Mikhail Savoyarov

• Illustration — Mikhail Savoyarov a postcard (1913) From the very beginning of his stage career, Savoyarov gained a reputation as an artist of a rough style. Over the years, he comprehensively developed and strengthened this opinion about himself. In the 1910s, Mikhail Savoyarov, having received the title of “king of eccentricity” and the nickname “vomiting chansonnier,” also declared himself the only heir to French fumism on Russian soil. As a teenager, having experienced the influence of some Parisian fumists and the Russian obscene poet Pyotr Schumacher, who was ″the first to sing the praises of shit″, in the 1890s, Savoyarov later, as a tribute of respect and gratitude, called his “unbridled” concerts “smoky fonforisms” or “fanfaronnades”. Savoyarov was the first to the Russian music scene his own eccentric style of performing different from circus or theatre. In the 1910s both success and influence follow the ‘music concerts’ of Igor Severyanin as well as poetry accompanied by Mikhail Kuzmin. However, it was Aleksandr Blok who was influenced the most by eccentric style of an artist and even poet Savoyarov. It's the most evident in his post-revolutionary works. According to academic Shklovsky few comprehended «The Twelve» poem and condemned it because everyone was used to take Blok seriously only. The Twelve, a portrayal of criminal revolutionary Petrograd, which was compared by Shklovsky to the Bronze Horseman by Pushkin, had brand new images: «...The Twelve is an ironical work. It’s written not even with folk rhyme but with "flash" language. A Savoyarov style of street trolls». • — (Viktor Shklovsky, the Hamburg account: articles, memoirs, essays (1914-1933). Shklovsky talked about Savoyarov's songs in ‘ragged genre’ performing which he would go on stage dressed and painted as a criminal. George Balanchine, a choreographer, forever memorized Savoyarov singing thieves songs: "Alyosha, sha! – take a half-tone lower, stop telling lies"... Such criminal atmosphere in The Twelve poem pervades Petrograd, a frightful city of the snowy winter of 1918. Savoyarov put musical in common practice parody songs of (or responses to) other authors. The most famous of them were Child, don’t hurry (a response to Mikhail Kuzmin’s romance Child and rose) and You’re still the same (a parody of Vertinsky’s romance Your little fingers smell incense). Often during his concerts in the 1920s Savoyarov would change costumes, make himself up and performed the second part under the name (and the mask) of ‘artist Valertinsky’. This did a good turn for Vertinsky who wasn't forgotten during the period of his immigration. Savoyarov's easy manner of singing, gesticulating, constantly moving around the stage and playing the violin had a profound effect. After the manner of Savoyarov, in the 1920-30s playing violin his disciple, a singer of satirical songs Grigory Krasavin, the first performer of the famous Bublichki (‘Bagels’) of Yakov Yadov, started performing. • Illustration — Yuri Khanon, Saint Petersburg, 2008. In the 1930s both in Leningrad and Moscow many artists learned from Savoyarov. Among the most famous disciples of that period Arkady Raikin is pre-eminent. Nowadays hardly anybody remembers that in 1930s Raikin started not as a reciter and satirist but as a musical eccentric and a dancer mime and that his first fame and the title of laureate of the all-USSR variety actors competition came to him thanks to his dance and mimic numbers Chaplin and Mishka. That was also the time when Alexander Menaker learned a lot from Savoyarov. His school of eccentric can be distinguished in Andrei Mironov, Menaker's son's, manner of performing and in musical parts of young Konstantin Raikin. One of Savoyarov's songs of 1915 (rural scene Trumpeters) is performed by Andrei Mironov in Eldar Ryazanov’s film (O Bednom Gusare Zamolvite Slovo, 1981) Say a Word for the Poor Hussar ("...across the village are running the boys, the girls, the women, the kids, like a swarm of locusts, the trumpeters blow the trumpets"). The music for this number was rewritten by the composer Andrei Petrov, but the lyrics by Savoyarov remained the same. Earlier, back in the 1960s, Alexander Galich loved to perform this song, constantly improvising with a guitar and each time changing the author’s text, both musical and poetic. «Trumpeters» is also cited repeatedly in Yuri German′s novel, «My Dear Man». Along with Nikolai Zabolotsky′s poem, «The signs of the Zodiac are fading out», Savoyarov′s song becomes iconic. As if stamped with some kind of inner community, «Trumpeters» marks heroes who demonstratively fail to fit into the stifling atmosphere of Stalinist Russia. One of art historian Andrei Rossomakhin's theoretical works explores the similarities between Savoyarov′s legacy and the work of another renowned pop singer and writer. This is Sergei Shnurov, who revives and develops the most brutal traditions of pre-revolutionary