Antropologicheskij forum, 2018, no. 36

“THE RUSSIAN MARSEILLAISE”: A CRUEL ROMANCE OF PYOTR LAVROV

Rustam Fakhretdinov
European University at St Petersburg
6/1 А Gagarinskaya Str., St Petersburg, Russia
rfakhretdinov()eu.spb.ru

Abstract: The article is devoted to reasons for the success of “The Russian Marseillaise” (also known as “The Worker’s Marseillaise”). This song became a hymn of the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 but its form is not typical for the revolutionary tradition. Its text, released by Pyotr Lavrov in 1875 does not come from the French “La Marseillaise”, its tune is different. Songs based on the French prototype had no success in Russia.

The article consists of five chapters. The first chapter covers expansion of this song until the Bolshevik October Revolution of 1917 and the origin of its tune in Robert Schumann’s “Die beiden Grenadiere”. A Marxist’s discrimination of “The Russian Marseillaise” is described in the second chapter. The third chapter elucidates the use of the song in the Russian Civil War. Two final chapters contain an analysis of semantic halo of a meter of “The Russian Marseillaise” and of songs based on “La Marseillaise”.

Pyotr Lavrov relied on the poetic mainstream and not on the revolutionary tradition. He borrowed the meter, structure and vocabulary of romantic ballad, adapted by Nekrasov and Pleshcheyev to the modernity. The Russian cruel romance, which was the most popular song genre at the turn of the 20th century, has the same basis. A resonance with cruel romance ensured success of “The Russian Marseillaise” in a mass revolutionary movement.

Keywords: semantic halo of a meter, revolutionary songs, mass culture, song lore, The Russian Marseillaise.

To cite: Fakhretdinov R., ‘“Russkaya marseleza”: zhestokiy romans Petra Lavrova’ [“The Russian Marseillaise”: A Cruel Romance of Pyotr Lavrov], Antropologicheskij forum, 2018, no. 36, pp. 117–153.

doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2018-14-36-117-153

URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/036/fakhretdinov.pdf