{"id":3963,"date":"2026-06-22T10:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/?p=3963"},"modified":"2026-06-22T10:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T08:26:27","slug":"alexandra-kolesnik-is-viktor-tsoi-alive-on-the-militarization-of-soviet-rock-heritage-in-contemporary-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2026\/06\/22\/alexandra-kolesnik-is-viktor-tsoi-alive-on-the-militarization-of-soviet-rock-heritage-in-contemporary-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexandra Kolesnik: Is Viktor Tsoi Alive? ON THE MILITARIZATION OF SOVIET ROCK HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">In contemporary Russia, the politics of memory are no longer limited to schoolbooks, museums, and official anniversaries. They also unfold through popular culture, urban space, and heritage. In recent years, the Russian state has increasingly treated the Soviet past as a source of political legitimacy, cultural authority, and patriotic consensus<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a>. This has affected not only narratives of World War\u202fII and the Soviet victory, but also late Soviet culture, including rock music. One of the clearest and most troubling examples is Viktor Tsoi, the late frontman of the Soviet rock band <em>Kino<\/em>, who died in 1990. Tsoi is at once a late Soviet icon, a symbol of youth, loss, authenticity, and change, and the center of a wide network of fan memorial practices. Yet in the 2020s\u2014especially after Russia\u2019s full\u2011scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022\u2014his songs and his image have been increasingly absorbed into patriotic and militarized state narratives. While Tsoi previously stood for openness, ambiguity, and existential freedom, he is now being reframed as a patriotic hero, and his music is being re\u2011coded for wartime mobilization.<!--more--><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>From late Soviet rock to post\u2011Soviet heritage<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Soviet rock emerged within the contradictory structures of late socialism defined by censorship and semi\u2011official institutions, informal economies of tape exchange, technological improvisation, and a distinctive material culture shaped by scarcity<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a>. Beginning in the mid-1980s, these constraints loosened during <em>perestroika<\/em>, and rock musicians gained greater public visibility. Among them, Viktor Tsoi quickly became the most powerful symbol of a generation. His songs could be perceived and interpreted as existential, lyrical, social, and political at once. They did not articulate a fixed doctrine; instead, they opened a vast space of identification.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This ambiguity is central to Tsoi\u2019s legacy. His public prominence was amplified through cinema and mass concerts, most famously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Cn88lY1ETgY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Kino<\/em>\u2019s last performance<\/a> at Luzhniki Stadium in June 1990. In August 1990, Viktor Tsoi died in a car accident. The response to his death was immediate and largely vernacular: walls covered with inscriptions, improvised memorials, flowers, gatherings, and pilgrimages. At the same time, the Soviet state was collapsing. Therefore, from the outset, Tsoi\u2019s commemoration was bound up with transformations in public space, cultural authority, and memory politics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Unlike Soviet cinema heritage, which was relatively quickly institutionalized through archives, retrospectives, and canonical state-sponsored narratives, Soviet rock heritage was primarily constructed by fans, journalists, and musicians themselves rather than by state cultural institutions<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a>. This made Soviet rock heritage unusually open, and conflict\u2011prone. It also meant that, once the Russian state began to take an interest in it, the encounter would never be neutral.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>Why popular music heritage matters politically<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Scholarship on the heritage of popular music has shown that music is more than just a soundtrack to memory; it is one of its infrastructures. Songs are remembered not only through recordings, media, and performances, but also through places: walls, clubs, cemeteries, rehearsal rooms, museums, memorial plaques, guided tours, and festivals. These sites organize access, participation, and meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Fandom is crucial here. Fans do not simply consume the musical past; they preserve it. They collect photographs, record stories, organize rituals, repaint memorials, produce online archives, and defend public sites. Paul\u202fD.