Russian Empire of Pop: Post‐Socialist Nostalgia and Soviet Retro at the “New Wave” Competition

The article is an analysis of the “New Wave International Competition of Young Performers of Popular Music,” a televised spectacle in the music format of “estrada” (“stage song”), that has been held in Jurmala, Latvia, since 2002. The competition is discussed in terms of the history of its Soviet predecessor, the “Jurmala” competition that was held from 1985–1989 in the same concert hall, involving many of the same figures who organized “New Wave.” Originally a showcase for “all‐union” culture and interethnic relations in the mode of the “friendship of peoples,” in its last two years, that earlier competition became a stage for agitation in connection with national independence movements. In this light, the contemporary “New Wave” competition may be seen as a form of memory project. Eliding the separatist politics of the last years of “Jurmala,”“New Wave” reconstitutes the “friendship of peoples” model of multiethnic Russophone culture in which Russians are first among equals, for a television audience that encompasses not only Russia but many of the former Soviet and former socialist states. In some ways, this is a form of cultural imperialism, a projection of Russian soft power that matches projections of hard power into the ostensible Russian “sphere of influence.” Yet despite the aspiration to unification of the post‐Soviet and post‐Socialist audience, the competition may take on distinct political and cultural significance in various locations. In Latvia, it may represent a clever marketing move, taking advantage of the demand for ironically inflected “Soviet nostalgia.” In Russia, the project should be viewed not as “nostalgia,” a term that may properly be applied to projects relating to scenes of cultural life that are truly past, but rather as “soviet retro”–dedicated to the recovery of modes of political and cultural life that are still meaningful and subject to revival.