Approaches to Counter-Cultural Movements in East-Central Europe, 1960-1990

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
2
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
10 Nov 2009
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Department of Medieval Studies
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Social and Political History in a Comparative Perspective
CEU Instructor(s): 
Balázs Trencsényi
CEU Instructor(s): 
Gábor Klaniczay
Additional information: 
The course intends to place these movements into their respective socio-cultural settings, paying attention to both the local political and artistic contexts and traditions but also the trans-national cultural mediation of styles and ideas. It will tackle questions like the emergence of generational sub-cultures, the relationship of Samizdat/opposition groups and the art sub-cultures, the reconstruction of contemporary aesthetic and sociological debates on counter-culture, or the “ethnic revivals” of the 1970s. In addition to listening to former participants and theorists of these movements, the class is also intended to generate new primary research, especially collecting and comparing materials from the region. The lectures and discussions are supplemented with film screenings. Course goals: Students will be familiarized with a cutting edge topic through a course involving external experts and an individual research-component. They will get an overview of the different approaches dealing with the problem of counter-culture in late-Socialist Eastern Europe and thus have an insight into studying the interplay of culture and politics in the recent history of our region.
Learning Outcomes: 
Students will develop their skills of individual work in a trans-national context, and their capacity of orienting themselves in a multidisciplinary research topic based on various types of sources (oral history, audiovisual media), necessitating new methods of analysis.
Assessment : 
Progress in the course will be evaluated as follows: Term Paper 60% Class Participation 40% The term paper is a ten-page case study on a topic suggested by the student and accepted by the instructor, linked to the themes of the lectures. Class participation means regular attendance, in-class comments and questions related to the weekly lectures and readings.
Full description: 

Course Agenda

1. January 14, East European Countercultures, Rock and Roll and New Wave

Guest:  Jenő Menyhárt (Budapest)

Recommended readings:

  • Timothy W. Ryback, Rock Around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
  • Samizdat. Alternative Culture in Central and Eastern Europe from the 1960s to the 1980s. [Catalogue to the exhibition], ed. Heidrun Hamersky, The Research Centre for East European Studies at the University of Bremen, 2002.
  • Gábor Klaniczay, “L’underground politique, artistique, rock (1970-1980),” Ethnologie française, 36 (2006), 283-297.
  • Amerika kiadó – Para-Kovács Imre: Beszélgetések Menyhárt Jenővel,  Budapest: Glória, 2006.

2. January 21, Theories of Subculture -- Counter-Cultural movements in Western Europe and the USA

  • Ken Gelder and Sarah Thornton (eds), The Subcultures Reader, London – New York: Routledge 1997, 1-27, 149-174, 200-209, 477-493. [savepdf]
  • Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Methuen, 1979, 23-140. [savepdf]
  • Andy Warhol & Pat Hackett,  POPism. The Warhol ’60s, New York-London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980, 142-200. [savepdf]

Recommended readings:

  • Stanley Cohen,  Folk Devils and Moral Panics, London: Paladin, 1973.
  • Stuart Hall –Tony Jefferson eds., Resistance through Rituals. Youth subcultures in post-war Britain,  London – New York, Routledge, 1993.
  • Klaniczay Gábor, Ellenkultúra a hetvenes-nyolcvanas években. Budapest: Noran, 2003
  • Axel Schildt and Detlef Siegfried, Between Marx and Coca-Cola. Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies,  New York: Berghahn Books, 2006.
  • Daniel Wojcik, Punk and Neo-tribal Body Art, Jackson, University Press of Mississippi, 1995.
  • Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1995

3. January 28, Art and Counterculture–Hungary and Eastern Europe

Guest: Tamás St. Auby (Budapest)

  • Éva Forgács, “Does Democracy Grow under Pressure? Strategies of the Hungarian Neo-Avant-Garde Throughout the late 1960s and the 1970s,” Centropa 8 (2008), 36-48. [savepdf]
  • Günter Berghaus, “Happenings in Europe in the '60s: Trends, Events, and Leading Figures,” TDR - The Drama Review. 37 (1993), 157-168.[ savepdf]

 Recommended readings: 

4. February 4, Czechoslovakia I, Ideological views and political standpoints of representatives of Czech Underground culture in the 1970s and 1980s.

 Guest: Martin Machovec (Prague)

 5. February 11, Czechoslovakia II, The Slovak Scene in the 1980s

Guest: Michal Hvorecký (Bratislava)

Readings for the two classes:

  • Sabrina Petra Ramet, “Rock Music in Czechoslovakia,” in: Rocking the State: Rock Music and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, Boulder-San Francisco-Oxford, Westview Press, 1994, 55-72.  [savepdf]
  • Views from the Inside. Czech Underground Literature and Culture (1948-1989), Praha: Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, 2006: 7-33.