\u202fKeidl calls this <em>heritage labor<\/em>: unpaid, affective, curatorial work that makes cultural memory durable<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a>. In the Russian context, this labor has often carried a political charge even when fans avoided explicit political language. Their practices have sustained spaces of collective participation outside of formal political institutions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #e63348;\">The Tsoi Wall: a memory commons under pressure<\/span> <\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3967\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3967\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3967 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Tsoi Wall in Moscow, June\u202f2018; a wall with graffiti, people looking closely at the wall\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3967\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig.\u202f1. Tsoi Wall in Moscow, June\u202f2018 (photo: Alexandra Kolesnik)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">The best\u2011known example is the Tsoi Wall in Moscow, located near Stary Arbat (Old Arbat Street), a pedestrian street in the city\u2019s historical center (fig. 1). Emerging immediately after Tsoi\u2019s death, it became one of the most visible sites of Soviet rock remembrance<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a>. The Wall has no direct biographical link to Tsoi, its authenticity is not archival but practical. It became \u2018authentic\u2019 or legitimate because people treated it as a site of memory. They wrote on it, left flowers, painted portraits, took photographs, sang, met friends, and returned on anniversaries. It functions not as a finished monument, but as a living surface.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3968\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3968\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3968 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Tsoi Wall in Moscow, June\u202f2017: framed pictures of Tsoi and flowers paying tribute to him\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3968\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig.\u202f2. Tsoi Wall in Moscow, June\u202f2017 (photo: Alexandra Kolesnik)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">The Wall invites participation. Its material openness is crucial. It is not meant merely to be looked at; it is meant to be used (fig. 2). In this sense, it is less a monument than a memory commons: a public surface sustained by acts of contribution and care. However, this openness also makes it vulnerable. Because the Wall can be altered, it becomes a site of struggle over who gets to define Tsoi\u2019s meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This dynamic has been evident for decades. In 2006, the art group Art Destroy painted the Wall black as a provocation against Tsoi\u2019s cult status<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a>. For fans, this act constituted desecration. Yet the most significant aspect was not the intervention itself, but the response: within days, the Wall was restored and covered once again with inscriptions, including the now\u2011canonical phrase \u201cTsoi is alive.\u201d In this case, heritage authority did not come from the police, the municipality, or an institution, but from practice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Municipal authorities have repeatedly attempted to regulate or stabilize the site. In 2009, plans were announced to \u201crestore\u201d the Wall as part of the redevelopment of Stary Arbat. The project proposed preserving only fragments of the original surface and transferring the commemoration to a new memorial near Luzhniki Stadium<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a>. In 2015, there was a proposal to erect a bronze monument to Tsoi near Luzhniki<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a>. Fans rejected these initiatives because they perceived them not as recognition, but as appropriation: attempts to replace an open, participatory memorial with a fixed, governable form.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This is a recurring pattern in contemporary heritage politics. \u201cBeautification\u201d and \u201crestoration\u201d are not neutral acts of care; rather, they are techniques of governance. These techniques reduce unpredictability and limit who can interact and how. In response, fans engage in what might be described as <em>low\u2011visibility resistance<\/em><a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a>: repainting, re\u2011inscribing, returning, and documenting. These are not dramatic acts of protest, but they are politically meaningful because they defend the conditions of participation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>From authorization to patriotic domestication<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">From the early 2010s onward, the political significance of the Wall intensified as Tsoi\u2019s songs and memorial sites became more closely associated with protest cultures. The song \u201cPeremen!