Counterculture

Counterculture - in in a broad sense- a type of subculture that rejects the values ​​and norms of the dominant culture in a given society and defends its own alternative culture. Counterculture refers to a subculture that not only differs from the dominant culture, but is opposed and in conflict with dominant values.

The emergence of a counterculture is in fact a quite common and widespread phenomenon. The dominant culture, which is opposed by the counterculture, organizes only part of the symbolic space of a given society. It is not capable of covering all the diversity of phenomena.

It should be noted that in modern cultural studies and sociology the concept of counterculture is used in two senses: in fact, to designate socio-cultural attitudes that oppose the fundamental principles that dominate a particular culture, and secondly, it is identified with the Western youth subculture of the 50s - 70s, reflecting a critical attitude towards modern culture and its rejection as “the culture of the fathers.” The concept of “counterculture” appeared in Western literature in 1960, reflecting a liberal assessment of the early hippies and beatniks. The word belongs to the American sociologist Theodore Roszak.

Beatniks

3.1. State of the World at the Birth of the Counterculture

The war was well underway even before the US joined the conflict. As the US prepared to fight, Roosevelt had a vision of what the post-war world should be like. On January 6, 1941, he gave a speech to members of Congress that went down in American history as the speech on the “four freedoms”: freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of each person to worship God in the way he chooses, freedom from want, freedom from fear (“which, translated into a language that everyone can understand, means such a thorough reduction of armaments throughout the world that no state is capable of committing an act of physical aggression against any of its neighbors”).

As a counterpoint to those idealistic war goals, most Americans were fighting for the concept of the good life they remembered at home. War correspondent John Hersey once asked a young sailor what he was fighting for. After a moment's thought, the soldier sighed and said, “Lord, what would I I gave it for a piece of blueberry pie!”

America decides to try its new weapon - the atomic bomb.

The first bomb, a uranium weapon called "Little Boy", was dropped on Hiroshima 1945 on August 6 (killing 70,000 people instantly and injuring 70,000). Three days later, 2 plutonium "Fat Man" bombs fell on Nagasaki (killing 40,000 and injuring 60,000) .

Seeds Cold War, the Truman Doctrine, the founding of NATO in 1949, the increase in government power, attempts to promote social reform, discrimination against "colored" (whites-only stores, etc.), discrimination against Latin Americans, women's struggle for gender equality... This is what the world looked like at that point in time.

In such conditions, the conception of the beatniks, the “broken generation”, occurred, rejecting traditional morality and generally accepted social values ​​of the puritan and conservative society.

3.2. Conception of Beat

John Ciardi, in his famous article, “Epitaph for the Broken,” explained the massive success of the Beats by writing that “the youth have every reason to rebel against our American complacency. Getting up every day at half past seven, checking in with the timekeeper at eight, returning home at five, and watching TV bought in installments - such a lifestyle can hardly seduce a young man.” Such people were disgusted by the life of an automaton who lives and hates according to a schedule. .

The beats glorified spontaneity, Zen, marijuana, peyote, gin and coffee, wild road trips; life of the lower classes, ruthless honesty in transforming private feelings into public...

“The world needs to be filled with backpackers who refuse to submit to the universal demand for product consumption, according to which people must work for the privilege of consuming all this junk that they really don’t need at all... they are prisoners of a sweatshop system, production, consumption , work, production, consumption, a grandiose vision of the backpack revolution rises before me, thousands and even millions of young Americans wandering around the world with backpacks on their backs, going to the mountains to pray, making children laugh and making old people happy, making young girls happy, and making old ones even happier , they are all Zen Madmen, walking around and composing poems that appear in their heads just like that, without any reason; by being kind, doing strange things, they make everyone, all living beings see eternal freedom..." - Jack Kerouac .

Beatism took shape as a rather aggressive ideological group, keen on Zen Buddhism, practicing the art of meditation, experimenting with psychedelics, frantically creating and (most importantly) thinking. If we add to this the protest (active protest) against the American foreign policy, American "public opinion" and "public morality", as well as against the holy of holies - the American way of life, then one can understand why beatism is a protest of intellectuals.

3.3. Name

"beat", in original street usage: "exhausted", "at the bottom of the world", "seeking", "sleepless", "naive", "shrewd", "outcast", "on his own", "witty", "prompt".

Jack Kerouac coined the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948, summarizing his social circle to describe the underground, nonconformist youth then gathering in New York; the name was born in a conversation with novelist John Clellon Holmes (who published an early novel about the beatniks, called “Go,” in 1952, along with a manifesto in the New York Times Magazine: “This is the beat generation”). The adjective "beat" was introduced into the group by Herbert Hunk, although Kerouac expanded the meaning of the term. Other terms discussed by Holmes and Kerouac were "found" and "furtive" (hidden, secret; inevitable).

