Arkady Severny

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Sculpture for Arkady Severny in his hometown Ivanovo

Arkadi Severny (Russian Аркадий Северный; born March 12, 1939 as Arkadi Swesdin, Russian: Аркадий Дмитриевич Звездин, in Ivanovo ; † April 12, 1980 in Leningrad ) was a popular Russian chanson singer . Despite the disregard on the part of the official Soviet media, he achieved a pop star- like status with his Criminal Songs . During his short career in the 1970s , Sewerny interpreted more than 1,000 pieces. Most of the recordings were made in the course of underground sessions - mostly in restaurants or in apartments, accompanied by changing restaurant and jazz musician combos.

life and career

1939 to 1972: youth, studies, bohemian and job

Arkadi Swesdin - born in Ivanovo, a town near Moscow - grew up in a comparatively well-off family. The father, Dimitrij Swesdin, worked in the administration of the railway and earned comparatively well. The mother Jelena looked after the five children and occasionally worked as a radiologist . Contrary to rumors that later circulated that the future singer was a hooligan and failure in his youth , childhood and youth were normal. Swesdin's school achievements offered little reason for complaint. The adolescent lived his enthusiasm for songs through guitar practice and occasional singing at parties. Another peculiarity that showed in his early youth was his ability to memorize numerous songs and keep them in mind.

After graduating from high school, Arkady Zvezdin moved to Leningrad. In 1959 he began studying at the SM Kirow Forestry University. As a student, Swesdin not only took advantage of the freedoms associated with student life. In addition, he also absorbed the new cultural influences. The thaw of the early 1960s triggered a spirit of optimism in the cultural sector. In addition to jazz, which had been marginalized during the Stalin era and was now experiencing a renaissance, new, more glamorous entertainment stars made a name for themselves - such as the singers Edita Pecha and Maja Kristallinskaja , who artistically flirted with elements of the French Nouvelle Vague . At the same time, an unofficial youth culture , which was heavily attacked by the Soviet media and oriented towards western fashion and phenomena such as British mods , spread - the Stiljagi . Swesdin's performance at the university deteriorated significantly at times. In his spare time he took part in amateur theater productions. He also wrote his own songs - pieces that were mostly based on the style of popular US jazz interpreters such as Louis Armstrong .

In the summer of 1962, Arkadi Swesdin met the producer Rudolf Fuks . According to later statements by Fuks, Swesdin had specifically sought contact with him and visited him in his apartment. Fuks, who himself played the guitar, wrote pieces of music and was also known as a record collector and black market dealer, turned out to be a busy, sometimes tricky organizer with a talent for improvisation. The first recordings were made in the mid-1960s. At this time Swesdin acted for the first time under his later stage name Severny. The collaboration with Fuks initially ended abruptly. The reasons for the breakup are obscure. One possible explanation, considered plausible by the author Uli Hufen, is that Swesdin underground business had become too sensitive and he did not want to endanger his studies. Fuks was arrested in 1965 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment for speculation and forgery ( though released early in 1967 as part of an amnesty ). Swesdin gave up music for the time being and finished his studies. Topic of his thesis: the organization of the transport of sawn timber. In 1965 he took over a position as an engineer in the administrative apparatus of a timber export company in the Leningrad port . In 1968, at the age of almost thirty, Swesdin was drafted into military service. The two-year service, he graduated as a lieutenant in a helicopter - Regiment , which was stationed on the outskirts of Leningrad. In 1969 he married Valentina, a doctor . Daughter Natascha was born in June 1971.

1972 to 1975: underground legend in Leningrad

A decisive stop on the way to becoming an underground chansonnier was a renewed meeting with producer Rudolf Fuks. Fuks had meanwhile found a job as an engineer and continued to duplicate music recordings on the side . Uli Hufen, journalist and author of a book on the history of Russian chanson published in 2010, summed up the decision that Arcady Swesdin made in 1972 with the following words: “If Swesdin-Severnyi had stayed in wood export, he would almost certainly still be alive today . But he didn't. ” In the months that followed, Arkadi Swesdin concentrated more and more on a career as a singer. The first product of the Sweskin – Fuks collaboration was an album, the content of which was based on a fictional, allegedly broadcast radio show . Stylistically, the two of them capered each other on Criminal Songs - a special Russian chanson variant that had developed on the Black Sea coast in the 1920s and enjoyed continued popularity in the informal sector of Soviet society. From this point on, Swesdin operated permanently under the pseudonym Severny (= Russian for "the northern one") - a unique selling point that emphasized its origin from the northern part of Russia.