\u201d (Change!, 1989) became strongly associated with the Bolotnaya Square protests (2011\u20132013). The Wall itself functioned as a platform where dissent was articulated under the guise of cultural commemoration<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\">[10]<\/a>. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">In the meantime, however, the state\u2019s approach changed. Rather than directly confronting fan memorials, the authorities increasingly moved toward symbolic authorization. Tsoi was no longer primarily treated as an unruly late Soviet icon, but rather as a legitimate cultural figure who could be folded into a broader narrative of national greatness and continuity.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3965\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3965\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3965 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Tsoi monument in Saint\u202fPetersburg, August\u202f2021: statue of a guitarist on pedastal, flowers paying hommage to the musician\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-3.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3965\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig.\u202f3. Tsoi monument in Saint\u202fPetersburg, August\u202f2021 (photo: Alexandra Kolesnik)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">A telling example is the monument erected in Saint\u202fPetersburg in 2020 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Tsoi\u2019s death (fig. 3)<a href=\"#_ftn11\" name=\"_ftnref11\">[11]<\/a>. The monument is significant not only because it exists, but because of where and how it was erected. It stands at a distance from the core fan memorial sites, recognizing Tsoi, but in a controlled manner. By doing so, it incorporates him into a legible commemorative infrastructure, while keeping him separate from the messier, more participatory landscapes of fan memory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This is what authorization looks like in practice. It does not erase vernacular memory; it translates it into a form that institutions can manage. A monument can be visited, photographed, and respected. It cannot be rewritten. By stabilizing material form, it stabilizes meaning.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>After 2022: Tsoi Goes to War<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Since the beginning of Russia\u2019s full\u2011scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the patriotic and militarized appropriation of Soviet cultural symbols has dramatically intensified. This has affected cinema, literature, school curricula, and music alike. Foreign music\u2014especially Ukrainian music\u2014has faced growing restrictions, while Russian music could be banned if deemed oppositional or insufficiently patriotic<a href=\"#_ftn12\" name=\"_ftnref12\">[12]<\/a>. At the same time, a state\u2011supported patriotic pop sphere, represented by artists such as Shaman, Oleg\u202fGazmanov, and Grigori\u202fLeps started gaining increasing visibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Against this backdrop, Tsoi became useful again. Unlike openly oppositional artists, he was dead, canonized, and broadly popular. Unlike contemporary patriotic musicians, he carried cultural prestige, generational depth, and affective authenticity. This combination made him an ideal target for appropriation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">The key mechanism was selective recontextualization. While \u201cPeremen!\u201d\u2014the song most strongly associated with political change\u2014was never formally banned, it was increasingly replaced by other songs in public patriotic usage, most notably \u201cGruppa krovi\u201d (Blood Type, 1988) and \u201cZvezda po imeni Solntse\u201d (A Star Named Sun, 1989). These songs, originally marked by existential ambiguity and often read as anti\u2011war or anti\u2011militarist, were reinserted into patriotic frameworks. During rehearsals for Victory Day parades in May\u202f2024 and May\u202f2025, for example, soldiers sang \u201cGruppa krovi\u201d on Red Square<a href=\"#_ftn13\" name=\"_ftnref13\">[13]<\/a>. In propaganda settings, these songs began to function as part of a patriotic soundtrack.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">A striking recent example appears in the documentary <em>Mr.\u202fNobody against Putin<\/em> (2025) by Pavel\u202fTalankin and David\u202fBorenstein. In <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/vlYTv15eFXw?si=YeLpgj1P0VfNdii_&amp;t=3427\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">one scene<\/a>, children in a provincial Russian school march to <em>Kino<\/em>\u2019s song \u201cZvezda po imeni Solntse\u201d as part of a militarized school environment shaped by wartime propaganda. The scene is powerful precisely because the song evokes an alternative memory world. This dissonance exposes the violence of patriotic recoding.