The term "beatnik" was coined by Herb Kahn in The San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, probably as a play on the name of the Russian satellite Sputnik. Kahn's definition of the word "beatnik" suggested that beatniks were "far from the mainstream of society" and "possibly pro-communists."

This may have been Kahn's intention to portray the Beat Generation as anti-Americans. Objecting to Kahn's term, Allen Ginsberg wrote in The New York Times to decry the "dirty word beatnik," commenting, "If beatniks and unlit Beat poets flood this country, they will not be created by Kerouac, but by the mass communications industry that They continue to brainwash people."

Kahn's new term stuck and became a popular label associated with the new stereotype of men with goatees and berets playing bongos while women in black tights danced.

3.4. Story

The beatnik movement went through several stages: initial origins (40s), development (late 40s - early 50s), formation (late 50s), heyday (at the turn of the 50s - 60s), and also the so-called “post-existence” (60s).

The beatniks were at first a literary group - it was a company of young writers and poets who did not accept the aesthetic guidelines of “official” art. The first Beat Generation writers met in New York: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, (in 1948) and later (in 1950) Gregory Corso.

The central figures (with the exception of Burroughs) came together in San Francisco in the mid-1950s, where they met and became friends with writers associated with the San Francisco Renaissance, such as: Kenneth Rexcourt, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Philip Wallen, Harold Nourse, Lew Welch, and Kirby Doyle. There they met many other poets who had migrated to San Francisco because the city had a reputation as a new center of creativity.

In 1953, aspiring poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti began publishing a small magazine called City Lights. big city", an allusion to the famous Chaplin film), and two years later on Columbus, the main street of San Francisco, the publishing house opened a bookstore of the same name, where the first books of the beatniks began to be sold, the most famous of which are a collection of prose fragments, essays, short stories and Jack Kerouac's meditation "On the Road" (1957) and Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" (1955).

3.5. Drugs

The classic members of the Beat Order - as Allen Ginsberg said, "the circle of freethinkers" - used many different drugs.

In addition to the alcohol common in American life, they were also interested in marijuana, benzedrine and, in some cases, opiates such as morphine. Over time, many of them began using psychedelic drugs such as mescaline, yage (also known as Ayahuasca), and LSD.

Much of this use could fairly be called "experimental", often they were completely unfamiliar with the effects of these drugs, there were also intellectual aspects of their interest in drugs and the simple pursuit of hedonistic intoxication.

3.6. Homosexuality

Among other qualities that sharply distinguished the beatniks from the urban bourgeoisie and even among the creative and university intelligentsia that seemed close to them, was their open sexuality, and not so much heterosexuality as homosexuality, which was actually taboo in the United States in those years. Homosexuality was outlawed, in any case, despite many reforms in Western society, it was viewed not only as a sin, but also as a crime.

3.7. Music

Jazz and blues for the beatniks quickly became the main cultural accompaniment - one of the ideologists of the beat movement, John Arthur Maynard, spoke of jazz in terms such as " New Testament" and "revelation". Most often it was about bop, which appeared shortly before the beatniks themselves and made its way onto the stage through whole tubs of critical slop that poured on it from all sides: one of the critics, Winthorpe Sargent, for example, wrote, that if a black man is raised from childhood on good music like Beethoven, he will give up his barbaric pipes and start listening to academic works. So, bop made the performer an almost sacred figure and gave the beatniks such concepts as loneliness in the crowd and spontaneity.

3.8. Literature

The beatniks gravitated towards plotlessness, free verse, metaphorical language, shocking vocabulary, impressionism and naturalistic descriptions. The beat was built on borrowed rhythms, long ornate phrases without a break for breath.

The beats followed their own feverish calls. Kerouac wrote the famous words in his novel On the Road: “The only people for me are madmen, mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved... who want to have everything at once, who never yawn and never say vulgarities, but always burn , burn, burn like fabulous Roman candles exploding like spiders among the stars.” The novel itself was written in three weeks in a non-stop caffeine-benzedrine frenzy on a 147-meter roll of paper without a single punctuation mark.

“The first thought is the best,” was Ginsberg’s rule.

