History
The earliest criminal songs in this style largely came about due to the crumbling Tsarist regime, but the style has changed significantly after the rise of Stalin, when both innocents and criminals were massacred and sent to labor camps.
Yet another change occurred during the Khrushchev Thaw, when songs from the labor camps started reaching the public, performed by artists like Arkady Severny and Vladimir Vysotsky.
Modern artists affiliated with the Chanson genre often sing not in the traditional style used even by the Khrushchev-era performers, but more professionally, borrowing musical arrangements from pop, rock, and jazz.
Read more about this topic: Russian Chanson
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—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)