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3966\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3966\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3966 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-4.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig.\u202f4. \u201cTsoi \u2014 put\u2019 geroya,\u201d exhibition room of the film \u201cIgla\u201d (\u201cNeedle,\u201d dir.\u202fRashid\u202fNugmanov, 1988), February\u202f2022 (photo: Alexandra Kolesnik)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This recoding is also visual. In 2022, at the exhibition \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/tsoyhero.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tsoi \u2014 put\u2019 geroya<\/a>\u201d (Tsoi \u2014 The Hero\u2019s Path) at the Manege in Moscow, supported by the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives, Tsoi was presented as a national \u201ccultural code\u201d and heroic figure (fig. 4). The exhibition\u2019s language is revealing. Tsoi is no longer portrayed merely as a musician or late Soviet icon; he becomes a heroic template, an object of myth, and a national figure whose meaning is intended to be stable and affirmative. Once this transformation has taken place, the very possibility of contestation comes to be framed as inappropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Later in 2022, militarization became even more explicit when Saint\u202fPetersburg artist Aleksei\u202fSergienko exhibited images of Tsoi in a military uniform, symbolically linking him to the so\u2011called \u201cspecial military operation\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn14\" name=\"_ftnref14\">[14]<\/a>\u2014the term Russian propaganda uses to describe its aggression against Ukraine. This was not merely patriotic domestication; it amounted to wartime recoding. Tsoi\u2019s cultural capital was repurposed for a moral economy based on sacrifice, endurance, masculinity, and state legitimacy.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>Depoliticization as a defence<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">How do people around Tsoi respond? The reactions are revealing. Tsoi\u2019s son, as well as the surviving members of <em>Kino<\/em>, have largely avoided direct political commentary. Since the band\u2019s partial reunion in 2019, they have emphasized that Tsoi\u2019s songs were not political, often citing Tsoi\u2019s own remarks about \u201cPeremen!\u201d from the late Soviet era or repeating <em>Kino<\/em> guitarist Yuri\u202fKasparyan\u2019s claim that the song was politicized later, especially in the 1990s<a href=\"#_ftn15\" name=\"_ftnref15\">[15]<\/a>. Tsoi\u2019s father, by contrast, has suggested that his son would have supported the war because he was a patriot<a href=\"#_ftn16\" name=\"_ftnref16\">[16]<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Among fans, however, the situation is more complex. In interviews I conducted in Russia between 2013 and 2022, many fans insisted on a formulation that appears apolitical but is analytically significant: \u201cTsoi is not about politics\u2014Tsoi is about brotherhood.\u201d At first glance, this may seem like depoliticization. Yet, in the current Russian context, depoliticization can function as a protective strategy. Refusing a single political reading is to resist monopolization. Insisting that Tsoi belongs to everyone is to defend him from being fully absorbed by any one ideological project, including the state\u2019s patriotic one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">In illiberal settings, explicit opposition is risky. Under such conditions, preserving ambiguity can itself become a form of resistance. It preserves memory\u2019s plurality, protects spaces of affective autonomy, and allows memorials to remain sites of participation rather than sites of ideological indoctrination.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>2025: the new conflict on the Wall<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This dynamic became visible once again in the spring\u202fof 2025. Following the death of the extremely popular rapper Pasha\u202fTechnique (Pavel\u202fIvlev, 1984\u20132025), a large graffito reading \u201cTechnique\u201d appeared beneath Tsoi\u2019s portrait on the Tsoi Wall. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">The reaction was immediate. Artist Roman\u202fYakovlev covered the inscription with posters showing Tsoi making an obscene gesture, accompanied by the slogan: \u201cPasha\u202fTechnique is dead, Viktor\u202fTsoi is alive\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn17\" name=\"_ftnref17\">[17]<\/a>. Yakovlev framed his act as a patriotic defense of Tsoi. Soon afterwards, municipal services intervened in the name of \u201crestoration.\u201d Earlier layers of graffiti were removed and replaced with a new official portrait of Tsoi.