Burroughs actively uses the “cut-up method,” which the writer learns about from his friend, poet and artist, Brion Gysin. This writing technique was first proposed by the Dadaists in the 20s, but Burroughs somewhat transformed it. The essence of the writer's method is simple. In all his trips, Burroughs does not part with a notebook divided into three columns. In the first, he writes down various facts about what is happening around him, snatches of phrases and dialogues he heard; in the second - personal impressions, thoughts, memories; finally, the third contains quotes from books read in this moment. Actually, the future book is assembled from these columns. Only, unlike the Dadaists, Burroughs is very scrupulous in the arrangement of various pieces and the subsequent editing of the text. In conclusion, a quote from Burroughs himself:

“A man reads a newspaper, and his gaze moves along the column in a reasonable Aristotelian manner - thought after thought, phrase after phrase. But subconsciously he also reads the columns located on the sides, and is also aware of the presence of a fellow traveler sitting next to him. Here's the cut for you."

“Twentieth-century poetry, like all arts and sciences, has shifted its focus to research and experimentation with the very material of which it is composed. Because every person deep within himself understands that all his visions and all his truths are ultimately devoid of content. ..the next step should be to study...the driving force of visions, what lies at the source of truth, which means the words themselves...and therefore use a radical means - the complete elimination of content.” - Allen Ginsberg, Indian Diaries.

“There is no reason why any line should begin from the left margin of the page. It’s a stupid habit: it’s as if all the thoughts in the brain are lined up like conscripts being drafted into the army. Let’s start a new thought at the edge and organically follow its development, as with all the husk falls off of it, revealing its form, when one association is connected with another, with jumping spaces indicating connections and gaps between things-thoughts, broken syntax to indicate fluctuations and gaps in thoughts - GRAPHICALLY showing the movement of the mind... This is simpler than the despotic form of the sonnet, because a person never thinks through the dialectically frozen forms of the quatrain or the synthetic forms of the sonnet: but our thinking works using blocks of sensations and images.” - Allen Ginsberg, Indian Diaries.

3.9. Buddhism - Bita religion

Buddhism, ancient and in highest degree philosophical Asian tradition, was the religion of Bit. He began influencing the lives of major New York Beat writers in the mid-1950s, when Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg began to take an interest in him. Kerouac and Ginsberg began their quest by reading books in libraries, but when they migrated to California, they began to put Buddhism into practice (mainly Zen), inspired by Gary Snyder (the beatnik most associated with Buddhism) and Kenneth Rexcourt.

Buddhism will change the life of anyone who begins to understand it, and all the works that Kerouac wrote after the mid-fifties, especially Dharma Bums and Big Sur, can be interpreted as Buddhist parables. Ginsberg's works were no less influenced by Buddhist thought.

3.10. Heritage

Ginsberg characterized some of the significant effects of the creative Beat movement in the following terms:

· Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation", that is, gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.

· Liberation of speech from censorship.

· Demystification and/or decriminalization of hashish and other drugs.

· The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians inspired in the late fifties and sixties by Beat poets and writers.

· Spreading environmental consciousness, emphasized early by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the concept of a "Fresh Planet."

· Opposition to military-industrial mechanized civilization, as emphasized in the works of Burroughs, Hunk, Ginsberg and Kerouac.

· Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spangler) the “second religiosity” developing within advanced civilization.

· A return to the high value of individuality in spite of state uniformity.

· Respect for the land and local peoples and creatures, as declared by Kerouac in his slogan "On the Road": "The land is an Indian thing."

Cinema.

Robert Altman's seemingly chaotic spontaneity owes a lot to Beat, as do Jim Jarmusch's black-and-white meditations and Richard Linklater's deftly unaffected film The Quilter. And every road movie, from the bright and graphic (Thelma and Louise, Something Wild) to the inert (California), slavishly follows the picaresque of On the Road.

"Burroughs is one of the building blocks of my writing," says writer-director Gus Van Sant. -- “When I stripped the three completed scripts and combined them in my computer to make My Own Private Idaho, is exactly what he would do. It's a kind of magic: it's like throwing chapters into a trash can and then randomly pulling them out one by one. This method allows the universe to dictate to you rather than your own thinking mind."

Literature.

In literature, oddly enough, it is difficult to find Beat’s followers. The Whitney Museum defines, for example, Paul Beatty as "a young poet shaped by the Beat culture." Beatty himself states: “The movement had no influence on me.” The poet Sparrow is equally cautious. "I worked to rebel," he says. -- “I'm interested in clarity and precision, not in their delusional style. But all these editors tell me I'm too beat. Maybe they're right; then I'm probably a third generation beatnik. This is a terrible fate." To modern poets, argues Ron Colm (UN Unbearable)), we need to “cleanse the overly slobbering mental space of the Beats, finish off the daddy a little” - as the Beats themselves did, abandoning literary modernism for jazz.

