Informals. A whole group of youth movements in the USSR in the 80-90s. In general, they were not very diverse. Nevertheless, they have formed their own language of expression, street styles, fashion, art, communications, and a self-sufficient music market.

Fashion

With the filing of the first "new dudes" and having received its starting impetus from the mod movement of the 60s, the USSR received a reverse vector of development from Soviet punk to vintage motifs of the past. At the same time, without losing radicalism at all, the Soviet “mod styling” of the period of avant-garde artistic movements of the 80s became a hallmark for many participants in musical and artistic projects, uniting diverse artistic people who gravitated towards music omnivorousness and let through all the latest innovations from fashion and music. Such characters, disparagingly referred to in the art environment as “mods”, participated in most key shows and performances, were carriers of the latest fashionable and near-cultural information, and often shocked the population with costumes and punk antics parodying socio-menklotura costumes.

Fashion. Moscow, 1988

Fashion. Moscow, 1989. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Fashion. Chelyabinsk, early 80s

hardmodes

A short-term manifestation of this intermediate foreign style of the 70s occurred at the end of the 80s, in connection with the rallying of radical informal circles during the opposition to pressure and the influx of a new wave of truly marginal elements, following the popularization of informal movements at the turn of 87-88 (accurately after a turning point in street battles with "lubers" and gopniks). It is worth noting that such manifestations in a caricatured ironic form were present in the vastness of our homeland, when radical informals dressed up in protoskinhead outfits, cut their heads bald out of harm, and crowded in crowded places. Frightening with their appearance the policemen and the townsfolk, who in all seriousness listened to Soviet propaganda, that de all informals are fascist thugs. The hardmodes of the late 80s were a sublimation of the punk, rockabilly and militaristic style, and of course, having never heard about how they should be called according to the stylistic classification, they preferred the self-name "streetfighters" and "militarists".

Hardmodes. Red Square, 1988

Hardmodes. Moscow Zoo, 1988

psychobills

Psychobilly, being to a greater extent manifested itself in Leningrad at the turn of the 90s, together with the Swidlers and Meantreitors groups, when groups of young people formalized this direction musically, standing out from the rockabilly environment. But even before that, there were individual characters who fell outside the framework of the new subcultural leagues and preferred rock and roll polymelormania. In terms of dress code, this attraction was close to punk aesthetics.

Psychobills. In the courtyard of a rock club, 1987. Photo by Natalia Vasilyeva

Psychobills. Leningrad, 1989

Psychobills. Muscovites visiting Leningraders, 1988. Photo by Evgeny Volkov

Bikers

During the clashes with gopniks and "lubers" in the period from 1986 to 1991, special active groups stood out in the rocker and heavy metal environment, which at the turn of the 90s were transformed from motto gangs into the first motto clubs. With its visual paraphernalia, modeled on foreign bike clubs, and on heavy motorcycles, modernized by hand or even post-war trophy samples. Already by the 90th year in Moscow it was possible to distinguish the groups "Hell Dogs", "Night wolves", "Сossacs Russia". There were also less long-term motorcycle associations, such as "ms Davydkovo". The self-name bikers, as a symbol of the separation of this stage from the rocker past, was first assigned to the group rallied around Alexander Surgeon, and then spread to the entire motto movement, gradually covering many cities of the post-Soviet space

Bikers. Surgeon, 1989. Photo by Petra Gall

Bikers. Kimirsen, 1990

Bikers. Night Wolves on Pushka, 1989. Photo by Sergey Borisov

Bikers. Theme, 1989

Beatniks

A phenomenon no less multifaceted than the aesthetics of punk, Soviet beatnik originates from the distant 70s. When fashionable decadents visiting haunts, growing their hair below their shoulders and dressed in leather jackets and “beatlovki” fell under this term. This term also included “labukhs” - musicians playing music to order in Soviet restaurants, and simply people outside some kind of “leagues”, leading an isolated and immoral, from the point of view of Soviet aesthetics, lifestyle. This trend by the early 80s was aggravated by a casual appearance, defiant behavior and the presence of some kind of distinctive element in clothing. Be it a hat or a scarf or a bright tie.

Beatniks. Bitnichki, Timur Novikov and Oleg Kotelnikov. Photo by Evgeny Kozlov

Beatniks. Parade on the first of April, Leningrad-83

Beatniks. Chelyabinsk, late 70s

fans

The movement, which originated in the late 70s and consisted of "kuzmichi" (simple stadium visitors) and traveling elite who accompanied teams to matches in other cities, by the beginning of the 80s had found its own regional leaders, acquired "gangs", merchandise and turned into football-related communication. Following the quick start of Spartak fans (the most famous center of the party in the early 80s was the "Sayan" beer bar at the Schelkovskaya metro station), who held their city actions and parades, "gangs" around other teams also quickly began to appear

Fans. Moscow, 1988. Photo by Victoria Ivleva

Fans. Moscow-81. Photo by Igor Mukhin

Fans. Acceptance of a Zenith fan in Dnepropetrovsk-83

Lubera

A peculiar direction formed at the junction of the bodybuilding hobby and the youth supervision program.
Initially assigned to a local group of people from Lyubertsy, who often stay in the capital in places of recreation for young people, the name "Lyubera" has been interpolated since the year 87 not only to heterogeneous groups that do not have connections with each other, but also to larger groups that concentrated during this period in the TsPKO named after Gorky and Arbat. Zhdan, Lytkarinsky, state farm Moscow, Podolsky, Karacharovsky, Naberezhnye Chelnovskaya, Kazan - this is an incomplete list of the "brotherhood near Moscow" that tried to control not only the designated territories, but also other hot places and railway station squares. Initially encouraged by the authorities who hoped to place these formations in the canvas of the "people's squad" ", these groups did not have a common dress code except for sportswear, but they also had conflicting interests consolidated only as part of aggression against fashionistas and "informals".