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3969\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3969\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3969 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Tsoi Wall in Moscow after so-called \u201cbeautification,\u201d March 2026\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5-1200x900.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Pic.-5.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3969\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig.\u202f5. Tsoi Wall in Moscow after \u201cbeautification,\u201d March\u202f2026 (Photo: anonymous)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">Once again, the memorial was not destroyed; it was stabilized. And once again, fans responded swiftly by repainting the Wall (fig. 5). This response shows that what is at stake is not only Tsoi\u2019s image, but the memorial\u2019s form. Fans defend the Wall as a place where meaning remains open, and where no actor\u2014whether an artist, city authority, patriotic activist, or institution\u2014can permanently freeze the surface.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #e63348; font-family: helvetica;\"><strong>What is being defended?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">The struggle over Viktor\u202fTsoi in contemporary Russia is not just about a singer. It is a struggle over who has the authority to define late Soviet culture. The Russian state is increasingly seeking to transform the Soviet cultural past into an ideological resource that is patriotic, unified, emotionally resonant, and compatible with militarized narratives of national struggle. In this context, Tsoi is valuable precisely because he embodies an authenticity that contemporary patriotic culture often lacks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">However, Tsoi resists full domestication. His songs remain semantically mobile. His memorials remain materially open. His fans continue to practice a form of heritage labor that defends participation against closure. Their actions are often quiet, dispersed, and visually modest: repainting a wall, restoring an inscription, rejecting a monument, or circulating images online. Nonetheless, these acts matter politically because they preserve spaces in which memory is not yet fully governed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">This is why the militarization of Tsoi\u2019s legacy deserves attention far beyond the field of music history. It shows how cultural heritage becomes a battleground under authoritarian and wartime conditions\u2014not necessarily through bans, censorship, or outright destruction, but through selective appropriation, heroic reframing, and the transformation of ambiguity into patriotic certainty. But i<\/span><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">t also reveals something else: cultural resistance does not necessarily take the form of protest. Sometimes it takes the form of maintenance. Sometimes it looks like coming back with paint.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><em><span style=\"color: #e63348;\"><a style=\"color: #e63348;\" href=\"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2690-1048\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alexandra Kolesnik<\/a> is a cultural historian and postdoc researcher at Bielefeld University with a project on Rock, Memory, and Conflicts: The Heritagization of Soviet Rock Music in the Post-Soviet Space, supported by the Philipp Schwarz Initiative of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In 2024\/25 she spent three months at ZfL as a fellow of the <a style=\"color: #e63348;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zfl-berlin.org\/project\/adjustment-and-radicalisation.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">DYNAMICS<\/a> project.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Ivan Kurilla: \u201cHistory as a Political Language,\u201d in: Sergey Rumyantsev (ed.): <em>Education and the Politics of Memory in Russia and Eastern Europe Infested with History<\/em>. London: Routledge 2025, 209\u2013224.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Vladimir Marochkin: <em>Povsednevnaia zhizn\u2019 rossiiskogo rok-muzykanta <\/em>[The daily life of a Russian rock musician]. Moscow: Molodaia Gvardiia 2003.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> For a more detailed analysis cf. Alexandra Kolesnik and Alisa Maximova: \u201cPopular Music Heritage in Ekaterinburg: From Seeking Authorisation and Nostalgia for Soviet Rock to Participatory Place-Making,\u201d in: Stijn Reijnders et al. (eds.): <em>Media, Place and Tourism: A World of Imagination<\/em>. London\/New York: Routledge 2024, 168\u2013182; Natalija Majsova and Jasmina \u0160epetavc: \u201cPopular music as living heritage: theoretical and practical challenges explored through the case of Slovenian folk pop,\u201d in: <em>International Journal of Heritage Studies<\/em> 29.12 (2023), 1283\u20131298; Lizaveta Lysenka: \u201cSoviet music heritage as a discursive middle ground in Belarusian political conflict,\u201d in: <em>International Journal of Heritage Studies<\/em> 28.6 (2022), 752\u2013762.