The beat had a major influence on Rock and Roll, including major figures such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. The rebellious rock star image is much the same as Beat's. Here are some examples of their involvement in Rock and Roll and other forms of pop culture:

· One of the reasons the Beatles used the letter "a" in their name was because John Lennon was a fan of Kerouac.

· Bob Dylan admits that he owes a lot to Kerouac and Ginsberg, both in his hallucinatory language and in his reluctance to repeat takes when recording.

· Jim Morrison cites Kerouac as his most important inspiration. He also studied poetry with Ferrengetti. (Keyboardist Ray Manzarek says the Doors would never have formed if it weren't for Kerouac.

· Ginsberg was a friend and Cassidy a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters (literary commune), which also included members of the rock band the Grateful Dead.

3.10. Heritage

· Ginsberg worked with the punk band The Clash. Burroughs worked with the Sonic Youth bands. (“The Beats influenced us very much in the sense of the joy of manipulating language,” says Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. “And also in using our own lives as subject matter and in our deprived an illusionary view of modern life."), "R.E.M.", Kurt Cobain (Kurt Cobain released a CD with William Burroughs, whom punks also worshiped (Patti Smith put him "up there, next to the Pope")), "Ministry" , and others.

· U2's Bono cites Burroughs as a major inspiration; Burroughs makes a brief appearance in one of the U2 videos.

· The term heavy metal first appears in Burroughs' 1964 novel Supernova Express.

3.11. Post-existence and Conclusions

The beatniks struck a too-high “chord,” their protesting voices were so loud, so hysterical that they eventually broke into falsetto. They were able to offer their generation only one way to fight the society from which they expelled themselves - leaving it, withdrawing into themselves, into “other spheres”, into Zen Buddhism, into “joyful crime” (J. Kerouac), into defiantly deliberate homosexuality and drugs (W. Burroughs, who proclaimed that " best way out this is the Entrance")...

"I like to hear Kerouac's name mentioned as a symbol of travel, as a symbol of living life as it comes," says artist Jack Pearson, whose photographs and bricolages are full of images of road trips and sad motels. -- “Like Kerouac, I think that my art on the wall is just a postcard from life, which is real art.” However, Pearson makes clear, “I don’t really want to sit down and read his books.”

The beatniks triumphed not so much as literature, but as an incendiary metaphor for... something.

The beat is so easy to interpret because it is internal: it is a state of consciousness. He does not evoke any physical objects, and our culture perceives everything visually (we will believe that we truly knew the Beats once Coppola's film is released).

The beatniks themselves, in fact, often sought to be the center of attention. That Burroughs appeared in Nike commercials, that Ginsberg sold his archives (including beard trimmings and a pair of old tennis shoes) to Stanford University for approximately $1 million, or that Kerouac hung out at literary conferences, hungry for recognition, should not surprise us. “Probably all that will remain... is a rash of evaporating anecdotes, and a few serious works that were nevertheless produced,” wrote John Clellon Holmes. - “We paid for the audacity to dub ourselves a “generation”.”

Informals. A whole group of youth movements in the USSR in the 80s and 90s. In general, they were not very diverse. Nevertheless, they have formed their own language of self-expression, street styles, fashion, art, communications, and a self-sufficient music lovers market.

Mods

At the instigation of the first “new dudes” and receiving its starting impetus from the mod movement of the 60s, in the USSR it received a reverse vector of development from Soviet punk to the vintage motifs of the past. At the same time, without losing any of its radicalism, the Soviet “fashion styling” of the period of the avant-garde artistic movements of the 80s became a calling card for many participants in musical and artistic projects, uniting a diverse artistic people who gravitated towards music lovers omnivorous and passed through all the latest innovations in fashion and music. Such characters, disparagingly called “mods” in the art community, participated in most key shows and performances, were carriers of the latest fashionable and cultural information and often shocked the population with parodies of social nomenclature costumes and punk antics.

Fashion. Moscow, 1988

Fashion. Moscow, 1989. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Fashion. Chelyabinsk, early 80s

Hardmodes

The short-term manifestation of this intermediate foreign style of the 70s occurred at the end of the 80s, due to the consolidation of radical informal circles during the resistance to pressure and the influx of a new wave of truly marginal elements, following the popularization of informal movements at the turn of 87-88 (exactly after turning point in street battles with “Lyubers” and Gopniks). It is worth noting that such manifestations in a caricatured ironic form were present in the vastness of our homeland, when radical informals dressed up in proto-Skinhead outfits, cut their heads bald out of spite, and crowded in crowded places. Frightening with his appearance the policemen and ordinary people, who were seriously listening to Soviet propaganda, that all informals were fascist thugs. The hardmods of the late 80s were a sublemation of the punk, rockabilly and militaristic style, and of course, having never heard about what they should be called according to the stylistic classification, they preferred the self-name “streetfighters” and “militarists”.

