Music As Escapism in Soviet Authoritarianism: Soviet Latvian Rock Music Listener Experiences.

Latvia, like other Baltic states, was occupied and annexed by the USSR during World War II. The cultural life of Latvia until the restoration of independence in 1990 was under state control. The state's attitude to rock music, its creators and consumers, fluctuated from complete rejection to partial acceptance, maintaining censorship and control mechanisms. In Latvia, where the process of regaining independence is referred to as the Singing Revolution. This national topos has also influenced research on playing music (folk music, popular music), consumption during the last years of Soviet rule.

In the life-stories of many people of that time, listening to foreign music or attending concerts of local musicians is presented as a peculiar form of resistance to the Soviet regime, or a cultural nonconformism. In the report, based on biographical narratives, we will try to answer the questions: what role the consumption of music in people’s past identity stories and what tactics of everyday life is – from escapism (Yurchak 2005) to diversity of thinking (Frisov 2008) – they reveal. Whether and how the concepts formed on the material of Soviet Russia can reveal the realities of the lands subjugated during World War II.

Yurchak, A. (2005) Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. Princeton University Press.

Frisov, B . (2008). Diversity of Thinking in the USSR 1940-1060s. History, theory and practices. European University at St. Petersburg. ( in Russian).