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• 1 2024-02-06T13:22:38-08:00 Blog Post 1: SHAMAN, Aleksandr Gudkov and the Power of Parody 8 Humor, Parody & Satire plain 2024-02-10T04:01:01-08:00

  When SHAMAN’s 2022 song “Я РУССКИЙ” was uploaded to youtube, the pinned comment left by the SHAMAN music account read “это не песня, а состояние души! Мне захотелось сделать людям подарок и я написал эту песню.” (This is not a song, but a state of the soul! I wanted to create a gift for people and I wrote this song), along with the credits, declaring that the music, lyrics, and video idea were all created by SHAMAN himself. SHAMAN’s real name is Yaroslav Yuryevich Dronov and he has recently made a career out of releasing transparently nationalistic music that supports the Russian military in its actions in Ukraine. Dronov has even performed at events that featured Vladimir Putin himself. While those of us who are not his target audience may find songs like “Я РУССКИЙ” comical all on their own, Dronov is enjoying a quite a bit of attention in Russia and among those sympathetic to the state. The music video for “Я РУССКИЙ,” posted on the official SHAMAN Youtube account, has amassed 49 million views and currently has 357,221 comments. Perhaps all of these factors combined are what made “Я РУССКИЙ” ripe for parodying. 

  Just over a month after the official video for “Я РУССКИЙ” was uploaded to YouTube, “Я узкий,” a parody of Dronov’s song produced by Aleksander Gudkov, appeared on YouTube as well. Gudkov’s video is an unmistakable reference, reproducing the scenes where Dronov sings in a wheat field using a digitally animated version with Gudkov in Dronov’s place. One of the major differences lies in the title and main refrain of the song: Я узкий, or, I’m narrow, as Gudkov’s SHAMAN is shown squished, as if someone took an image and distorted its proportions. The image itself is a humorous one. The literal interpretation of the title is already enough to make the viewer giggle, but the double meaning at play only amplifies the comedy of the video. “Я РУССКИЙ” is unabashedly serious and patriotic and, in response to anyone that might feel an affinity with the song, Gudkov would refer to them as narrow. While most of the song is a literal play on a narrow person, one line reveals Gudkov’s true intention: “И по жизни взгляды мои узкие.” (In life, my views are narrow). Perhaps this means they are narrow minded in their unquestioning pride in their identity, given the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine 

  In his 1929 essay On Parody, Yuri Tynianov challenges the existing definition of parody “Parody is a composition, in verse or prose, made after the manner of one or another serious work, rendering the latter humorous through changes or diversions away from its original designation, toward an amusing end” (Tynianov 294), by highlighting examples of parody in which the comic element is missing. Tynianov shows how parodies can be mistaken for serious works and how this challenges the entire understanding of parody. At first glance, a silly song about a narrow man might seem to fall out of Tynianov’s commentary, but there is room for Gudkov here. Tynianov writes “...we have to acknowledge that, even in comic parodies, the comic is not really the point” (299). While it is challenging to imagine anyone taking “Я узкий,” as a serious song, perhaps much of its power can lie in its directedness towards Dronov’s original song. In a New York Times article written by Valerie Hopkins and Georgy Birger in March of 2023, Anna Vilenskaya, an exiled Russian musicologist calls Dronov’s music “absolutely genius” and notes that even antiwar students have a strange reaction to his music. She is quoted in the NYT article as saying “For many people, it is something unholy, because they like this song with their bodies but they hate it in their minds because they know it is about war and about a lie” (Hopkins and Birger). 

  It seems Gudkov was aware that Dronov’s original song had something special to it musically speaking because his parody uses the exact same music, the only thing that is changed is the lyrics. The lyrics to “Я узкий,” are humorous and they even call out the narrow-mindedness of Dronov and his fans, but, perhaps more importantly, it offers those who disagree with the original song’s messaging an alternative. “Я узкий,” could not exist without “Я РУССКИЙ,” but maybe the over 9 million people who viewed Gudkov’s verison will have it stuck in their head in place of the much more nationalistic version. Beyond its humor, “Я узкий,”’s political potential lies in the directed nature of his song and its ability to offer an alternative to its audience.