Hardmodes. Red Square, 1988

Hardmodes. Moscow Zoo, 1988

Psychobills

Psychobilly, being to a greater extent manifested itself in Leningrad at the turn of the 90s, together with the groups Swidlers and Meantreitors, when groups of young people formalized this direction musically, standing out from the rockabilly environment. But even before this, there were individual characters who fell outside the framework of the new subcultural leagues and who preferred polymelormania of the rock and roll variety. In terms of dress code, this tendency was close to punk aesthetics

Psychobills. In the courtyard of a rock club, 1987. Photo by Natalia Vasilyeva

Psychobills. Leningrad, 1989

Psychobills. Muscovites visiting Leningraders, 1988. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Bikers

During clashes with gopniks and “lubers” in the period from 1986 to 1991, special active groups emerged in the rocker and heavy metal environment, which at the turn of the 90s transformed from motto gangs into the first motto clubs. With its own visual attributes modeled on foreign bike clubs, and on heavy motorcycles, modernized by hand or even post-war trophy models. Already by 1990, the groups “Hell Dogs”, “Night Wolves”, “Cossacs Russia” could be distinguished in Moscow. Also present were shorter-term motorcycle associations, such as “MS Davydkovo”. The self-name bikers, as a symbol of the separation of this stage from the rocker past, was first assigned to the group rallied around Alexander the Surgeon, and then spread to the entire moto movement, gradually covering many cities in the post-Soviet space

Bikers. Surgeon, 1989. Photo by Petra Gall

Bikers. Kimirsen, 1990

Bikers. Night wolves on Pushka, 1989. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Bikers. Theme, 1989

Beatniks

A phenomenon no less multifaceted than punk aesthetics, Soviet beatism dates back to the distant 70s. When this term included fashionable decadents visiting hot spots, who have grown their hair below their shoulders and are dressed in leather jackets and "Beatles". This term also included “labukhi” - musicians making music to order in Soviet restaurants, and simply people outside any “leagues”, leading an isolated and immoral, from the point of view of Soviet aesthetics, lifestyle. This trend in the early 80s was aggravated by a careless appearance, defiant behavior and the presence of some distinctive element in clothing. Be it a hat or a scarf or a bright tie.

Beatniks. Bitnichki, Timur Novikov and Oleg Kotelnikov. Photo by Evgeny Kozlov

Beatniks. Parade on the first of April, Leningrad-83

Beatniks. Chelyabinsk, late 70s

Fans

The movement, which originated in the late 70s and consisted of “kuzmichas” (ordinary visitors to stadiums) and the visiting elite who accompanied teams at matches in other cities, by the beginning of the 80s had already acquired its regional leaders, acquired “gangs”, merchandise and turned into football-related communication. Following the quick start of Spartak fans (the most famous center of the party in the early 80s was the Sayany beer bar at the Shchelkovskaya metro station), holding their city actions and parades, “gangs” just as quickly began to appear around other teams

Fans. Moscow, 1988. Photo by Victoria Ivleva

Fans. Moscow-81. Photo by Igor Mukhin

Fans. Reception of a Zenit fan in Dnepropetrovsk-83

Lyubera

A unique direction formed at the intersection of the hobby of bodybuilding and youth supervision programs.
Initially assigned to a local group of people from Lyubertsy, who often traveled to the capital to vacation spots for young people, the name “Luber” already from 1987 was interpolated not only to heterogeneous groups with no connection with each other, but also to larger groups concentrated during this period in the Central Park of Educational Institutions named after Gorky and Arbat. Zhdan, Lytkarinsky, Sovkhoz-Moscow, Podolsk, Karacharovsky, Naberezhnye Chelnovsky, Kazan - this is an incomplete list of the “brotherhood near Moscow”, which tried to control not only the designated territories, but also other hot spots and station squares. Initially encouraged by the authorities, they hoped to place these formations into the fabric of the “people’s squad” ", these groups did not have a common dress code except for their affinity for sportswear, but they also had conflicting interests that were consolidated only within the framework of aggression against fashionistas and "informals."

Lyubera. 1988

Lyubera. Africa and Lubera, 1986. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Lyubera. Lyubera and Podolsk in the Gorky Central Park of Education, 1988

Human society has always been divided into layers, classes, groups according to certain characteristics. In our time, the boundaries of such classifications have certainly become less noticeable than before, and some have completely disappeared.
However social groups who stand out among the general mass by their features, be it ideas, beliefs, political views, appearance, tastes and preferences have always existed and will exist. There are quite a lot of subcultures, but we decided to talk about the three most popular and significant, in our opinion, and let’s start with one of the most striking and remarkable, which gave impetus to many subcultures of our time - the beat generation, or beatniks.

