[podcast]http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20090213-0830a.mp3[/podcast]
The BBC World Service has an interesting documentary on Beatlemania in the Soviet Union. When the Fab Four hit the international scene in 1964, youth in the Soviet Union were no exception in succumbing to their tunes. But unlike fans in the West, the Beatles’ aficionados had to record songs off the Western radio, smuggle their records and then copy them ton x-ray machines (the new hit movie Stilyagi opens with how this was done.), and pass the copies hand to hand or peddle them in underground markets. To be a Beatles fan in 1960s Russia meant you had to be in the know, have connections with those “above,” or just have plain luck. The Beatles were more than just a past-time; it was a way of life.
The Beatles’ penetration into the Soviet Bloc was more than just a symbol of Soviet youth’s hunger for the imagined West. If anything the Beatles’ popularity proved that the Iron Curtain proved quite porous in the face of globalization.
Put simply, for many hearing the Beatles for the first time was a transformative experience. In an interview with popular music scholar Yngvar Steinholt, Nikolai Vasin, Russia’s No 1 Beatles Fan, recalled his first time hearing John, Paul, George and Ringo:
When did you hear about The Beatles for the first time?
It was in the beginning of 1964. I had just finished school, I was still a teenager, I was 18 years old. And I remember that I met, I even, I didn’t learn about it from the radio, not from the papers. But I learned it by the way of what we call the jungle telegraph [narodnaia molvá]. I tell you that radio is the most important radio – the jungle telegraph. And so I met this friend of mine from school. And he asks:
-Have you heard the Beetle-beaters [zhuki-udarniki]?
I say:
-I don’t even have an idea what that is. I know Bill Haley, I know Little Richard, but the Beetle-beaters I don’t know.
-How can that be! That band’s a must! It’s the newest, coolest band in England!
That’s what he told me, and he goes:
-I’ll bring a tape player over to your place tomorrow and we’ll listen to it! And so he comes to me with a little Aides-player, a player from Riga, and we listen to a recording made from BBC radio, the frequency changes, noise, cosmic interference hardly lets the music through. I remember hearing a kind of music that I had never heard before. I had a feeling of utter [nevizny] and unusualness and I even leaned over to him and said something like:
-Now I’ll be damned, that’s something new, there wasn’t anything like that before! And that’s it. That’s how it began. And from then on the further the more. A whole cardboard box of recordings of the Beatle-guys were brought to me, that is the Beetle-beaters from Liverpool, that’s what they were called at the time. On BBC Radio there was a musical programme and it call them the Beetle beaters or the beaters from Liverpool. And literally in the cause of a couple of months I became a passionate Beatles-fan. I suddenly felt spellbound, enlightened, I enjoyed everything wildly and I already started collecting all kinds of articles about them, I don’t know what, recordings on bones there were, too. Then there was this newspaper from England, the Morning Star. I started running around to kiosks to get to know when the next issue would arrive, when it would be brought in and already in the early morning I would run over and buy the fresh issue, because there were very often articles about pop-music. It was called pop-music back then.
[podcast]http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/docarchive/docarchive_20090213-0830a.mp3[/podcast]
“…the psychologist Arthur Janov claims that even this form of swaddling has profound effects on the adult emotional life of a swaddled child. He claims that swaddling causes a lifelong deficit on oxytocin and oversupply of cortisol, resulting in a lifetime of rage and anxieties…”
That seems to be Mother Russia in a nutshell…
I guess Candide is imitating Chris in his drive by/hit & run snarkiness. If Janov’s speculations are true then pretty much all of Western Europeans before, say, 1700, suffered of a lifetime of rage and anxiety as a result of swaddling. And, of course, not only them, but also Central Asians, Chinese, Native Americans, and so on. Actually, 17-years ago, when my daughter was born, she was swaddled tightly (and cozily) in the hospital. The nurses taught us how to do it. When my wife asked them about it, we were told that swaddling is making a comeback in US hospitals because research has shown that babies suffer less stress as a result.