Together with Fuks, Sewerny made a series of recordings that soon found widespread use. The sessions under the aegis of Fuks not only ensured a boost in popularity for the hitherto unknown chansonnier. In addition, they brought about a renaissance of the semi-legal, possibly tolerated genre of criminal songs. The tape sessions published under the heading Musical Feuilletons took place mostly in private apartments and small halls, in front of a selected audience of 10 to 20 friends and acquaintances. Musically, Sewerny usually performed alone with a guitar. The song material ranged from hits from the NEP era to Estrada titles and criminal songs. The repertoire of the features recordings included well-known crook chansons such as Gop-so-smykom (allegedly one of Stalin's favorite songs), Na Arsenalnoj ulize (a hymn to Leningrad's Kresty prison ) and the popular Na deribassowskoi - a tango melody that was originally named under the Title El Choclo was known and popularized in the west by Louis Armstrong under the title Kiss of Fire .

Fuks' business model was based on tape recordings. In order to get a broader income base, Fuks sold the permission to record the concerts to other interested parties. Severny usually received 500 to 600 rubles for his performances . The tapes reached end consumers in copied and duplicated form - comparable to the copies of western pop and rock music , for example by bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd , which circulated in a similar way on the black market. In terms of marketing, Fuks relied on targeted exaggeration and mythization of his protégé. Means were partly exaggerated, partly made up stories about the alleged vita of the singer. In 1974 he brought Severny together with another Leningrad underground producer: Sergei Maklakov. Fuks and Maklakow now organized partly collaborative and partly competing recording sessions. As a new element, both determinedly forced recordings with backing bands. Fuks specifically engaged session musicians from the restaurant and jazz music scene - including the pianist Sascha Resnik and the violinist Semjon Lachman. In return, Maklakow managed to win over a professional jazz combo for the recordings - the Bratja Schemtschuschnye . With the latter, Sewerny recorded 32 tape albums until his death in 1980.

Musically, the two tape albums that Sewerny produced in February 1975 with Fuks and at the end of April 1975 with Maklakow (each with the corresponding accompanying combo) are considered highlights of his work. The repertoire included, on the one hand, new recordings of pieces that had already been published in the context of the musical feuilletons - for example Anasha, a well-known Severny song that addressed the practice of hashish consumption - which was also widespread in the Soviet Union . Another song from that period was the ballad Ras w Rostowe-na-Donu. The piece Tschornaja Mol, on the other hand, was about the life story of a Parisian prostitute . In later pieces Sewerny also demonstrated both a sense of tragedy and biting, subtle humor - for example in the title Reschily dwa Jewreja from 1978, which is about a failed airplane hijacking . While the police and pilots assume that the machine should be hijacked to Israel , the hijackers only want to force a landing in the autonomous Jewish areas within the Soviet Union.

1975 to 1980: Odessa, Moscow, the end

The eight years of his career as a singer, Sewerny experienced an above-average productive career, albeit overshadowed by personal setbacks, tragedy and increasing alcohol addiction . His output of recordings was immense; By 1980 the singer is said to have recorded around 1000 songs and 100 different sound carriers. One consequence of the high demand was a constantly changing producer. This went hand in hand with a strongly varying quality of the recordings. In his book about the genre, the journalist Hufen suggested that Sewerny's underground life was only possible because he and his producers enjoyed official protection . Sewerny's way of working itself - the steady cycle of recordings, rehearsals and trips connected with the activity - took on more and more manic features. In addition, there was an increasingly excessive consumption of alcohol . The marriage with Valentina was divorced in 1974; Around the same time, Sewerny gave up his job in wood export in order to devote himself entirely to music. With above-average income from the Soviet average, Severny led the existence of a nomadic artist and bohemian . Without a valid passport and without registration, he lived mostly with friends. In the summer of 1975 he disappeared completely from the scene for six months. In the fall of 1975 he became involved with Sofia Kaljalina - a woman he had met when he moved to another location. The second marriage ended in divorce the following year.

