Eastern European Popular Music in a Transnational Context

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Introduction: Crossing National and Regional Borders in Eastern European Popular Music

   • Ewa Mazierska, Zsolt Győri

   Pages 1-24

3. Bringing Foreign Music to the European East

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25

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   2. Loopholes in the Iron Curtain: Obtaining Western Music in State Socialist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s

      • Adam Havlík

      Pages 27-47

   3. Quiet Fanaticism: The Phenomenon of Leonard Cohen’s Popularity in Poland

      • Ewa Mazierska, Xawery Stańczyk

      Pages 49-73

   4. Authenticity and Orientalism: Cultural Appropriations in the Polish Alternative Music Scene in the 1970s and 1980s

      • Xawery Stańczyk

      Pages 75-99

   5. Eastern Europe as Punk Frontier

      • Aimar Ventsel

      Pages 101-116

4. Eastern European Music Crossing the Borders

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 117-117

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   2. Success, Failure, Splendid Isolation: Czesław Niemen’s Career in Europe

      • Mariusz Gradowski

      Pages 119-136

   3. Yugo-Polish: The Uses of Yugoslav Music by Polish Musicians

      • Ewa Mazierska

      Pages 137-154

   4. Balkan High, Balkan Low: Pop-Music Production Between Hybridity and Class Struggle

      • Slobodan Karamanić, Manuela Unverdorben

      Pages 155-170

5. Liminal Spaces of Eastern European Music Festivals

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 171-171

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   2. The Intervision Song Contest: A Commercial and Pan-European Alternative to the Eurovision Song Contest

      • Dean Vuletic

      Pages 173-190

   3. Between Utopia and the Marketplace: The Case of the Sziget Festival

      • Zsolt Győri

      Pages 191-211

   4. A Tale of Two (or #EverMore) Festivals: Electronic Music in a Transylvanian Town

      • Ruxandra Trandafoiu

      Pages 213-237

6. Back Matter

   Pages 239-243

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This volume examines the transnational character of popular music since the Cold War era to the present. Bringing together the cross-disciplinary research of native scholars, Eastern European Popular Music in a Transnational Context expands our understanding of the movement of physical music, musicians and genres through the Iron Curtain and within the region of Eastern Europe. With case studies ranging from Goran Bregović, Czesław Niemen, the reception of Leonard Cohen in Poland, the Estonian punk scene to the Intervision Song Contest, the book discusses how the production and reception of popular music in the region has always been heavily influenced by international trends and how varied strategies allowed performers and fans to acquire cosmopolitan identities. Cross-disciplinary in nature, the investigations are informed by political, social and cultural history, reception studies, sociology and marketing and are largely based on archival research and interviews.

• musicians
• Poland
• Cold War
• Leonard Cohen
• Intervision
• production
• international
• cosmopolitan
• music festival
• national
• border
• foreign music
• socialist
• Czechoslovakia
• punk
• rock
• pop
• Europe
• Sziget
• electronic music

“Eastern Europe is a highly diverse region with rich history and culture. Although the same can be said for Eastern European popular music, academic writing on this topic is far from exhaustive. It is great, therefore, to see this gap filled by a well-written, comprehensive contribution that will be a useful resource for academics and students alike.” (Patryk Galuszka, Associate Professor, University of Lodz, Poland)

• University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

  Ewa Mazierska

• University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary

  Zsolt Győri

Ewa Mazierska is Professor of Film Studies, at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. She has published over twenty monographs and edited collections on film and popular music including, most recently, Popular Viennese Electronic Music, 1990–2015: A Cultural History (2019) and Sounds Northern: Popular Music, Culture and Place in England’s North (2018). Mazierska’s work is translated into over twenty languages. She is also principal editor of the journal Studies in Eastern European Cinema.

Zsolt Győri is Assistant Professor at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. He is the author of Films, Auteurs, Critical-Clinical Readings (2014) and has co-edited six volumes, including Popular Music and the Moving Image in Eastern Europe with Ewa Mazierska (2018). He also serves as the associate editor of the Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies.

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