Luber. 1988

Luber. Africa and Lubera, 1986 Photo by Sergey Borisov

Luber. Lubera and Podolsky in Gorky Central Park of Culture, 1988

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of William Burroughs. He was one of the main "icons" of the beatnik generation, the generation that "let go of the stirrups" of this world, standing up for absolute freedom and not looking at what price to pay for it.

Lucien Carr

Lucien Carr (1925-2005) was definitely a beatnik. He is even called the founding father of this culture. But Carr never wrote beatnik manifestos, and he was not a writer either. His great service to the "broken generation" is that it was he who introduced and brought together these three: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.

The name of Lucien Carr has been on the lips of recent times. In 2008, the media announced the release of a previously unpublished book, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Pools, co-written by Kerouac and Burroughs, as well as a new tape about the beat generation called Kill Your Darlings. Both of these stories are about sexually motivated murder, what Lucien Carr did in his youth and which he tried in every possible way to forget, to exclude from his life.For the sake of this, he said goodbye to the counterculture and his beatnik friends, and lived a completely different life.

Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

The American writer Jack Kerouac (1922-1969) was already called the "King of the Beats" during his lifetime. The self-awareness of this man completely coincided with similar feelings of a whole generation. By expressing all these vibrations through text, he catalyzed the reaction of society. A reference book for all contemporaries was his novel "On the Road". Kerouac created it in 3 weeks. He learned and used the method of spontaneous prose, a kind of mantra about everything, in the style and form of which one can feel the eternal rhythm, piercing jazz and meditative restraint. Jack Kerouac's strongest connection with his specific time, which was the 40-50s of the XX century, allowed him to write the beat generation, its hero, its reality, its dreams and all the paraphernalia, as no one else could.

“It is impossible to live in this world, but there is nowhere else…”

Irwin Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) is the most famous beat poet and author of another key work of this era - the poem "Scream". This poem is a true manifesto of beat culture, declaring new values and new liberalism to American art. The use of mind-expanding drugs has become an artistic norm, an innovative way to create. It was such works as Kerouac's "Scream" and "On the Road" that formed a solid basis for the development of postmodern literature in the future.

"I saw the best minds of my generation: destroyed by madness, dying of hunger, hysterically naked".

William Burroughs

Among the great beatniks today, the birthday boy is William Burroughs (1914-1997), and today he would have turned 100 years old. Burroughs, an astoundingly talented, controversial, and perhaps the most understood writer of his generation. His fans are a huge army of non-conformists around the world. His work is the most extensive in comparison with other beatniks: about 20 novels and several collections of small prose. Burroughs caught the wave before he even became a writer. He was the embodiment of everything that the counterculture carried, and most of all - the opponent of all Control (police, censorship, personal control). In 1959, his debut novel Naked Lunch was published, created using cut up technology (“cutting shots”), and immediately took its place in the right niche. It is worth reading to understand what the beatniks wanted to say. It's just worth reading.

Burroughs' contribution to world literature is enormous. Consider, for example, that Naked Lunch is considered one of the first and postmodern works, and his other novel, Nova Express, laid the foundation for the cyberpunk literary style.

"Nothing is true everything is permitted"

Bob Kaufman

Bob Kaufman (1925-1986) was an American beat poet, surrealist, and actor. Glory attributed to him various titles: a shaman, a saint, and a prophet of the Caribbean, and in France, where Kaufman's poetry was and remains very popular, he was called "black American Rimbaud." Kaufman is an original poet: his poetry drew inspiration from jazz, he almost never wrote down his poems, preferring performance to other forms of expression. This choice allowed him to become the main promoter of beat culture in Europe.

"Believe in the measured-swinging sounds of jazz,
That tear the night to shreds
And keep pouring again
In a leisurely calm rhythm,
Not in those freaks out of control
Those who created only the Bomb"

Michael McClure

Michael McClure is one of the few living Beats. Talented writer, poet, screenwriter, film director, actor, songwriter. McClure literally gave the world Jim Morrison, the legendary vocalist of The Doors. He was a good friend of Morisson and actively contributed to his promotion as a poet and performer. Peru Michael McClure owns a large number of diverse works, including theoretical and critical articles about beat culture. McClure's works such as Peyol's Poem undoubtedly became a solid basis for the emergence of the literature of "spiritual séances" and the like, among which, undoubtedly, the books of Carlos Castaneda.

"We went beyond the point of no return and we were ready for it, to the point of no return ... We wanted to hear the voice, and we wanted to have a vision"

Peter Orlovsky

Another member of the beat generation, Peter Orlowski (1933-2010) was a poet, musician and teacher. His father was a Russian emigrant, a White Guard. Orlovsky was a strong poet, but he is known mainly for being the lover of the famous Allen Ginsburg for 30 years. Peter Orlowski was a fierce anti-nuclear activist. Numerous actions organized by him have significantly contributed to the strengthening of peace.