Besides the Wikipedia entry and Temple Granding’s insights, I have not read anything else on the matter. I think Tess is correct, though: I doubt it’s a matter of mere “ancient idiocy.”
Kolya,
Normally I always respect ancient traditions. Don’t forget, I am The Conservative around here, ferchrissakes! So my snark can’t be as venomous as Chrisius’, by definition. Just making a little fun at expense of my old birthplace, that’s all. Also, I was swaddled in infancy, was fed off wooden spoons and slept under ‘pododeyalniki’ half my life, so I think I earned this little diversion.
My main point was that all those ancient traditions can’t be explained by rational approach. Sure, swaddling (just as circumsicion and pork prohibition) can make perfect sense under certain circumstances, but once you start to investigate why the ancient people were doing it, very soon you come against a whole system of archaic beliefs and superstitions that are completely alien to the modern worldview.
Besides, even ‘tess’ agrees Russian women are too extreme about swaddling. And their hatred for American chickens is way beyond reasonable.
“My main point was that all those ancient traditions can’t be explained by rational approach. Sure, swaddling (just as circumsicion and pork prohibition) can make perfect sense under certain circumstances, but once you start to investigate why the ancient people were doing it, very soon you come against a whole system of archaic beliefs and superstitions that are completely alien to the modern worldview.”
Candide, I don’t disagree with the above. Often old custom have a beneficial effects even if the traditional explanations behind the custom are false. And yes there also old customs that somehow became ingrained even if they never made much sense or brought any benefit (except perhaps some of them served as as tools to enforce social cohesion.)
This exchange about swaddling babies is really bringing me back to just after the birth of my first born in Paris. This was the first time that my mother-in-law swooped into my life like some sort of Rumplestiltskin explaining that rights to raising my children were preordained to be hers — The Baba — by the laws of Russian tradition. If I was 17-years old at the time as so many Russian mothers are, I could understand that; but, I was a 30-something American business professional with sufficient independence to be on my own in Europe. Still, why turn down the help? I took all advice with a grain of salt and still do. Not only did she insist on the severe swaddling, she also advised that I put the baby outside on the balcony for all naps Fall, Winter and Spring. Now if the air were clean as well as cold and damp, I might have complied. But, my balcony looked out upon the Monteparnasse train tracks, 12 flights up–but still dirty. Now this seemed the opposite of reenacting the conditions of the womb. This time the theory was the cold air develops the lungs.
Baba’s can be great. But, I don’t think parents should ever be given ‘a pass’ when it comes to raising their own children. The Nashi kids are crying for some parental attention.
“If I was 17-years old at the time as so many Russian mothers are,”
Huh? It’s not the USSR. IIRC the average age for motherhood in Russia is currently the late 20s.
Seriously, Doom, sometimes you sound like a paraplegic deprived of any links to the world outside your room. In which case you have my deepest sympathies, of course.
Doom is encased in his powered armor and far from the concerns of normal men, it is true, but he is fully capable of reading statistics.
Doom also has poor opinions of those who mock the handicapped.
Doom is Politically Correct sycophant.
Candide is Doom’s troll!
Seriously, Sean, can you write something sensible about Figes recent burst of paranoia?
Joera
In Sean’s absence, here is a good post from
Jason Linkins writing for the Huffington Post:
Media Picks Up Crazy Russian ‘End Of America’ Story For A SECOND Time
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/04/media-picks-up-crazy-russ_n_171892.html
Huh? It’s not the USSR. IIRC the average age for motherhood in Russia is currently the late 20s.
Doom…averages are funny things. I know so many Russian 30, 40 and 50-somethings that have started 2 families – one baby they have at 18 or 19 years old (baba or someone else raises; certainly not XY-chromosome donor)Then they start again with a new baby at 36 to 40 years of age. Voila -average of late 20s. Cue Mark Twain on statistics