Fra Beatlemania til Sovjetunionens fall: En historiografisk analyse av forskning på vestlig inspirert sovjetisk ungdomskultur

Abstract

This master’s thesis is an analysis of anglophone academic literature surrounding the westernization of soviet youth culture during the last three decades leading up to the USSR’s collapse. Through a historiographical approach I examine shifts within research surrounding state response to western cultural influence, youth’s adoption of rock music as a form of resistance, and rock music’s role in undermining the Communist state’s authority, potentially contributing to its collapse. Early studies on Soviet youth policy tended to interpret the state’s response to youth culture as purely antagonistic. These studies often viewed the regime as a monolithic entity that strongly opposed any perceived threat to Communist values. This approach often depicted rock music, and the youth culture that followed, as a form of infiltration of western ideals that signalled a cultural victory for the West within a broader Cold War conflict. More recent scholarship, however, offers a nuanced perspective, suggesting that Soviet policies toward youth culture were far from uniform. While the Soviet government did seek to control certain cultural expression, revisionist scholars challenge the Cold War-era triumphalist narrative by emphasising the ambivalence in Soviet cultural policies, framing the state’s response as facilitative rather than exclusively repressive. The discussion of Soviet rockers as a form of dissent follows a similar trend. Early interpretations, influenced by dissident voices like Václav Havel, understood rock music as a covert rebellion, allowing young people to challenge the regime within the safety of private spaces. This view presents rock music as both a tool for liberation, and a soundtrack of defiance against totalitarian control. Revisionist scholars propose a more complex interpretation that challenging binary descriptions of resistance and oppression. They underscore the nuanced relationship Soviet youth had with ideological discourse, suggesting that for most young people, rock music was less a political act and more a journey into self-identity and cultural exploration. The conflict, in the eyes of the youth, was more about generational difference and the pursuit of self-expression, than explicit defiance against state ideology. The thesis further explores the impact of rock music on the decline of the Soviet Union, with scholarly perspectives again being divided. Traditional accounts argue that rock music’s popularity eroded the regime’s legitimacy, creating a cultural climate that pushed the Soviet Union towards democracy and liberalisation. In contrast, revisionist scholars, portray rock’s impact as more indirect, seeing it not as direct opposition, but rather a training ground with latent potential for change, that was released by Gorbachev’s glasnost reforms. It also highlights the role of emotions, where youth culture set the stage for the emotional backdrop of perestroika. Ultimately, this thesis not only examines the westernization of soviet youth culture, and its consequenses, but also reflects on how historiographical perspectives shape our understandig of the past. Interpretations are ever evolving and, the questions highlighted in this thesis are far from resolved.