"I met Kafka, but he jumped over the house
and disappeared.
My body turned to sugar, dissolved in tea
and I understood the meaning of life

Counterculture

Counterculture - in a broad sense - a type of subculture that rejects the values and norms of the dominant culture in a given society and defends its own alternative culture. Counterculture refers to a subculture that is not only different from the dominant culture, but opposes, is in conflict with the dominant values.

The emergence of a counterculture is, in fact, a quite common and widespread phenomenon. The dominant culture, which is opposed by the counterculture, organizes only part of the symbolic space of a given society. It is not able to cover all the diversity of phenomena.

It should be noted that in modern cultural studies and sociology the concept of counterculture is used in two senses: in fact, to refer to socio-cultural attitudes that oppose the fundamental principles that prevail in a particular culture, and secondly, it is identified with the Western youth subculture of the 50s - 70s, which reflected a critical attitude towards modern culture and its rejection as "the culture of the fathers". The concept of "counterculture" appeared in Western literature in 1960, reflecting the liberal assessment of the early hippies and beatniks. The word belongs to the American sociologist Theodore Rozzak.

Beatniks

3.1. The state of the world at the time of the birth of the counterculture

The war was well-executed even before the US joined the conflict. As the US prepared to fight, Roosevelt had an idea of what the post-war world should be like. On January 6, 1941, he delivered a speech to members of Congress that went down in American history as a speech about the "four freedoms": freedom of speech and expression, the freedom of each person to worship God in the way that he chooses, freedom from want, freedom from fear (“which, translated into a language that everyone can understand, means such a thorough reduction in armaments throughout the world that no state is able to commit an act of physical aggression against any of its neighbors”).

As a counterpoint to those idealistic military goals, most Americans fought for the concept of the good life they remembered at home. War correspondent John Hersey once asked a young sailor what he was fighting for. gave for a piece of blueberry pie!

America decides to test its new weapon, the atomic bomb.

The first bomb, a uranium weapon called "Little Boy", was dropped on Hiroshima 1945 on August 6 (killing 70,000 people instantly and injuring 70,000). Three days later, 2 "Fat Man" plutonium bombs fell on Nagasaki (killing 40,000 and injuring 60,000) .

Seeds of the Cold War, Truman Doctrine, founding of NATO in 1949, increased government power, attempts to promote social reform, discrimination against "colored" (whites only shops, etc.), discrimination against Hispanics, women's struggle for gender equality. ...this is how the world looked at that moment in time.

In such conditions, the conception of the beatnicheswa, the “broken generation”, rejecting the traditional morality and generally accepted social values of the puritanical and conservative society, took place.

3.2. Bit's Conception

John Ciardi, in his famous article, "An Epitaph to the Broken," in explaining the massive success of the beatniks, wrote that "youth have every reason to rebel against our American complacency. Every day to get up at half past six, check in with the timekeeper at eight, return home at five and watch TV bought on an installment plan - such a lifestyle can hardly seduce a young man. .

The beatniks glorified spontaneity, Zen, marijuana, peyote, gin and coffee, wild road trips; life of the lower classes, ruthless honesty in the transformation of private feelings into public ..

"The world needs to be filled with backpackers who refuse to give in to the general demand for product consumption that people have to work for the privilege of consuming all this junk that they really don't need at all ... they are prisoners of the sweatshop, production, consumption , work, production, consumption, I have a grandiose vision of a backpack revolution, thousands and even millions of young Americans wander around the world with backpacks on their backs, go to the mountains to pray, make children laugh and make old people happy, make young girls happy, and old ones still happy , they are all Zen Fools, go and compose verses that arise in their heads just like that, for no reason; by being kind, doing strange things, they make everyone, all living beings, see eternal freedom ... "- Jack Kerouac .

Beatism took shape as a rather aggressive ideological group, addicted to Zen Buddhism, practicing the art of meditation, experimenting with psychedelics, passionately creating and (most importantly) thinking. If we add to this the protest (active protest) against American foreign policy, American "public opinion" and "public morality", as well as against the holy of holies - the American way of life, then we can understand why beatism is a protest of intellectuals.

3.3. Name

"beat", in original street usage: "exhausted", "at the bottom of the world", "searching", "sleepless", "naive", "astute", "rejected by society", "on its own", "witty", "prompt".

Jack Kerouac used the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948, generalizing his social circle, to characterize the underground, non-conformist youth then gathering in New York; the name was born in a conversation with novelist John Clellon Holmes (published an early Beat novel called "Go" in 1952, along with a New York Times Magazine manifesto: "This is the beat generation"). The adjective "beat" was introduced to the group by Herbert Hunk, although Kerouac expanded on the meaning of the term. Other definitions discussed by Holmes and Kerouac were "found" and "furtive" (hidden, secret; inevitable).

The term "beatnik" was coined by Herb Kahn in the San Francisco Chronicle on April 2, 1958, probably as a play on the name of the Russian satellite Sputnik. Kahn's definition of the word "beatnik" suggested that the beatniks were "far from the mainstream of society" and "possibly pro-communists."