Despite or because of the personal overexploitation, Sewerny produced tape albums almost every month. In spring 1977 he accepted an invitation to the Black Sea metropolis of Odessa . There he worked with the two producers Stanislaw Jeruslanow and Wladislaw Kozischewski. In the summer of 1977 Arkady Severny underwent drug rehab in Moscow. Until the late summer of 1978, the singer renounced alcohol - a change that quickly sparked the rumor that Severny, like the well-known singer-songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky , had now switched to heroin and morphine . In the autumn of 1977 Arkady Severny married Sinaida Kostadenova, who came from Moldova - according to various sources, the daughter of a Bulgarian diplomat or a simple soldier of fortune. Severny's marriage to Sinaida only lasted a year. Author Uli Hufen succinctly notes: "Whether Severny started drinking again after a year of abstinence because his wife had left him, or whether Sinaida left him because he was drinking again - we don't know."

Severny himself was at the zenith of his fame in 1977/1978. Tapes with his albums have meanwhile been sold throughout the Soviet Union. The singer himself switched back and forth between Odessa and Leningrad more and more often. Broke and marked by his grueling life, he moved his center of life again to Leningrad in 1979. Here he met one last time with Fuks, who was just making preparations for his departure to the USA. Rudolf Fuks describes the situation at the time to the journalist Uli Hufen as follows: “I was thinking about taking Sewernyi with me abroad. But for that you would have had to organize a fictional marriage . When I had prepared something, he disappeared for a while, drunk. I wanted to take him with me because I saw him die. (...) That's exactly how it turned out. "

Severny shuttled the last stage of his life between the poles of Leningrad, Odessa and Moscow. He spent the period from September 1979 to February 1980 in Moscow. Economically, the Moscow period was probably the most successful. The appearance in the capital differed greatly from the previous ones. While recording sessions were previously the focus, the performances in Moscow were restaurant concerts for a select audience , who paid an entrance fee of 50 to 100 rubles for the singer. On the one hand, Severny hardly ever earned anything during his time in Moscow. Creatively and physically, however, the singer was just a wreck. Robbed on several occasions and exploited by the local concert promoters, he found it difficult to survive in the tough business of the Moscow demi-world . In addition, the city militia had the scenery in their sights. One of Sewerny's organizers, for example, was arrested during a raid in March 1980 and sentenced to six years in a camp for illegal private entrepreneurship. Severny himself recorded one last tape album on February 24, 1980 in Leningrad. On April 11, 1980, after a week of excessive partying, Severny collapsed and died - at the age of 41 - that same night in hospital .

Music and reception

In terms of production, Arkadi Sewerny's oeuvre can be divided into four phases: the early recordings for Fuks in the 1960s, the tape albums as part of the musical feuilletons, in which Sewerny usually only performed with guitar, the combo recordings for Fuks and Maklakow in the mid-1970s in Leningrad and finally the later recordings until his death. Arkadi Sewerny covered a wide range of styles. The mainstay, however, was the classic repertoire of Russian criminal songs. In the West, the genre is often said to have a strong proximity to the Russian half-world gangs, the so-called thieves in the law . In terms of culture and social history, however, as a special form of urban folklore, it enjoys acceptance and popularity among broad sections of the population and, similar to French chanson or US country music , is constantly being further developed by current performers. This repertoire was supplemented by occasional compositions by producers such as Rudolf Fuks. The combo recordings from 1974 and thereafter, which were strongly influenced by the jazz style of playing, were characterized by the term sheet jazz - as a jazzy, sometimes anarchic variety of traditional Odessa chansons.

In the reception area, Arkady Severny is often compared to the songwriter and chansonnier Vladimir Vysotsky. Both were about the same age, both died in the same year at the age of 40, both were stylistically not far apart, and both sounded similarly harsh vocally. Author Uli Hufen compares Severny with both Vysotsky and the Soviet jazz legend Leonid Utjossow . The differences from his point of view: while the entertainer Ulyossov gave the material of the Criminal Songs a certain lightness, Vysotsky relied on well-measured pathos. Sewerny, on the other hand, had the talent to become one with the content of his songs and thus achieved a unique authenticity. In addition, his performance in reworking the existing repertoire is comparable to that of the early Bob Dylan for the American folk song. In terms of résumé and personal tragedy, Hufen compared Severny's résumé with that of the American singer-songwriter Townes van Zandt .