Recommended readings:

  • Martin Machovec, “The Types and Functions of Samizdat Publications in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1989,” Poetics Today,  30:1 (2009), 1-26
  • Martin Machovec, “Czech Underground Literature, 1969-1989. A Challenge to Textual Studies,” in Voice, Text, Hypertext: Emerging Practices in Textual Studies. Seattle and London: The University of Washington Press, 2003.
  • Josef Alan, (ed.), Alternativní kultura, Příběh české společnosti 1945 - 1989, Praha 2001.
  • Plastic People of the Universe Texts

6. February 18, Counter-Cultural Movements in Poland

Guest – Lukasz Ronduda (Warsaw) 

  • Alex Kan and Nick Hayes, “Big Beat in Poland,” in: Rocking the State, ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, 41-54. [savepdf]
  • Bronislaw Misztal, “Between the State and Solidarity: One Movement, Two Interpretations - The Orange Alternative Movement in Poland,” The British Journal of Sociology, 43 (1992), 55-78.

7. February 25, Underground music in Bulgaria 

      Guest: Vladimir Trendafilov (Sofia)

  • Stephen Ashley, “The Bulgarian Rock Scene Under Communism (1962-1990),” in: Rocking the State, ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, 141-164. [savepdf]
  • Post-theory, games, and discursive resistance: the Bulgarian case, ed. by Alexander Kiossev, Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1995.

8. March 4, Soviet Union

Guest: Anton Sheverdiaev (St. Petersburg)

  • Sabrina Petra Ramet, Sergei Zamascikov, and Robert Bird, “The Soviet Rock Scene,” in Rocking the State, ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, 181-218. [savepdf]
  • W. J. Risch, “Soviet ‘Flower Children’, hippies and the youth counter-culture in the 1970s L’viv,” Journal of Contemporary History, 40 (2005), 565-84. JSTOR [savepdf]

Recommended readings:

  • Thomas Cushman, Notes from Underground: Rock Music Counterculture in Russia Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1995.
  • Neil Edmunds, Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle, London – New York: Routledge, 2004.

9. March 11, Hungary – Politics, Rock and Subcultures

  •  Sándor Horváth, “Myths of the Great Tree Gang : Constructing urban spaces and youth culture in the ‘socialist Budapest”, in Joanna Herbert, ed.,  Testimonies of the City. Identity, Community and Change in a Contemporary Urban World, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007, 73-93.  [savepdf]
  • Anna Szemere, Up from the Underground. The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary, University Park, Pa, The Pennsylvania University Press, 2001, pp. 30-127. [savepdf]

Recommended readings:

  • László Kürti, “’How Can I Be a Human Being?’ Culture, Youth, and Musical Opposition in Hungary,” in Rocking the State, ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, 73-103.
  • Tamás Szőnyei, “Der Geheimdienst und populäre Musik in Ungarn 1960-90, Musik – Verfolgung – Freiheit,“ Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 8-9 (2006), 40-42.
  • Szőnyei Tamás, Nyilvántartottak. Titkos szolgák a magyar rock körül 1960-1990, Budapest: Magyar Narancs – Tihany Rév Kiadó, 2005.
  • Havasréti József – K. Horváth Zsolt (eds.), Avantgárd: underground: alternatív. Popzene, művészet és szubkultúrális nyilvánosság Magyarországon,. Budapest- Pécs, Kijárat Kiadó – Artpool Művészetkutató Központ – PTE Kommunikációs Tanszék. 2003.
  • Horváth Sándor, Kádár gyermekei,  Budapest: Nyitott Könyvműhely, 2009.

10. March 18, Ethno-rock and Nationalism 

  • Gregor Tomc, “We Will Rock You: Popular Music in Second Yugoslavia,” in: Djuric D. and Šuvakovic (eds.), M., Impossible Histories. Cambridge and London: The MIT Press, 2003, 442-465. [savepdf]
  • Sabrina Petra Ramet, “Shake, Rattle, and Self-Management: Making the Scene in Yugoslavia,” in Rocking the State, ed. by Sabrina P. Ramet, 103-140. (2nd part of the pdf!) [savepdf]

Recommended readings:

  • Eric Gordy, The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999: 105-164. [savepdf]

 11. March 25, Presentations by the students

 12. March 31, Presentations by the students

The seminar is accompanied by series of film screenings on Wednesdays organized by the Center for Arts and Culture between January 27 and March 10, 2010.