This may have been Kahn's intention to portray the "Beat Generation" as anti-Americans. Objecting to Kahn's term, Allen Ginsberg wrote in The New York Times to decry "the dirty word beatnik," commenting, "If beatniks and unbeaten poets flood this country, they will not be created by Kerouac, but by the mass communications industry, which keep brainwashing people."

The new term Kana caught on and became a popular label associated with the new stereotype of men with goatees and berets playing bongos while women in black leggings dance.

3.4. Story

The beatnik movement went through several stages: the primary origin (40s), development (late 40s - early 50s), formation (late 50s), heyday (at the turn of the 50s - 60s), and also the so-called "post-existence" (60s).

The beatniks were at first a literary group - it was a company of young writers and poets who did not accept the aesthetic principles of "official" art. The first Beat Generation writers met in New York: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, (1948) and later (1950) Gregory Corso.

The central figures (with the exception of Burroughs) came together in San Francisco in the mid-1950s, where they met and became friends with writers associated with the San Francisco Renaissance such as: Kenneth Rexcourt, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Philip Wallen, Harold North, Lew Welch, and Kirby Doyle. There they met many other poets who migrated to San Francisco because the city had a reputation as a new center of creativity.

In 1953, the aspiring poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti began publishing a small magazine called "City Lights" ("City Lights", an allusion to the famous Chaplin film), and two years later, the eponymous bookstore was opened at Columbus, the main street of San Francisco. , where the first beatnik books began to be sold, the most famous of which are a collection of prose fragments, essays, short stories and meditations by Jack Kerouac "On the Road" (1957) and Allen Ginsberg's poem "Scream" (1955).

3.5. drugs

The classic members of the Beat Generation--as Allen Ginsberg said, "the freethinking circle"--used a variety of different drugs.

In addition to the alcohol common in American life, they were also interested in marijuana, benzedrine and, in some cases, opiates such as morphine. Over time, many of them began using psychedelic drugs such as mescaline, yage (also known as Ayahuasca), and LSD.

Most of this use can rightly be called "experimental", often they were generally unfamiliar with the effects of these drugs, there were also intellectual aspects of their interest in drugs and a simple pursuit of hedonistic intoxication.

3.6. Homosexuality

Among other qualities that sharply distinguished the beatniks from the urban bourgeoisie and even among the creative and university intelligentsia that seemed close to them, was their open sexuality, and not so much heterosexuality as homosexuality, which was actually taboo in the USA in those years. Homosexuality was outside the law, in any case, despite many reforms in Western society, it was considered not only as a sin, but also as a crime.

3.7. Music

Jazz and blues for beatniks quickly became the main cultural accompaniment - one of the beatnik ideologues John Arthur Maynard spoke of jazz in such terms as "new testament" and "revelation". It was most often about bop, which appeared shortly before the beatniks themselves and made its way onto the stage through whole tubs of critical slops that poured on him from all sides: one of the critics, Winthorpe Sargent, for example, wrote that if a black man with childhood to bring up on good music like Beethoven, then he will give up his barbaric pipes and start listening to academic works. So, bop made the performer almost a sacred figure and gave beatniks such concepts as loneliness in the crowd and spontaneity.

3.8. Literature

The beatniks gravitated towards plotlessness, free verse, metaphorical language, shocking vocabulary, impressionistic and naturalistic descriptions. The beat was built on borrowed rhythms, long florid phrases without a breath break.

The beats followed their own feverish urges. Kerouac wrote the now-famous words in On the Road: "The only people to me are mad, mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved... who want everything at once, who never yawn and never speak vulgarity, but are always on fire." , burn, burn, like fabulous Roman candles exploding like spiders among the stars. The novel itself was written in three weeks in a non-stop caffeine-benzedrine frenzy on a 147-meter roll of paper without a single punctuation mark.

“The first thought is the best,” was Ginsberg's rule.

Burroughs actively uses the cut-up method, which the writer learns about from his friend, poet and artist, Brion Gysin. This writing technique was first proposed by Dadaists in the 20s, but Burroughs somewhat transforms it. The essence of the writer's method is simple. In all his trips, Burroughs does not part with a notebook, lined with three columns. In the first, he writes down various facts about what is happening around, fragments of phrases and dialogues he heard; in the second - personal impressions, thoughts, memories; finally, the third contains quotations from the books currently being read. Actually from these columns the future book is mounted. Only, unlike the Dadaists, Burroughs takes a very meticulous approach to arranging various pieces and subsequent editing of the text. Finally, a quote from Burroughs himself:

“A man reads a newspaper, and his eyes skim over the column in a reasonable Aristotelian manner, thought by thought, phrase by phrase. But subconsciously, he also reads the columns located on the sides, and is also aware of the presence of a companion sitting next to him. Here's a cut for you."

“Twentieth-century poetry, like all arts and sciences, has shifted its focus to research-experimentation with the very material of which it is composed. For every man understands deep within himself that all his visions and all his truths are ultimately devoid of content. ..the next step should be to study...the driving force of visions, what lies at the source of truth, and therefore the words themselves...and therefore, use a radical means - the complete elimination of content. — Allen Ginsberg, Indian Diaries.

