TOTALITARIAN MUSIC: IDEOLOGICAL TRENDS

Some ideological movement in any country in Europe and the world is divided into many large and small currents. Of course, there is a traditional division into left, right and centrist... The main line of each of these ideological factions is domination among the masses, of course, through their ideology, which must touch the soul and feelings of its followers. Someone (as the Bolsheviks) Prefers literature and art; Someone (and how not to recall in this case the fascists and National Socialists), it is more important to portray one's dominant position in the state through sculpture and architecture; But the most effective method, in our opinion, is music. It is through sounds, and then through sight and touch, that a person grasps this or that idea.

In general, it is known that any totalitarian ideology, and even more so, a state machine, always brings under itself all the links of social life. First, the “occupation” of the information space takes place, through which education and science, agriculture and industry, defence and foreign policy are mastered ... But culture has a special charm: art, music, architecture. It is these three pillars, in the process of crystallization of this or that dominant ideology (Fascism in Italy, National Socialism in Germany, Bolshevism in the USSR), become an immovable foundation of the influence of power on the masses.

One can argue for a long time about the influence of each of these types of culture on the masses, but an incontrovertible fact is that it is music that is best to master the crowd. Let's turn to history... With the occupation in 1922 of the Ukraine by the Bolsheviks, the local population is beginning to set terrible experiments with an attempt to destroy the nation under the root. One of the tragic pages of the Ukrainian history of the 20th century, became a mass execution of kobza players in the early 1930s in the Kharkiv region. The Bolsheviks knew the power of Cossack music, and therefore it was worth destroying everyone who had somehow been involved in it. Subsequently, instead of kobza dumas, Ukrainian foreign lands were flooded with foreign language songs and marches that glorified the ideas of communism and homicide. During the time of the Bolshevik occupation, enemy music prepared fertile soil for reproduction of “pop” and “blatnyak”, whose squeals can not be killed even by a shot from a howitzer.

It's another matter when it comes to the European version of totalitarianism. For example, let's take Italian fascism, because German National Socialism has been studied and analysed along the way and analysed by authoritative and not very experts. Do not repeat their mistakes! During the years 1922-1945 in Italy dominated the regime of Duce, who praised the ancient Roman heritage, and sought to transfer it to modernity through the ideological paradigm of futurism. It was this bunch (it's fascio) of the heroic past and future that gave birth to fascism, and its musical accompaniment was the vain melodies of the ambitious Blackshirt's youth like “Giovinezza”.

And finally we came to the most important thing!.. If you look from a distant Italy on modern Ukraine, of course in terms of music, it turns out that on this bridgehead, Ukrainians lose daily to the enemy. Despite the war, we continue to perform prison motives with the nihilistic abomination of so-called popular music. Of course, there are performers who have been trying to wrest Ukrainian music from the clutches of all sorts of pop music monsters for decades. However, without state support, it will be difficult for them to achieve.

But the lasting fascism, which most Europeans consider dead and outmoded in the late 1940s, was able to survive and transform to the conditions of the modern world. Fascist music also did not lag behind fashion, but gradually turned into the so-called “right scene”. Some of its representatives (musicians and fans) perceive “with a bang” aggressive guitar riffs, heavy basses and a continuous battle of percussion instruments. Others, on the contrary, take on the side of a rather aesthetic and stylish ballad sound, where tradition reigns, respect for national heroes, symbolism and aspiration to heights. The latter can be called new futurism!

The Italian “rights scene” focuses exclusively on the classic fascism of the times of Benito Mussolini, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Gabriele d'Annunzio, and therefore, popularizes the heroes of that period. A vivid proof of this — Milan performer Federico Goglio, and his band “Skoll”. Their music is an attempt to remove from the marginalization the “right scene” without serious political pretentiousness or open aggression. The songs of the band “Skoll” are aimed at a young generation of Italians (for the last romantics!), Where fascism finds its own appropriate colours: red wine, bright sun and iron weapons that unite in the ecstasy of heroic struggle, and the background itself is gradually shifting from the past to the future, urging volunteers to fulfil their duty.

Of course, “Skoll” is not the only group in Italy that popularizes the ideas of Duce. There are also “mastodons of the right scene” like “ZetaZeroAlfa” and “Ultima Frintiera”, which opened to Europe and the world a new face of Italian fascism. In Ukraine, the same groups are the Komu Vnyz, Sokyra Peruna, FarInHate, Nokturnal Mortum, Inferno, Shyrokyi Lan, Polynove Pole, Ot Vinta, Zwyntar, Kroda, Khors and, perhaps, anything else... It is this exhaustive list of modern Ukrainian right-wing groups that every conscious patriot, let alone nationalists, should have.

It's time to compose a powerful competition to the lovers of the occupation tunes and give the last fight to the prison “chansonniers” for the sake of a free future! Only in this way can we overcome the spiritual occupation by turning to our own roots, traditions and music, performed by the “latest romantics” of the Ukrainian new futurism. They should be supported in this difficult business!

Avanti! — Go forward, comrades-in-arms! For a free Ukrainian Unified and Independent State, in the name of its glorious fallen and living heroes!

by Denis KOVALIOV