Forms of Protest in the Unofficial Moscow Youth Culture of 1982–1991

The last years of the Soviet Union were marked by a careful democratic political transformations that in some way influenced the Soviet youth. As in the previous years, in the Soviet Union, young people were involved in the Communist ideology with educational institutions, Komsomol, films and literature. However, in the 1980s, the years of Communist rituals (parades, assemblies, etc) finally lost to Soviet citizens its direct meaning, becoming a necessary formality. A significant portion of the Soviet youth of that time though, and continued to believe in the basic ideas of the Communist ideology, critical or at least skeptical of the state bureaucratic apparatus. Largely, the reason for this was the gradual integration of Western culture in Soviet life, expressed in the appearance of the nicknames, in tune with Western names, search for Western clothing, and most importantly – passion for Western rock music. Great value for Teens that time have acquired a samizdat – through underground magazines in rock theme they got the opportunity not only to learn about the latest musical events, but also to identify themselves with a certain community than the state. The theme of protest in informal youth culture of the 1980s is important because many rock musicians, writers, dissidents, artistic, and political activists (representatives of informal culture) in time and especially in recent years are popular and recognizable to different audiences (and primarily the youth). The chronological scope of the work includes nearly a decade from 1982 to 1991, the time of greatest development of informal youth protest movement. The novelty of the project is that it analyses (individually and collectively) as the difference of the protest forms within a single cultural trends of interest to the Soviet youth (in rock music, cinema, artistic performances, graffiti, choosing fashionable clothes) and hidden protest apolitical young people, expressed through signs, divorced from subcultural trends. The purpose of the study is to study the causes of the protest of the youth culture in the Soviet Union of the 1980-ies and to analyze its impact on the cultural character of post-Soviet space. To achieve this goal, you must perform the following tasks: 1. To form a source database; 2. To study the transformation period of stagnation to a period of adjustment, its political, economic and cultural implications for youth of the USSR; 3. Trace the path of formation of the counterculture, as a mass culture in the USSR of the 80s, highlighting every aspect; 4. To perform the special cases of protest activism and their relationship with the subsequent change of power in the country. The subject – forms of protest in the youth informal cultures of a specified period. The object of study is the Moscow and Leningrad youth culture 1982-1991 period.