“There is no reason why any line should start from the left margin of the page. Stupid habit: as if all thoughts in the brain line up in ranks, like recruits drafted into the army. Let's start a new thought at the edge and organically follow its development, as with all the husks fall off of it, revealing its form when one association is connected to another, with jumping gaps indicating connections and gaps between thing-thoughts, broken syntax to indicate hesitation and gaps in thoughts - GRAPHICALLY showing the movement of the mind ... This is simpler than the despotic form of the sonnet, because a person never thinks in terms of the dialectically frozen forms of the quatrain or the synthetic forms of the sonnet: but our thinking works using blocks of sensations and images. — Allen Ginsberg, The Indian Diaries.

3.9. Buddhism is the religion of Bita

Buddhism, an ancient and highly philosophical Asian tradition, was the religion of Bita. He began to influence the lives of major New York Beat writers in the mid-1950s, when Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg began to take an interest in him. Kerouac and Ginsberg began their search by reading books in libraries, but when they migrated to California, they began to bring Buddhism to life (mostly Zen), inspired by Gary Snyder (the beatnik most associated with Buddhism) and Kenneth Rexcourt.

Buddhism will change the life of anyone who begins to understand it, and all the works that Kerouac wrote after the mid-fifties, especially The Dharma Bums and Big Sur, can be interpreted as Buddhist parables. Ginsberg's works were no less influenced by Buddhist thought.

3.10. Heritage

Ginsberg characterized some of the significant effects of the creative beat movement in the following terms:

· Spiritual liberation, sexual "revolution" or "liberation", that is, gay liberation, somewhat catalyzing women's liberation, black liberation, Gray Panther activism.

Liberation of the word from censorship.

· Demystification and/or decriminalization of hashish and other drugs.

· The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form, as evidenced by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and other popular musicians inspired in the late fifties and sixties by Beat poets and writers.

· The spread of environmental consciousness, emphasized early on by Gary Snyder and Michael McClure, the concept of a "Fresh Planet."

· Opposition to a military-industrial machine civilization, as emphasized in the works of Burroughs, Hunk, Ginsberg and Kerouac.

· Attention to what Kerouac called (after Spangler) a "second religiosity" developing within an advanced civilization.

· A return to a high appreciation of individuality in defiance of state uniformity.

· Respect for the land and local peoples and creatures, as proclaimed by Kerouac in his "On the Road" slogan: "The land is an Indian thing."

Cinema.

Robert Altman's seeming chaotic spontaneity owes a lot to Beat, as do Jim Jarmusch's black-and-white meditations and Richard Linklater's slick, unaffected film The Quirk. And every road movie, from the bright and graphic (Thelma and Louise, Something Wild) to the inert (California), slavishly follows On the Road's picaresque.

"Burrows is one of the bricks of my writing," says writer/director Gus Van Sant. -- "When I stripped the three finished scripts and put them together on my computer to make My Own Private Idaho, is exactly what he would have done. It's some kind of magic: it's like throwing chapters into an urn, and then randomly pulling them out one by one. This method allows the universe to dictate to you, not to your own thinking mind."

Literature.

In the literature, oddly enough, it is difficult to find Beat's followers. The Whitney Museum defines, for example, Paul Beatty as "a young poet influenced by beat culture." Beatty himself states: "The movement did not affect me." The poet Sparrow is equally cautious. “I worked to rebel,” he says. “I'm interested in clarity and clarity, not their delusional style. But all these editors tell me I'm too beat. Maybe they are right; then I'm probably a third-generation beatnik. It's a terrible lot." Modern poets, argues Ron Colm (UN Unbearable) , need to "cleanse the overly slobbery psychic space of the Beatniks, kill daddy just a little bit" - as the Beatniks themselves did, waving literary modernism to jazz.

The Beat was a major influence on Rock 'n' Roll, including major figures such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison. The image of the rebellious rock star is in many ways similar to the image of the Beat. Here are a few examples of their involvement with Rock and Roll and other forms of pop culture:

· One of the reasons the Beatles used the "a" in their name is that John Lennon was a Kerouac fan.

· Bob Dylan admits that he owes a lot to Kerouac and Ginsberg, both in his hallucinatory language and in his unwillingness to repeat takes when recording.

· Jim Morrison cites Kerouac as his most important inspiration. He also studied poetry with Ferrengetti. (Keyboardist Ray Manzarek says The Doors would never have formed if it weren't for Kerouac.

· Ginsberg was a friend and Cassidy was a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters (literary commune), which also included members of the rock band the Grateful Dead.

3.10. Heritage

Ginsberg worked with the punk band The Clash. Burroughs has worked with Sonic Youth bands ("The Beats have influenced us very much in terms of the joy of manipulating language," says Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo. illusions view of modern life."), "R.E.M.", Kurt Cobain (Kurt Cobain released a CD with William Burroughs, who was also worshiped by punks (Patti Smith put him "upstairs, next to the Pope")), "Ministry" , and others.

· U2's Bono cites Burroughs as the main inspiration, Burroughs briefly appeared in one of the U2 videos.

The term heavy metal first appears in Burroughs' 1964 novel The Supernova Express.

3.11. Post-existence and Conclusions

The beatniks took too high a "chord", their protesting voices were so loud, so hysterical, that in the end they fell into falsetto. They were able to offer their generation only one way to deal with the society from which they themselves had expelled - leaving it, withdrawing into themselves, into "other spheres", into Zen Buddhism, into "joyful crime" (J. Kerouac), into defiantly deliberate homosexuality and drugs (W. Burroughs, who proclaimed that "the best way out is the entrance") ...