Russian pop music at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, particularly Mikhail Savoyarov, with his constant wordplay, parodies, and harsh style, far removed from any rules or norms of decency. Contemporary mockery, parody and grotesque, jargon and jokes, the artistic persona of the lumpen proletariat and alcoholic, cruelty and rudeness (bordering on the physiological), work outside the norm, and the creation of his own format — all of this, exactly one hundred years later, connects Sergei Shnurov with the «king of eccentricity» of the era of wars and revolutions. This opinion is very closely related to the words of Psoy Korolenko, who in the late 2010s repeatedly noted the profound influence that the creative manner, as well as the poetic and artistic style of Mikhail Savoyarov, had on him. «…Currently, some of my songs, some of the original verses I'm writing today, have been strongly influenced by his aesthetics, his poetics, his energy. Even though the notes exist, and there are no audio recordings of him, none left…, somehow Savoyarov also came into our attention and horizons, and struck our imagination with such depth, unexpectedness, paradox, freedom, experimentation, and a combination of outward coarseness, grotesqueness, sometimes deliberately crude comedy, and extraordinary subtlety and chastity… and subtlety, such a subtle perception of the world that lies behind it all. And this genre, which combines the crude and the subtle, which... some of this is in the circus, some of this is in clowning, some of this is in certain genres of song, in certain theatrical roles, it is one of the sources of inspiration, a kind of compass, perhaps, or some very intriguing and very intricate reference point...» Perhaps the most evident artistic influences of Mikhail Savoyarov can be considered his grandson, a composer, a 1988 "European Oscar" winner and also an ingenious writer and artist working under a pseudonym Yuri Khanon. The eccentric Mikhail Savoyarov may have found his new incarnation in him...partly philosophically and academically. Another king of eccentrics’ granddaughter, Tatyana Savoyarova is also known as an eccentric artist (partly surrealist and mocker). Savoyarov's artistic style was distinguished by the charms of ‘very lively’ performance, by natural musicality, plasticity, subtle nuances, the strong ability to transform, the ability to reveal the text and subtext, supplementing the singing with dancing and mimic scenes. Such a performance has one drawback: it must be seen and listened to in person. The archives didn't save neither gramophone recordings nor film fragments. Savoyarov only heritage left is published music, photographs and collections of poems.

• Illustration — Savoyarov, «The Drunken Moon» (published music cover), Petrograd, 1915 • Illustration — Savoyarov, «You’re still the same» (published music cover), Petrograd, 1921 • Aleksandr Blok, Collected works in eight volumes, Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya Literatura ("belles-lettres") state publisher, 1962. • Aleksandr Blok, Collected works in six volumes, Leningrad, Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1962. • Dmitry Gubin, Playing during the eclipse, Ogonyok periodical, No.26, iuni 1990. • Encyclopedia of Russian Variety Art, ed. Uvarova, XX century, Moscow, Rospen, 2000. • V. Orlov, The life of Blok, Moscow, Centrpoligraf, 2001. • Mikhail Savoyarov, Songs & couplets of singer-songwriter. Petrograd, Evterpa, ed.1,2, 1914-1915. • Mikhail Savoyarov, Songs: couplets, parodies, duets. Petrograd, Evterpa, ed.3, 1915. • Mikhail Savoyarov, Because of the Ladies (published music), Economic, Petrograd, 1914. • Mikhail Savoyarov, The Drunken Moon (published music), Evterpa, Petrograd, 1915. • Mikhail Savoyarov, Trumpeters (published music), Evterpa, Petrograd, 1916. • Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail Savoyarov. The History of a Town complete (based on original documents published by Yuri Khanon). — Saint Petersburg, Moscow: Center of Middle Music, 2026. — 336 p. • Viktor Shklovsky, The Writing Table V.B. Shklovsky, The Hamburg Account: articles, memoirs, essays (1914–1933), Moscow, Sovetsky Pisatel ("Soviet Writer") publisher, 1990. • N. Sinev, In Life and in Variety, Kiev, 1983. • G.Terikov, Topical songs in Variet, Moscow, 1987. • Solomon Volkov, History of Saint Petersburg culture, Moscow, EKSMO, 2008. • Solomon Volkov, tr. Bouis, Antonina W., St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: The Free Press, 1995).. en • Variety in Russia, XX century: encyclopedia, ed. Uvarova, Moscow, OLMA-press, 2004. • Yuri Khanon, Mikhail Savoyarov. «Through the Trumpeters» (or the experience of continuous persecution). St. Petersburg: Center of Middle Music, 2019. • Yuri Khanon, Mikhail Savoyarov. «Favorites from abusive (Russian: “Избранное из Бранного” — “Selected curse words”). — St. Petersburg: Center of Middle Music, 2017. — 368 p. (in Russian)