Russian Chanson - Themes

Themes

Lyrically, Chanson songs are usually narrative-driven and are more similar to ballads than pop songs. In fact, this is one of the reasons for naming the genre after the French Chanson (the other being musical similarity).

Chanson themes vary greatly depending on the time in which the songs were written and the places in which they are set. For example, songs set in the Odessa of the 1910s tend to be more cheerful, and are sharply contrasted by the dark, depressing, and violent songs set in the Stalinist era. The interesting thing is that it is common for a Chanson artist, regardless of the time in which he writes his songs, to include songs of all periods in his repertoire, and write songs set in an era different from his own. This often leads to confusion: for example, the bard Alexander Gorodnitsky reports being beaten up once after claiming authorship to one of his songs, which was attributed to a Gulag inmate living over 30 years earlier.

Recurring themes in Chanson songs include:

• Military and patriotic themes. There is a sub-genre of Chanson known as Military chanson.
• White Guard (anticommunist side of the Russian Civil War)
• The execution of a traitor to a criminal gang (the first such song is probably "Murka"). This is usually in the context of the Russian criminals' law, which punishes betrayal very harshly.
• Being sent to, or released from, a labor camp.
• Love in the context of criminal life, the conflict usually being either betrayal or separation due to imprisonment.
• Glorification of the 'merry thief' archetype. These songs are often set in the city of Odessa, where the Jewish Mafia was characterized as being particularly cheerful and colorful. Odessa Couplets often depict the rich and glorious life before Stalin's regime, when Odessa was among the only cities in the young Soviet Union to have free trade. These songs are often narrations of weddings and parties, sometimes based on real events.
• Political satire of different forms.
• Appeal to emotions towards relatives or beloved ones, often leading unlawful or morally controversial lives.

As seen above, chanson is rooted in prison life and criminal culture, but some chanson performers insist that the genre transcends mere criminal songs, and look upon Alexander Vertinsky and Alla Bayanova as their precursors.