Beat culture originated in the post-war years (1950), when four young writers met at the University of California: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady and William Burroughs. Aimlessly wandering the streets with a bored look, they tried to go beyond traditional literature, rejecting the generally accepted norms of art and American politics and life in general. Later other young people began to join them creative people and simply middle-class youth with similar nonconformist views.

“We're beatniks, man. Beatnik means blissful, it means your heart is beating, it means something. I invented it."
Jack Kerouac.

The beat generation owes its name to Jack Kerouac - one might say, the founder and ideological leader of the beatniks. Then the word “beat” already meant in colloquial language “worn by life”, “tired”, however, having come up with the neologism “beatitude” (from the words beat and attitude, “tired attitude towards life”), Kerouac finally fixed the name of an entire generation: beat- generation. The word “beat” also had another meaning: it was the name of the musical rhythm in jazz. And what could accompany their literary rebellion if not bebop jazz, a symbol of musical rebellion? Then the musical idols of the beatniks were the founders of bebop - the legendary Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, and the icon was Charlie Parker, whose lifestyle was not alien to the beatniks. It was from bebop jazz that such a technique as spontaneity migrated into the work of the beatniks, which became one of Kerouac’s main literary techniques. Jack encouraged writing spontaneously, artlessly and freely, suggesting not even using punctuation marks, and using spaces only to emphasize intonation, to exhale or inhale before a new thought.

In the work of the beatniks, the so-called “psychedelic insight” was considered quite normal; drugs took place in their lives, but were not a fundamental source of inspiration. At that time, there had not yet been a drug boom among artists, but the lives of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker, beloved beatniks, were cut short thanks to drugs.

An interesting fact is that slang, as we know it now, originated in beat culture. For example, the ubiquitous American “cool” and the later rock and roll stamp “live fast die young” appeared precisely then. Outwardly, beatniks were easily recognizable by their black turtlenecks, beard, long hair, black glasses, sandals, and in cartoons they were often depicted with bongos (African drums).

Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” is rightfully considered the “Bible” of beatnikism, incorporating all the ideas of the beat generation, freedom, negation traditional values. The novel was written in three weeks and was actually “on the road”: Kerouac was a wanderer after he was discharged from the Navy due to a suspicion of schizoid personality disorder, which was then the norm among beatniks. Initially, Jack wanted his book to be published in a roll, so that as he unfolded each piece, the reader would feel the same movement that he experienced during his wanderings. Due to the fact that the mass of emotions, thoughts and feelings that befall the writer is difficult for him to adapt for the reader (or perhaps Kerouac simply did not see the point in this), Kerouac’s works are very difficult to read, neither in translation nor in the original . However, the contribution to literature made by the beatniks is invaluable.

“I love crazy people, the kind who madly want to live, madly want to talk, madly want to be saved, who want to have everything at once, who never yawn and never say vulgarities, but are always burning, burning, burning.”
"On the Road" by Jack Kerouac.

The beatniks were quite militant against the American "system", inspired by Marxism and Russian anarchism. On a road paved with drugs, alcohol, non-traditional sexual orientation, rebellion in all possible forms, they came to oblivion, perhaps realizing that The best way to escape the system they opposed—to withdraw into themselves.

I have long wanted to write a big post about what youth subcultures existed in the USSR. In movies Soviet years Subcultural movements are practically not represented at all, although in fact this was a large layer of youth culture. The only exceptions are films from the perestroika period, some of which (for example, “My Name is Harlequin” or “Accident, Daughter of a Cop”) are almost entirely devoted to the life of such subcultures.

So, in this post there is a big and interesting story about what youth subcultures existed in the USSR.

01. Hipsters. Unlike other subcultures that came from Western countries, dudes are more likely to be a unique, exclusively Soviet phenomenon. In addition, they can be called one of the earliest Soviet subcultures. Hipsters began to appear in the 1950s, mainly in major cities, and with their appearance and behavior they tried to copy the American way of life - they dressed in bright and fashionable clothes, listened to blues and jazz, tried to lead a secular lifestyle and protested against the “norms of Soviet morality” and appearance.

Interestingly, the word “hipsters” is not the self-name of adherents of this subculture - this word appeared in the Soviet press as critical of “young people leading a reckless lifestyle.” Hipsters were portrayed as narrow-minded, vain and stupid young people, concerned only with their appearance, which, in general, was far from the truth - most often, “hipsters” came from intelligent families with a high cultural level. The dudes were “bombed” not only in the press, but even in large literary works, including children’s ones - in Nikolai Nosov’s story “Dunno in Sunny city“Several chapters are devoted to the fight against dudes, called “carminatives” in the story.