“I love hearing Kerouac's name referred to as a symbol of travel, a symbol of living life as it is,” says artist Jack Pearson, whose photographs and bricolages are full of images of road trips and sad motels. "Like Kerouac, I think my art on the wall is just a postcard from life, which is real art." However, Pearson clarifies, “it doesn’t make me want to sit down and read his books.”

The beatniks triumphed not so much as literature, but as an incendiary metaphor for... something.

A beat is so easily interpreted because it is inside: it is a state of consciousness. It doesn't conjure up any physical objects, and our culture perceives everything visually (we'll believe we really got to know the Beats as soon as the Coppola movie hits the screens).

The beatniks themselves, in fact, often aspired to be the center of attention. That Burroughs appeared in Nike commercials, that Ginsberg sold his archives (including beard trimmings and a pair of old tennis shoes) to Stanford University for about $1 million, or that Kerouac hung around at literary conferences, greedy for recognition, should not surprise us. "Probably all that remains... is a rash of evaporating anecdotes, and a few serious works that were nevertheless produced," wrote John Clellon Holmes. "We paid the price for the audacity to call ourselves a 'generation'."

Bohemian eccentrics, true geniuses or crazy drug addicts? Unfortunately or fortunately, all these words refer to the mysterious "beatniks". The movement, which arose in America in the late 50s, managed to completely “turn the game”. Writers, poets, and musicians who consider themselves to be part of the “broken generation” have discovered completely new methods in art, amazing in their performance. Reading or listening to their works, we plunge into the streams of consciousness of the authors themselves, involuntarily feel through the lines the slightest mental impulses that Kerouac, Ginsberg or Burroughs experienced. Bold deeds, travel, freedom in every sense - all these are integral parts of their eventful life. And we can find all this in their work. Misunderstood and misunderstood, many of them grew up to be the "decent" Americans they so desperately fought against.

"Beat" - which means "broken" in English, fully characterizes the essence of this movement. The history of the beatniks actually began when they replaced the "lost generation", which included such famous writers as Ernest Hemingway, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Erich Maria Remarque. The beatniks were formed from teenagers who wanted to go against the system and express their protest against the prevailing conformism at that time. Surprisingly, many of them were brought up in fairly wealthy families. But this culture of “imaginary happiness” gave rise in the younger generation to a keen sense of the imperfection of the surrounding world.

The origin of the term "beatniks"

The term "beatniks" appeared randomly. Columnist Gerb Cain wrote in one of his articles about a rather strange youth party and used the word "beat" with the Russian suffix "-nick" from the name of the Soviet Sputnik 1, which was launched in 1957. The author referred to the fact that information about Sputnik was then well known, and the word itself was born in his head. This designation did not carry a positive connotation, rather, it reflected the negative with which the society treated the participants in the movement. Bearded slackers and jazz lovers aroused little sympathy.

Often Jack Kerouac is credited with the creation of the term "beatnik", but he only mentioned it once and was against such a designation. In any case, he gave this word a completely different meaning and declared that a beat is not a brokenness, but a musical rhythm, an impulse.

Ideology

The beatniks did not call on anyone to smash the existing order, they had a different approach. Getting away from reality is the cure. Take a backpack, a notebook, a bottle of something intoxicating with you and go travelling. Look at people, communicate, forget about work and obligations, live for the sake of living. And the beatniks were good at influencing the minds of readers. After the release of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, thousands of young people hitchhiked.

The beatniks were not satisfied with the existing order of life, and they decided to create their own. They rejected established moral values, were not interested in politics and in every possible way ignored the behavioral canons imposed by society.

The beatnik subculture was very rich. The concept of "normality" gradually began to blur the boundaries. More precisely, the beatniks tried to avoid it altogether. This movement moved towards complete detachment from the outside world: they were completely immersed in books, working on their own works, listening to jazz and trying various types of drugs. As a rule, they were all unemployed. They were unpretentious in clothes, they wore old, often worn things, huge sweaters, jeans. The image was complemented by the presence of a beard and glasses. The tradition of gathering in coffee houses or clubs and reading their works there to music acquired a special meaning for the creative people of that era.

Reasons for the appearance

Such behavior was not massive, but the fruits of the beatniks' creativity played a big role in spreading the main protest idea. The main prerequisite for the emergence of beatnikism was the events that were taking place at that time around the world. The constant threat of nuclear explosions, the Vietnam War, color revolutions and persecution of dissidents contributed to the growing unrest among the younger generation. Faith in a happy future gradually faded away. The age of the full introduction of technological progress into human life has come. And the beatniks were the first to realize the full horror of this event, because complete mechanization killed everything human. Of course, all these events contributed to the emergence of protest thoughts.

Philosophy

Beat culture was based on a passion for Zen Buddhism. It is based on the idea of human enlightenment. It cannot be called a religion, rather, it is just a way of life that preaches kindness and humility in order to reach nirvana. Also, the main postulates of Buddhism are focused on a complete deepening into one's own inner world in order to learn to understand the streams of one's own consciousness. All these ideas were interesting and close to the beatniks, so the precepts of Buddhism literally became their manifesto.

It is precisely because of the fascination with Buddhism that the beatniks cannot be judged as an aggressive protest phenomenon. Kerouac himself said that he based his movement on kindness, love, and pleasure. And all the aggressive slogans in the newspapers were a provocation to turn society against them.