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Paul D. Keidl: \u201cThe Labor of Curating: Fandom, Museums, and the Value of Fan Heritage,\u201d in: <em>The Journal of Popular Culture<\/em> 54.2 (2021), 407\u2013431.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> Oksana Zaporozhets and Alexandra Kolesnik: \u201cMusic Geography in Russia: Non-Auratic Places and Institutionalization \u2018in Becoming\u2019,\u201d in: <em>Journal of Cultural Geography<\/em> 37.1 (2020), 1\u201325; Oksana Zaporozhets and Alexandra Kolesnik: \u201cDolgaya zhizn\u2019 mest Tsoya: geografiya pamyati\u201d [Long life of Tsoi Places: Geography of Memory], in: <em>Laboratorium. Russian Review of Social Research<\/em> 11.2 (2019), 70\u2013102.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> Sergei Nechayev: \u201c\u2018Tsoy mertv\u2019: kak oskvernyali memorial muzykanta na Arbate\u201d [Tsoi is Dead: How the Musician\u2019s Memorial on Arbat was Desecrated], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/life.ru\/p\/422176\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Life<\/em><\/a> (June 20, 2016).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> \u201cMolodezhnyye dvizheniya reshili zashchitit\u2019 stenu Tsoya\u201d [Youth Movements Decided to Protect Tsoi Wall], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/lenta.ru\/news\/2009\/11\/13\/tsoi\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Lenta.ru<\/em><\/a> (November 13, 2009).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> \u201cPamyatnik Viktoru Tsoyu mogut ustanovit\u2019 v \u2018Luzhnikakh\u2019\u201d [A Monument to Viktor Tsoi May be Erected at Luzhniki Stadium], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.m24.ru\/articles\/Luzhniki\/18082015\/82235\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Moskva24<\/em><\/a> (August 18, 2015).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> Emmanuel Alloa: \u201cInvisibility: From Discrimination to Resistance,\u201d in: <em>Critical Horizons<\/em> 24.4 (2023), 325\u2013338.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> Lev Gankin: \u201c\u2018Khochu peremen!\u2019: kak pesnya \u2018Kino\u2019 prevratilas\u2019 v glavnyy politicheskiy lozung v Rossii \u2014 i pochemu Tsoy etogo voobshche-to ne khotel\u201d [\u2018I Want Change!\u2019: How Kino\u2019s Song Became Russia\u2019s Main Political Slogan\u2014and Why Tsoi Didn\u2019t Want It, Actually], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/meduza.io\/feature\/2017\/06\/20\/hochu-peremen-kak-pesnya-kino-prevratilas-v-glavnyy-politicheskiy-lozung-v-rossii-i-pochemu-tsoy-etogo-voobsche-to-ne-hotel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Meduza<\/em><\/a> (June 20, 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref11\" name=\"_ftn11\">[11]<\/a> \u201cV Peterburge ustanovili pamyatnik Tsou\u201d [A Monument to Tsoi was Erected in St. Petersburg], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fontanka.ru\/2020\/08\/14\/69422593\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Fontanka.ru<\/em><\/a> (August 14, 2020).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref12\" name=\"_ftn12\">[12]<\/a> Ekaterina Ganskaya: \u201cBack in the U.S.S.R.: Russian Popular Music in the Times of Military Censorship,\u201d in: <em>IASPM Journal<\/em> 14.2 (2024), 30\u201351.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref13\" name=\"_ftn13\">[13]<\/a> Maxim Voronezhskiy: \u201cSoldaty speli \u2018Gruppu krovi\u2019 Viktora Tsoya na Krasnoy ploshchadi\u201d [Soldiers sang Viktor Tsoi\u2019s \u2018Blood Type\u2019 on Red Square], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gazeta.ru\/culture\/news\/2025\/05\/09\/25738286.shtml?utm_auth=false\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Gazeta.ru<\/em><\/a> May 9 (2025).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref14\" name=\"_ftn14\">[14]<\/a> Valentina Rodionova: \u201cV Sankt-Peterburge prezentovali portret Viktora Tsoya s Z-nashivkoy\u201d [A portrait of Viktor Tsoi with a Z-patch was unveiled in St. Petersburg], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ridus.ru\/v-sankt-peterburge-prezentovali-portret-viktora-coya-s-z-nashivkoj-383413.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Ridus<\/em><\/a> (June 22, 2022).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref15\" name=\"_ftn15\">[15]<\/a> Dmitrii Byko and Evgenii Balashov: \u201cYuriy Kasparyan: \u2018Pesnyu \u2018Peremen!\u2019 politiziroval Boris Yel\u2019tsin\u201d [Yuri Kasparyan: \u2018Boris Yeltsin politicized the song \u2018Change!\u2019\u2019], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maximonline.ru\/entertainment\/yurii-kasparyan-pesnyu-peremen-politiziroval-boris-elcin-id688839\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>MAXIM<\/em><\/a> (October 31, 2021); \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tgf42-azgtI&amp;source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&amp;embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fmeduza.io%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Viktor Tsoi on the song \u2018Peremen\u2019 and the film \u2018ASSA\u2019<\/a>\u201d (1988).