02. Hippie. The hippie movement originally emerged in the 1960s in the United States, and its heyday was in the 1960s and 70s. Hippies promoted the “maximum freedom” of man, pacifism, life in “communities,” and were also fond of Eastern philosophy, especially Indian and Chinese.

Hippie culture came to the USSR with some delay, closer to the beginning of the 1970s, and had its own distinctive characteristics - it was semi-underground, had its own slang (“vpiska”, “gerla”, “people”, “session”, “oldovy”, "flat") and protested against the classic image of the "Soviet man" with its very definite appearance and constant agreement with the "party line".

Soviet police and the KGB fought hippies, sometimes arresting them for “petty hooliganism,” which could include simply “inappropriate appearance.” Many hippies were forcibly expelled from college and sent to the army, and could also be sent for “forced treatment” to mental hospitals. The hippie subculture successfully survived the USSR and exists to this day.

03. Beatniks. This subculture is often classified as a branch of dudes or hippies, but the beatniks also had their own distinctive characteristics. This subculture was united by a love for the music of The Beatles, and then for its numerous imitators (including in the USSR), called “beat quartets.” Beatniks wore long hair with bangs (“McCartney and Lennon style”), flared trousers, jackets with cut-off collars and ironed lapels, and often played in amateur groups that arose at universities or research institutes.

Beatles recordings on records or reels were of particular value among the beatniks; getting such a recording was considered the greatest success. As in the case of the dudes, the authorities hit the beatniks with “harsh satire,” denouncing them on the radio and at concerts. At the same time, very high-quality original Beatles recordings were often used in satirical programs and concerts, which is why beatniks flocked to listen to such “satire”)

04.Punks. The punk movement originated in Western Europe and the United States around the 1960-70s, as a “countercultural” movement that criticized society, government and politics in general; punks called the anarchists of the early 20th century their “political forerunners” and often wore paraphernalia with an “A” (“anarchy”) badge on their clothes "). Punks were a bit like hippies (protest against the “social system”, unwillingness to serve in the army, etc.), but at the same time they were more aggressive and nihilistic.

The characteristic appearance of punks is reminiscent of rocker and metal (leather jackets with studs, ripped jeans with safety pins, combat boots), but punks also have their own characteristics - in particular, acidic hair color and mohawk hairstyle.

A distinctive feature of Soviet punks was musical omnivorousness - while their “Western colleagues” listened to strictly defined bands, like the Sex Pistols or Crass, then in the USSR punks listened to literally all the music that was considered “forbidden” in the USSR - from The Beatles to Metallica. Second characteristic feature Soviet punks were bullying passersby and constant conflicts with the police.

05. Metalheads. The subculture of “metalheads” appeared already in the late USSR, its representatives listened to certain “metal”-oriented groups - with an abundance of sound of heavy “drenched” guitars, the number of guitarists in such groups could reach 5-6 people. Outwardly, metalheads resembled punks, but they looked neater, did not cut their mohawks (preferring just long hair), and also wore a lot of all sorts of metal things on their clothes - chains, buckles, riveted wristbands, collars with spikes, and so on.

A distinctive feature of the metalheads was their unification based on purely musical tastes; they did not have such a “countercultural” or “antisocial” orientation as, for example, punks or hippies. This is partly why the metal subculture outlived the USSR for a long time, and received even greater development in the mid-to-late 1990s.

06. Rockers. In the eighties, “rockers” were not called fans of rock music, but motorcyclists—those who are now called “bikers.” Rockers often looked like metalheads (they wore leather biker jackets and studded wristbands), but they distinctive feature It was mandatory to have a motorcycle - most often, some kind of Soviet "Java", "Minsk" or "Dnepr".

In the late eighties, rockers fell in love with organizing night motorcycle rides (from 10 to 50 motorcyclists), which the Soviet traffic police fought against with varying degrees of success. Rockers also spent a lot of time in garages, constantly improving and improving something in their motorcycles; “garage tuning” in those years achieved unprecedented popularity among rockers.

07. Lubers. Lubers appeared in the suburbs of Moscow in the late seventies and opposed themselves to punks, metalheads and hippies. Lubers worked out in basement rocking chairs and “prepared themselves for military service,” and also periodically started fights with representatives of all of the above subcultures. The main cause of the conflict was, as a rule, the “inappropriate” appearance of the opponent, standing out from the crowd. So, a punk could be beaten for a mohawk, a metalhead for a leather jacket, a hippie for long hair and “baubles” on his arms, and so on.