In the music scene of today's CIS , Arkady Severny is more a case for lovers than for the general public. However, the opening of the Iron Curtain and the Internet ensured that his music could spread unhindered. The small label Kismet Records released vinyl records with Severny recordings as early as the 1980s and 1990s. The basis were the tapes that producer Rudolf Fuks had brought to the USA. The sound quality was different; because some of the recordings were only available in mono quality. Fuks himself later published a book on the genre in which he paid tribute to Severny, Vysotsky and other interpreters of the Blat genre. Interest in the Soviet underground star takes different forms today. An annual commemorative festival has been held in Saint Petersburg since 1996 with musicians from Germany and the Russian diaspora around the world. Severny's hometown Ivanovo is now paying tribute to the singer with a sculpture, which was inaugurated in 2010. Younger bands are now also remembering Severny's oeuvre and style - such as the Australian formation VulgarGrad or the Saint Petersburg band La Minor . In addition, there are a few pages on Sewerny on the Internet , as well as download portals that offer recordings in the form of MP3 files (see section "Web Links").

Special

Due to the difficulty information in Cyrillic font to into Latin transferred , coursing different variants of Severnys name dozens. This applies to the first name as well as the last name. A uniform spelling is made more difficult, among other things, by the fact that the Russian name is transcribed into various other languages. In the English-speaking world, the specification Arkady Severny is one of the most common - although Arcady is occasionally also written with a "c". Spellings with “ij” or “iy” at the end are also widespread.

Discography (selection)

The original compilations of Sewerny's tape albums can hardly be preserved in sound carrier form. Audio CDs with various title combinations and some compilations are available in stores and on distribution platforms. The situation is similar for commercially available download compilations. In addition, numerous freely available recordings are circulating on the Internet - for example in clip form on the YouTube video platform . The range of download platforms with Russian music is just as varied. The following list contains the compilations that were offered in the iTunes Music Store in 2013 .

  • W Odesskom Kabachke (1994)
  • Koloda Kart (1994)
  • Moja Chmel'naja Molodost ' (1995)
  • Budet Wan I Nebo Goluboe (1995)
  • Rodilsja Ja W Odesse (1995)
  • Vernulsja Ja W Odessu (1996)
  • Sdrawstwuite, Moe Pochenie! (1996)
  • Tak Natschinalsja Arkady Severny (1997)
  • Vospominanija O Staroi Odesse I ... (1997)
  • 20 best songs. Arkadii Severnyi (2001)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arcadiy Severny - The Biography , arkasha-severnij.narod.ru (information website about the singer), accessed on May 17, 2013.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Uli Hufen: The regime and the dandies. Russian crooks from Lenin to Putin. Rogner & Bernhard, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8077-1057-0 , pp. 126-215
  3. ↑ Hufen, Das Regime und die Dandys, p. 134
  4. ↑ Hufen, Das Regime und die Dandys, p. 138
  5. ↑ Hufen, Das Regime und die Dandys, p. 198
  6. ↑ Hufen, Das Regime und die Dandys, p. 205
  7. ↑ Arcadiy Severnyi - The Biography , J. Martin Daughtry, Samizdat and Underground Culture in the Soviet Bloc Countries, arkasha-severnij.narod.ru, accessed May 17, 2013 (Eng.)
  8. ↑ Hufen: The regime and the dandies. Pp. 165-166. Blat = short form of Blatnye Pesni, the Russian name for this type of chanson
  9. ↑ Hufen: The regime and the dandies. P. 198.
  10. ↑ Arcady Severny - CDs , severnij.org, accessed on May 17, 2013 (Russian)
  11. ↑ Title details: Rudolf Fuks: Pesni na rebra. Vysotzkiy, Severnyy, Presli i drugie. Dekom Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-5-8953-3222-1 (Russian)
  12. ↑ Preparations for the 18th Arcady Severny Memorial Festival ( Memento of the original from March 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , arkadiy-severy.ru, April 14, 2013 (Russian)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arkadiy-severny.ru
  13. ↑ Unsatisfactory reworking of the statue for Severny , chastnik.ru, June 18, 2010 (Russian)
  14. ^ Vulgargrad - Band , Vulgargad homepage, accessed on May 17, 2013
  15. ↑ Music that's not just for Bandits , Staff Writer, St. Petersburg Times , January 25, 2002 (engl.)

literature

  • Uli Hufen: The regime and the dandies. Russian crooks from Lenin to Putin. Rogner & Bernhard, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8077-1057-0
  • Rudolf Fuks: Pesni na rebra. Vysotzkiy, Severnyy, Presli i drugie. Dekom Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-5-8953-3222-1 (Russian)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Severny, Arkadi
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Северный, Аркадий
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian chanson singer
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Ivanovo
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1980
Place of death Leningrad