A little later, representatives of the beatniks discovered LSD for themselves. Ken Kesey was the first to find a non-drug use for it. After that, every creative person "was obliged" to experiment on himself and expand the boundaries of consciousness. In fact, many works of beatniks were written precisely under the influence of drugs.

Literature

The main motives in the work of the beatniks were:

travel invitations;
Liberation from conventions and frameworks;
Stories about their own lives or the lives of people that writers might admire.

The beatniks argued that in literature, life should be depicted as a continuous stream in order to correspond to reality as much as possible. But in practice, the authors were not so radical. They also covered topics such as...

Wandering;
Voluntary poverty;
Free love.

The beatniks in their works very clearly highlighted their own position of alienation, correlating themselves with the main or secondary characters of the works.

The poetry of the beatniks was filled with anarchist sentiments. These verses had the greatest impact when they were read aloud. This is exactly what beat poets did, arranging live performances in cafes, where they read their poems to jazz accompaniment.

The greatest influences on the works of the beatniks were such authors as Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Carlos Williams, Walt Whitman and Marcel Proust.

Poetry

List of beat poets:

Lawrence Ferlinghetti- founder of City Lights publishing house, which printed all the books of the beatniks. His bookstore in San Francisco became a meeting place for the cultural communities of the era.
Allen Ginsberg- the most significant poet among the beatniks, and his poem "Scream" became a kind of manifesto. He is rightfully considered the ideologue of the beat generation, along with Kerouac.
Peter Orlovsky- the son of a White Guard emigrant, was an activist in the anti-nuclear movement. He came to notoriety due to the fact that for 30 years he was the lover of Allen Ginsberg.
Gary Snyder- Won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection of poems Turtle Island. Later, when Beatism began to gradually disappear, he began to teach at the University of California at Davis.
Gregory Corso- one of the key authors of the beat generation. He did not like to talk about politics, unlike Ginsberg. He was not so charismatic and did not like to draw attention to himself, but his work could tell everything without it.

Beatnik poems (examples of works):

Allen Ginsberg, Howl is the most famous and important work of the beat generation. In 1956, the poem was published for the first time, and this led to a real revolution in the history of modern literature. Until that moment, no one could have thought that such an expressive and freed from all sorts of frameworks and conventions could be published. Read…
Allen Ginsberg, "Song" original love poem. In it, feeling appears as a heavy burden in which every person, in the end, will find peace. The lyrical hero seeks shelter from the world in the depths of the female womb, returning to the body "in which he was born." Read…
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Oracle of Delphi a message to the prophetic Sibyl, where the author asks how people can save themselves from themselves and from the power that "creates a plutocracy out of democracy." He asks the Delphic oracle to give mankind "new myths for life". Read…
Peter Orlowski, "First Poem" a stream of consciousness where dreams, hallucinations and fantasies of the author are mixed together. Objects become alive, the lyrical hero, on the contrary, flies into the muzzle, "to grapple with the bullet." In the finale, he calls out to the archangel Gabriel and falls into ecstasy. Read…
Gregory Corso, Crazy Yak- a poem from the face of a yak, who wonders how his body will be used after death. People make buttons from the bones of his brothers, and shoelaces from tails. He regrets the fate of his sad and tired uncle, who is chased by the priest. Read…

Prose

List of beat writers:

Ken Kesey- the first author who began to experiment with psychedelics in order to open his own subconscious. He was the creator of a commune for beatniks called "Merry Pranksters". Considered one of the main writers of the beat generation, he had a great influence on the culture of this movement.
Jack Kerouac- Deservedly has the title of "king of the beatniks." It was he who introduced the method of jazz improvisation into literature. It inspired many other writers. He spent most of his life traveling or living in a house with his mother. He desperately tried to find his place in life, but the changes that were taking place in his country led him to reject new values.
William Burroughs- many did not believe that this decent-looking person could be a representative of the beatniks. Nevertheless, he was one of the key figures of the movement. He began his literary career at the age of 39. Thanks to Burroughs, the world learned about the cutting technique. He would sit for hours and cut out phrases from newspapers, and then shuffle them and compose ready-made texts. This technique significantly influenced his work.

Beat books (examples of works):

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Was published in 1962. K. Kesey wrote it after he worked as a nurse in one of the hospitals. He often interacted with patients, including during his drug experiments. The sick did not seem "abnormal" to him at all, and he was the first to think about the fact that these people were rejected by society because they did not fit into it. In the plot of his novel, we see the same story. Through the eyes of the Indian Bromden, the life of Patrick McMurphy, who was transferred to a psychiatric hospital from prison, is illuminated. He tries to break the existing order, while ruining himself, but gives freedom to all other patients.
Jack Kerouac, On the Road. This novel was repeatedly rejected by publishers, but in 1951 it was nevertheless published. The book created a sensation and became an American prose bestseller. Kerouac dedicated his story to the journey. The story is told from the perspective of Sal Paradise, a writer who roams America with his friends. His main focus is on Dean Moriarty - his best friend, with whom he makes most of his trips. The image of Dean Moriarty has a prototype: a real-life friend of Kerouac - Neil Cassidy. After his mother's death, Neal moves to Denver with his alcoholic father. From the age of 14, he was repeatedly involved in various petty crimes, and then began to steal, steal cars and use a large amount of drugs. On the Road, the reader can see that Dean's life matches that of Cassidy.
William Burroughs, "Naked Lunch" one of the most scandalous novels of the beat generation. The first major work written using the cut-up method. For a long time it was banned due to the abundant obscene language and homosexual orientation. The novel began to be freely published only after two high-profile lawsuits. Naked Lunch was defended by Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsber, who compared the novel to the works of Marcel Proust and James Joyce. There is virtually no plot in the book. Burroughs created it from excerpts from letters to Ginsberg and the author's previously unpublished prose.

