
Kozlov’s wedding gift to the American-Russian couple, a large work on paper entitled “America”, appears in pictures taken at the restaurant. In 1988 and 1989, Stingray organised several exhibitions with works by her Leningrad artist friends in Los Angeles and New York, and in 1989, Kozlov drew her portrait, where she is seen wearing a space helmet. In this way, he acknowledged her role for the Leningrad art and music scene as that of a visitor from outer space. Understandably, the Soviet government was not particularly keen to see itself represented in the West by “underground” culture and continued sending the “classics”. Mannick notes the Kirov ballet performing Swan Lake and Nikita Mikhalkov’s film “Dark Eyes” (Letter 41, December 1987[4]), followed by “a big group of Soviet artists in Boston in April – Maya Plisetskaya, Rodion Shchedrin, dancers, musicians, even mimes” (Letter 43, May? 1988). Rodion Shchedrin was a composer and the husband of world famous Bolshoi dancer Maya Plisetskaya, for whom he often wrote the score of her ballets. Plisetskaya’s tour through the United States was one of many since 1959. What may appear as genuine Soviet productions were, however, at least in part co-productions with the West. “Dark Eyes”, based on Chekhov’s novellas, was a Soviet-Italian film starring Yelena Safonova and Marcello Mastroanni. Ballet dancer Maya Plisetskaya, the glamorous Soviet superstar, was deeply inserted in European culture.
Through her passion for dance, she worked with international choreographers and costumes designers, which impressed Evgenij Kozlov. In 1982, he noted in his diary: Пьер Карден /Фр./. Костюмы к балету «Чайка». 1982 г. / Муз. Р. Щедрина / Нина Заречная – М. Плисецкая (Pierre Cardin / France/. Costumes for the ballet Chaika [The Seagull], 1982.[5] Music R. Shchedrin / Nina Zavernaya – M Plisetskaya; Diary III, p. 3-17).
Starting in 1988, Leningrad’s “new wave” culture made it to the States, too. Mannick went to see Взломщик / Vzlomshchik (The Burglar, 1987), with Konstantin Kinchev, lead singer of Alisa – one of the “Red Wave” bands – in the main role. She also mentions “Assa”, produced the same year, another art-house film featuring Leningrad artists and musicians, although the setting is in Yalta. “Assa” became the cult film of the perestroika period, in the main thanks to Kino frontman Viktor Tsoy’s performance of his song “Мы ждём перемен” / We are waiting for changes. (See Letter N, part 2) Watching “Vzlomshchik”, Mannick is feeling nostalgic:
The New Composers Valery Alakhov and Igor Verichev were Kozlov’s close friends (see Letter H), and Mannick had met them during her last visit to Leningrad in October 1986. Kozlov kept her updated about their record with Sergey Kuryokhin “Popular Mechanics. Insect Culture”, for which he had shot the cover photo (see Chapter 2, Let’s Talk About Art. New Wave, New Artists, and B(L)ack art). It was released in Liverpool in 1987 (Letter N, part 1), to which she responded
I am waiting for the sale of Soviet music - every time I'm in the record store I look for the “New Composers”! I would very much like to hear more of their music. (Letter 41, December 1987) With perestroika, the harsh restrictions on granting Soviet citizens exit visas (exit permits) for travels abroad were gradually softened, and Leningrad artists and musicians started travelling to the US. Kuryokhin toured the States in autumn 1988 – without the New Composers – but it was Boris Grebenshikov, founder the legendary band Aquarium in 1972 (see Letter I, spring 1986) and yet another “Red Wave” participant, who caught Mannick’s attention. Grebenshikov had the support of Joanna Stingray; through Stingray, he met David Bowie in New York in December 1987.[6] In 1988, Grebenshikov produced his album “Radio Silence” with a western label, with most songs sung in English. Shortly after it was released in the US in June 1989, he promoted it the David Letterman show.[7]
Mannick mentions Grebenshikov twice:
I am simply amazed at all the new contacts with the USSR that have developed here recently. Imagine, a few days ago in Boston there was a concert by Grebenshikov, on the radio they are playing Zvuki Mu,[8] and there is a festival of “glasnost’ cinema” in the movie theaters. (Letter 48, August 1989) Kozlov, for his part, enjoyed the increased offer of western productions. Letter N is especially detailed in this respect, with a reference to a Moscow film festival (“Ragtime” “All that Jazz” etc), screenings at the local cinema (Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest”, “Mozart”), an exhibition (Chagall) and concerts of American musicians. Among the latter was singer Billy Joel. To promote his concert, Joel was a guest at the highly popular TV-broadcast “Musical Ring”, where performances alternated with questions by the audience. Kozlov told Mannick of his impressions:
It cannot be excluded that Kozlov exaggerated Joel’s statements to play with the stereotype of American money making. But in the Soviet Union, to openly market a cultural product for one’s own benefit was blatant disregard of the rules of public conduct. Obviously, Kozlov sided with Joel and his straightforwardness. With perestroika, the Law of Supply and Demand entered the field of culture. To establish the monetary equivalent for a cultural product was a question Kozlov had to solve for his own art. The fifth and final chapter of the introduction shows how he tried to find an answer, but before that, the fourth chapter examines how censorship eventually came to an end. Hannelore Fobo, 8 April 2024 [1] On the other hand, the exhibition had no direct reference to the group’s name, and it is not known whether it included official artists, too. [2] Kasparyan was the lead guitarist of the band Kino which Kozlov featured with his LP cover for the band’s third studio album “Nachalnik Kamchatki”, 1984. See Letter G, September 1984. [3] Joanna Stingray & Madison Stingray. Red Wave: an American in the Soviet Music Underground, Los Angeles, CA; DoppelHouse Press, 2020. For detailed information, see Letter O, beginning of 1988. [4] Mannick writes, “I personally prefer ‘Unfinished piece …’ but in the West this film was very well received.” [5] According to Wikipedia, the Bolshoi Theatre premiere took place in 1980. External link >> [6] In Leningrad, Grebenshikov often performed with Sergey Kuryokhin’s Pop Mekhanika concerts and can be seen in Kozlov’s pictures documenting these performances. In the Davis Center Special Collection there are several pictures from the December 1985 Happy New Year concert at the Leningrad Rock club; one of them is with Boris Grebenshikov. See: Leningrad Artists and Musicians in E-E Kozlov's Pictures more >>. [7] Alexis Ipatovtsev about Aquarium's Leningrad Period. An interview with Hannelore Fobo. Part 2: Aquarium's Archive. 31 March 2019. Published 8 May, 2019 more >>. [8] In 1989, Zvuki Mu, a popular Moscow rock band, toured the US with concerts in New York, Washington, Boston and other cities. Russian Wikipedia, External link >>.
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 see also (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, Catherine Mannick, and Hannelore Fobo papers, 1979-2022 (inclusive) Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Special Collection Harvard University >> Published 9 April 2024 |
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home // E-E // biographie // art // eros // Leningrad 80s // Valentin Kozlov // 2 x 3m // events // sitemap // kontakt /
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![(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, Diary III, pp 16, 17, beginning of 1982. Page 17, top: Пьер Карден /Фр./. Костюмы к балету «Чайка». 1982 г. / Муз. Р. Щедрина / Нина Заречная – М. Плисецкая (Pierre Cardin / France/. Costumes for the ballet Chaika [The Seagull], 1982.[5] Music R. Shchedrin / Nina Zavernaya – M Plisetskaya more >> Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Special Collection • Harvard University Harvard Accession Number: KMFP_0301](../Diaries/Page-3-16-17.jpg)