As a rule, the Luber community included people from working families, and the name “Luber” itself took root around 1986, when articles about Lubers began to appear in the press. According to some reports, the Lubers were controlled by the Soviet police, who, with the help of the Lubers, tried to intimidate hippies, punks and metalheads so that they would not go out into the streets in “inappropriate form.” Other subcultures began to resist the Lubers, the metalheads especially distinguished themselves in this - by 1987 they were already giving an organized rebuff to the Lubers, and often themselves gathered in groups in order to “go and break in the Lubers.”

With the collapse of the USSR, the Luber movement gradually faded away, and some of this movement joined criminal groups.

This is the story I came up with about Soviet subcultures.

Do you remember any incidents from the life of Soviet punks, rockers, hippies or lubers?

Tell me, it’s interesting)

Sometimes in a conversation between people you can hear a word like "beatnik". Perhaps someone will not understand its meaning. In fact, beatniks are a term that was coined to refer to members of a particular culture. This word comes from the name of the Beat Generation, which appeared in the 1940s. The term was first proposed in 1958; it meant a certain social stratum of youth of the 20th century, which was characterized by an antisocial behavior and rejection of traditional cultural values people.

How did this term come about?

It's no secret that the beat generation in English translated as "broken generation". For the first time such a definition was mentioned. He is considered one of the main figures in this direction. According to his theory, people replaced the previous one, which he called “disappeared.” You might think that the term “beatnik” itself was coined by Kerouac, but this is not entirely true. This word appeared a little later, in 1958. It is interesting that when this word was formed, the suffix “-nik” was borrowed from the Russian language. The first part of the word, that is, beat, in the slang of jazz musicians of that time had the meaning of “poverty” and “despair”. However, Jack Kerouac himself never recognized this term and considered it not very suitable.

The meaning of the word "beatnik"

According to the original definition of the term, beatniks are young men with beards, wearing sandals, and can often be seen hanging around the city, sitting in coffee shops. They were mainly characterized as parasites and fans of jazz music. The term often had a negative connotation, had a slightly offensive connotation, and was considered ridicule in some sense. Thus, we can say that beatniks are a subculture that appeared in the middle of the 20th century and became widespread.

According to other sources, this term did not have exact value and originally served to designate many people who were in some way associated with the artistic environment of New York. After some time, towards the end of the 1950s, this term began to denote young people who did not have much interest in - that is, a successful career, house, car and other material objects.

Typical hipster look

As mentioned above, beatniks are more of a way of life, and not even a style. This way of life implied a unique type of clothing. Basically, the beatniks dressed very fancy, they were immediately noticeable in a large mass of people. Often, representatives of this movement were confused with students of art academies, who were also fans of jazz music.

The main item of clothing for a beatnik was a black turtleneck sweater or black turtleneck. Berets were also popular, and sometimes beatniks wore white T-shirts, always without drawings or inscriptions. Often representatives of this movement carried 2 drums (bongos) with them. Dark glasses are another attribute of the bit direction; they had to be impenetrable. There was no specific hairstyle; they mostly wore long, shoulder-length hair, most often straight. The most popular shoes among beatniks are black leather boots in various variations.

If we talk about women's clothing, girls mostly wore black tights, tights and sweaters. Capris and long skirts, again in black, were also popular.

The most famous representatives of this direction

Of course, there were a lot of representatives of this trend. However, certain individuals are considered the main ones. It should be noted that beatnik poetry occupies a central place in their culture. Therefore, it is not surprising that the people who stood at the origins of the beat movement were mainly writers and poets. So, these are 3 people: Lucien Carr, and Jack Kerouac. After some time, this list was replenished with another name - William Burroughs. It may seem like he's not playing like that. important role, however, its significance in the development of beat culture is great. As you know, beatniks are not just clothes or appearance, but also a direction of thought, their own culture and poetry. Let's figure it out further.

"Anthology of Beat Poetry": what is it?

Behind for a long time Since its existence, beatnik culture has given rise to many literary works, both in prose and poetry. Many representatives of the beat movement have written about this lifestyle. Therefore, in 2004, a book was released, which became the first collection of beatnik poetry, as well as some theoretical materials about the beat direction. "Anthology of Beatniks" is considered the largest publication that has been published since the existence of this lifestyle in Russian. It is interesting that many of the poems published in this book were translated into Russian for the first time.

The book also contains some biographical sketches about famous beat writers. a huge collection of unique materials, you can truly immerse yourself in the culture of the beatniks and understand what thoughts and ideas were relevant to them, as well as get an insight into the meaning of the movement itself.