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'Markeeting Imedge': American Popular Culture in the New Russia
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20262 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
7 / 1992 |
3,803 Words |
| Author
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Peter Klebnikov
Paul Klebnikov is an American free-lance writer living in
Moscow. |
It's a drab Sunday in Moscow. A Baptist preacher from Texas, one of dozens in town, has drawn a theaterful of worshipers. His hands outstretched toward a sweating interpreter, he speaks to the onetime Soviets about the devil, then springs behind a synthesizer to pound out a hymn. The response is instant: "This church is so much more life-affirming than our Orthodox church," says Irene, a worker in a bread factory. "It is wonderful to have a faith that is not mysterious and closed." In the next room, Irene's children are in a new world; they have just received Crayola crayons and paper for the first time.
The scene inside the October Revolution Theater is not some lone experiment. Scenes from the American way of life have materialized everywhere in this exhausted country: Along Moscow's drab thoroughfares, businessmen wheel about in American sedans and attend curses on "imedge" and "markeeting." On Red Square, American tourists who hope to feel the mystery and power of the place are besieged instead by capitalists in Reeboks who ply them with Yeltsin dolls.
Postcommunist Russia is a marketplace of ways to be saved, spiritually and financially. "We entertain ourselves in the American way, we dress as Americans to convey sophistication, and when we need a philosophy we look to the American example," says Andrei Gorbatov, Moscow's foremost country music impresario.
Beyond the obscure political intrigues, the former Soviet Union is a changed place, slowly warming to Western civilization. In this educated, endlessly curious part of the world, a mythology now being created around the American way of life is rapidly replacing the old communist dogma. So popular is American culture that people who attempt to criticize it in Parliament or in the press are often forced to retract their statements.
The power of American culture in shaping Russian attitudes cannot be overestimated. The new government in Russia credits American values with helping topple communism. As Plato wrote in the Republic, "When modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state change with them."
But while such American contributions as a code of civil rights and a work ethic are invoked and not far from being adopted in Russia, American popular culture is another matter. It is truly everywhere.
Many Americans question whether we are exporting the best of America to
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