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TWO TALKS ON RUSSIAN ROCK AND ROLL
ARTEMY TROITSKY, RUSSIA'S MOST FAMOUS CULTURAL COMMENTATOR
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8th
"BACK IN THE USSR: THE HISTORY OF SOVIET ROCK"
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9th
"BETWEEN PUTIN AND PIRACY: RUSSIAN POP AND THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN THE 21st CENTURY"
Both talks will be in English and held from 4-6pm in Royce 314, UCLA
- "Russia's best-known cultural journalist" - New Statesman
- "An activist in the Russian rock movement, the first rock DJ and music journalist in Russia" - CNN
- "The best-known journalist, organizer, critic and promoter of rock music in Russia" - Slavic Review
Artemy Troitsky entered Moscow State University in the early 1970s under Brezhnev, where he became notorious for hosting illicit discos from one of the university canteens. His professional career continued in the same vein, with underground assessments of the Beatles and Deep Purple in illegal samizdat journals. By the mid-`80s, however, he had entered the mainstream as editor of the Soviet Union's most influential music papers. Troitsky's views grew increasingly important and, as a consequence, he was promoted to even more noteworthy publications as the USSR collapsed.
He famously worked at the Novaya Gazeta in the 1990s, the brave newspaper that regularly published the work of Anna Politkovskaya (tragically murdered last year for her reporting on the Chechnya conflict). Disturbed and yet intrigued by the changing nature of modern Russian journalism, he even – with pronounced irony – accepted the position of editor at Playboy for a short while.
The end of communism also meant the explosion of corporate TV, and here Troitsky's influence grew beyond the printed page. He hosted the hugely significant media show "Programma A" that served to promote and explain a sudden diversity of culture(s) in the wake of state-controlled entertainment. Subsequent projects on other stations (NTV, Rossiia, and others) have served to keep him at the forefront of public attention today.
He is the author of six books, translated and published all over the world; in the US he has been represented by Faber and Faber. His most famous monograph, on the role of rock music in the late Soviet Union, has just been republished this summer. For Troitsky's most recent project, a web-based endeavor entitled "TV Click," go to www.tvclick.ru/channel - and (quite fittingly) click on the striped TV-logo: a selection of brand new, five-minute broadcasts is available. A wealth of other, archived performances can be found by searching for Troitsky's name on YouTube and other portals.
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