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref16\" name=\"_ftn16\">[16]<\/a> Konstantin Bukhtatov: \u201cOtets Tsoya rasskazal, kak muzykant otnessya by k spetsoperatsii na Ukraine\u201d [Tsoi\u2019s Father Spoke about How the Musician Would Feel about the Special Operation in Ukraine], in: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.osnmedia.ru\/kultura\/otets-tsoya-rasskazal-kak-muzykant-otnessya-by-k-spetsoperatsii-na-ukraine\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Obshchestvennaya<\/em> <em>sluzhba<\/em> <em>novostey<\/em><\/a> (May 16, 2022).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref17\" name=\"_ftn17\">[17]<\/a> Marina Sovina: \u201cPoklonniki Pashi Tekhnika narisovali yego portret na stene Tsoya. Fanaty solista \u2018Kino\u2019 vozmutilis\u2019 i otvetili performansom\u201d [Pasha Tekhnik\u2019s Fans Painted His Portrait on Tsoi Wall. Fans of the Kino Singer were Outraged and Responded with a Performance]\u201d, in: <a href=\"https:\/\/lenta.ru\/news\/2025\/04\/13\/poklonniki-pashi-tehnika-narisovali-ego-portret-na-stene-tsoya-na-arbate-fanaty-solista-kino-vozmutilis-i-otvetili-performansom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Lenta.ru<\/em><\/a> (April 13, 2025).<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">VORGESCHLAGENE ZITIERWEISE: Alexandra Kolesnik: Is Viktor Tsoi Alive? On the Militarization of Soviet Rock Heritage in Contemporary Russia, in: ZfL Blog, 22.6.2026, [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2026\/06\/22\/alexandra-kolesnik-is-viktor-tsoi-alive-on-the-militarization-of-soviet-rock-heritage-in-contemporary-russia\">https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2026\/06\/22\/alexandra-kolesnik-is-viktor-tsoi-alive-on-the-militarization-of-soviet-rock-heritage-in-contemporary-russia<\/a>].<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">DOI: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13151\/zfl-blog\/20260622-01\"><span style=\"font-family: helvetica;\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13151\/zfl-blog\/20260622-01<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">\n{\n  \"@context\": \"http:\/\/schema.org\",\n  \"@type\": \"ScholarlyArticle\",\n  \"@id\": \"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.13151\/zfl-blog\/20260622-01\",\n  \"url\": \"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2026\/06\/22\/alexandra-kolesnik-is-viktor-tsoi-alive-on-the-militarization-of-soviet-rock-heritage-in-contemporary-russia\",\n  \"additionalType\": \"Blogpost\",\n  \"name\": \"Alexandra Kolesnik: Is Viktor Tsoi Alive? ON THE MILITARIZATION OF SOVIET ROCK HERITAGE IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA\",\n  \"author\": {\n    \"name\": \"Alexandra Kolesnik\",\n    \"givenName\": \"Alexandra\",\n    \"familyName\": \"Kolesnik\",\n    \"@type\": \"Person\",\n    \"@id\": \"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2690-1048\"\n  },\n  \"license\": \"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/3.0\/legalcode\",\n  \"inLanguage\": \"en\",\n  \"dateCreated\": \"2026-06-22\",\n  \"datePublished\": 2026,\n  \"schemaVersion\": \"http:\/\/datacite.org\/schema\/kernel-4\",\n  \"publisher\": {\n    \"@type\": \"Organization\",\n    \"@id\": \"https:\/\/ror.org\/00bpta863\",\n    \"name\": \"Leibniz-Zentrum f\u00fcr Literatur- und Kulturforschung\"\n  },\n  \"provider\": {\n    \"@type\": \"Organization\",\n    \"name\": \"datacite\"\n  }\n}\n<\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In contemporary Russia, the politics of memory are no longer limited to schoolbooks, museums, and official anniversaries. They also unfold through popular culture, urban space, and heritage. In recent years, the Russian state has increasingly treated the Soviet past as a source of political legitimacy, cultural authority, and patriotic consensus[1]. This has affected not only <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/2026\/06\/22\/alexandra-kolesnik-is-viktor-tsoi-alive-on-the-militarization-of-soviet-rock-heritage-in-contemporary-russia\/\">Weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[970,975,974,419,635,972,973,572,971,969],"class_list":["post-3963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein","tag-erinnerungskultur","tag-fankultur","tag-kulturelles-erbe","tag-politik","tag-populaerkultur","tag-populaermusik","tag-rockmusik","tag-russland","tag-stadtraum","tag-viktor-tsoi"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3963"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3989,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3963\/revisions\/3989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zflprojekte.de\/zfl-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}