Music

Protest ideas among young people coincided with the musical trends of the 40s. The jazz revolution practically formed a broken generation. After all, jazz is the music of intellectuals, people oriented towards individuality, and therefore it found listeners in the face of young people disappointed in life. Many works of writers appeared precisely thanks to the inspiration received from crazy jazz rhythms. Music and creativity of the beatniks were very closely intertwined with each other, forming a single quintessence - strange, but very attractive to many.

Russian

The most important and legendary Russian beat group, of course, is Kino. Initially, they came to the world of music under the name "Garin and hyperboloids". But then they met the rock underground legend Boris Grebenshchikov, and he advised them to change the name to a more concise one. Viktor Tsoi wanted to name the group briefly, for easy memorization and pronunciation. In the end, the name itself found them. They saw it on a sign on the way to the Technological Institute metro station and decided that it was appropriate.

The band's performance style is very close to post-punk, but Tsoi, who wrote the music himself, identified it with the beat sound. Victor was very interested in the development of musical artists in the West and sought to reach the same level with them.

The main sources of inspiration for "Kino" were such groups as: The Smiths, Duran Duran, The Cure, R.E.M. And his style, of course, was influenced by the musicians of Aquarium, Zoo and Alice.

For Russian people, the songs of the Kino group are very significant. And the figure of the tragically deceased Viktor Tsoi eventually became a cult figure. That is why such a phenomenon as “Kinomaniya” arose, which is still common among young people.

In addition, such performers as Yegor Letov, Alexander Bashlachev and Yanka Diaghileva are associated with this movement.

foreign

Abroad, with beat music, everything was much more complicated. After the Second World War, African Americans had much more freedom and chances for self-realization. This was one of the reasons for the musical revolution, which was led by "black" musicians. Many of them believed that jazz performers do not try to convey the energy of this music in their performances. Things got heated and many of them started to leave the established line-ups and form their own groups.

Main representatives: Charlie Parker, Kenny Clark, Charles Mingus, Kenny Dorham, Bud Powell.

Also, the music of Tom Waits is a vivid reflection of the aesthetics of the broken generation.

Then a completely new sound was born from jazz - rock music appeared. Her progenitors were Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. Then for the first time there was a fusion of the music of "whites" and "blacks", which was a real revolution.

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Beatniks(English) Beatniks; beat - like broken; niks - Russian suffix as "Sputnik", which was then on everyone's lips) youth, which became popular in the 50s-60s. We can say, the first youth, with which all the others "grew up".

Why did the beatniks appear?

The beatnik ideology began to take shape during the war years, when, after the victory over Nazi Germany and its allies, the victorious countries began to actively develop the economy, which contributed to the enrichment of the population and an increase in living standards.

Especially in this regard, the United States differed, where even a way of life arose. "The American dream"- a well-groomed housewife, ruddy-cheeked children, work in a large corporation, a good car, a “full bowl” house, etc. Not everyone liked the consumer culture and showing off their income, and there were young people who began to openly protest against this lifestyle.

There are three figures in the stream of beatniks. These are the writers Jack Kerouac, Alain Ginsberg, William Burroughs, who spread the ideas of freedom and protest against the then society with their works. This idea of rebellion was much more interesting for many young people than the monotonous life of an ordinary American.

What is the ideology of the beatniks?

The ideology of the beatniks is based on protest, reinforced by Marxist ideology, and freedom from social and religious norms. These ideas seemed especially interesting to artistic youth. Poets, artists, musicians began to practice an almost beggarly lifestyle: loitering around shabby cafes, gathering in basements and demonstrating their works to the same as they are, to those who understand, and all this is seasoned with jazz, which they loved so much.

Separating themselves from the society that ridiculed them, they resorted to backpacking through the vast expanses of America, experimenting with alcohol and drugs (and), and homosexuality, which was considered very fashionable in beatniks.

How did the beatniks dress?

A common image of a beatnik is a dark figure in dark, impenetrable glasses with a beret on his head.
A black or horizontally striped turtleneck and a plain white T-shirt were very popular. The girls wore dark leggings, long skirts, leotards, sweaters, capri pants. The guys put on baggy pants and let go "goat beards". The beatniks wore sandals, sneakers, leather boots.
You could often see a beatnik with a bongo as a show of support for African culture.

What kind of music did the beatniks listen to?

The beatniks idolized jazz, with its improvisations, anarchic spirit, not the desire to fix anything, but only to do as they like. They saw it as a manifestation of their ideology.

The beatniks were the first, and the following borrowed a lot from them, such as hippies, hipsters, etc. They had their own slang that we still use, such as "cool" - cool, "cat" - dude, "dig" - get it.
Currently, there is some reconstruction of the beatniks among the "artists".

I hope that this information was useful and interesting for you.

Write comments. Dima. M.D. "Power of the Young" Ukraine.