Sergey Vladimirovich Shnurov (; born 13 April 1973) is a Russian musician and songwriter, best known as ''Shnur'' (lit. cord), of the
ska
Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...
-
punk
Punk or punks may refer to:
Genres, subculture, and related aspects
* Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres
* Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...
band
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
which he formed in 1997. The group disbanded between 2008 and 2010, during which time Shnur formed Rubl with other members of Leningrad.
Three of Shnur's songs featured on the ''
Everything Is Illuminated
''Everything Is Illuminated'' is the first novel by the American writer Jonathan Safran Foer, published in 2002. It was adapted into a film of the same name starring Elijah Wood and Eugene Hütz in 2005.
The book's writing and structure rece ...
'' soundtrack: ''Звезда рок-н-ролла'' (Rock-n-Roll Star), ''Дикий мужчина'' (Wild Man), and ''Маленький мальчик'' (A Little Boy). Shnurov also composed music for many other movies, including the Russian cult film '' Bumer'' and its sequel.
Art critic Stanislav Zapalikov thinks that the main audience of Shnurov are clerks who need someone to channel their aggression. Most of the Shnur's songs excessively use obscene words and have a very simple composition, thus fulfilling this function. In 2016, Shnurov reported the highest income of all singers in Russia ($11 million). In 2017, he was on the cover of the Russian edition of ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...
''.
After the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...
, he appeared in a music video on
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
suggesting that to be a Russian was equivalent to having been a Jew in 1944 in
Germany during WWII
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. It is unclear if the text is to be understood as ironic criticism or support of Russians abroad lamenting purported anti-Russian sentiment. He also left his post as producer at the international Russian language channel
RTVI
RTVI is a global Russian-speaking multi-platform media, which includes a news website (about 4 million users per month) and other digital platforms (2.7 million subscribers): 6 YouTube channels, 2 Telegram channels and accounts in all major soc ...
, citing as a reason possible differences in opinion around the situation.
Political views
Shnurov speaks critically about the activities of
United Russia
The All-Russian Political Party United Russia (, ) is the Ruling party, ruling List of political parties in Russia, political party of Russia. As the largest party in the Russian Federation, it holds 325 (or 72.22%) of the 450 seats in the St ...
, Nashi, and other pro-Kremlin organizations. He also stated his lack of desire to meet with
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
, calling the belief that something can be agreed upon with the authorities "infantilism."
In September 2010, Shnurov released a video ridiculing musicians who defended the
Khimki Forest Save
Khimki Forest () is a forest near the Russian city of Moscow covering about 1000 hectares. It is part of the so-called "Green Belt" around Moscow. An $8 billion high speed road, the Moscow–Saint Petersburg motorway (M11), was proposed in ...
. The hero of the song claims that their activity is caused by the desire to increase ticket sales.
On 26 January 2011, he stated that he denies the existence of
civil society
Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.2012 presidential elections will not be fair, and that
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (, ; born 26 June 1963), sometimes known by his initials MBK, is an exiled Russian businessman, Russian oligarchs, oligarch, and Russian opposition, opposition activist, now residing in London. In 2003, Khodork ...
should be released from prison.
In February 2013, in response to a question from '' The New Times'' magazine, Shnurov spoke in support of homosexual teenagers: "There is neither a Greek nor a Jew. These words were not spoken by me, and these words are already 2000 years old. Has anything changed since then? There are people. Nothing else matters."
On 12 April 2013, Shnurov announced that he never intended and does not intend to engage in politics.
On 19 March 2015, Shnurov proposed to ban the sale of alcohol and drugs to persons without higher education.
Shnurov refrains from making statements about the political situation in Ukraine and explained his political position as follows:
This position is very simple: this too shall pass. This is not forever: and these people are not forever, and the conflict is not forever, all this s thought about.. If you pay attention to every such thing... I am 42 years old. I lived in a different country, with different money, with different values, and if I sincerely believed in all the bullshit that they told me about every time, I would have gone crazy. Why should I take what is said seriously now? I know I need to stay away from all this bullshit.
Shnurov opposes the
death penalty
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...
. He advocated the release of Belarusian political prisoners Valery Levaneuski and Alexander Vasiliyev.
Regarding profane language, which is often present in his work, he says the following:
The fact is that there is no profane language. There is the Russian language in all its volume. There is no need to highlight this profane language. Is this a separate dying or existing language? There is no profane language. There is a Russian language that includes the word " khuy". This is a Russian word, this is the Russian language. If we exclude it, it wouldn't quite be the Russian language. Or rather, language, but not in its full extent. That's all.
..nd in general, spoken Russian is very different from the public language. And the whole phenomenon of the success of the Leningrad group is that the presence of profanity sharply reduces the distance between the artist and the viewer. We are literally transported to a bathhouse, where man is brother to man. And you may no longer be quite an artist, because an artist is a creature practically close to the Presidential Administration; that is, it must speak in purely literary language, without using those words that, of course, everyone uses. It's as if the artist came down from heaven.
This is the legacy of the Romantic era, which we have not yet recovered from. And in Russia we still live in some kind of era, as I call it, of the Turkish Baroque. Where a baluster is high art, but some modern art and a piece of wood is no longer high art. Not art, not culture, has nothing to do with culture in the broad sense. Profanity has no right to even enter there, because the one who swears is, as it were, uncultured. It is taken outside the brackets of the cultural process. It is generally accepted that all this is not culture, although in a broad sense, of course, it is culture. What else is this?
On his
Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
page, Shnurov publishes satirical poems on socio-political topics, commenting on current news.
On 20 February 2020, Shnurov joined the
Party of Growth
Party of Growth (, ) was a liberal-conservative political party in Russia which had representatives in several local legislatures. Created in March 2016 on the basis of the Right Cause party, the party's main policy stances are liberal free marke ...
and became the 36th member of the St. Petersburg branch of the party. "It seems to me that I will be useful to you - at least I will bring bright colors, I will call things by their proper names. It will obviously be more fun with me," said Shnurov, receiving his party card.
In March 2020, on the air of the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station, he hesitated to answer the question " Is Crimea ours?", and after thinking about it, he said, "We’ll wait and see." This controversial response led to criticism of Shnurov.
On 19 March 2020, the chairman of the Party of Growth,
Boris Titov
Boris Yuryevich Titov (; born 24 December 1960) is a Russian politician and businessman serving as the presidential commissioner for entrepreneurs' rights since 2012. He has led the Party of Growth, previously known as Right Cause, since Febru ...
, announced that Shnurov would be nominated by the party for by-elections to the
Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg
The Legislative Assembly of Saint Petersburg () is the regional parliaments of Russia, regional parliament of Saint Petersburg, a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (federal cities of Russia, federal city) of Russia. It was established ...
on 7 June 2020. At the party congress on 7 July, he was elected one of the co-chairs of the Party of Growth. On 16 July, Boris Titov said that Shnurov had decided to run for the
State Duma
The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly (Russia), Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council (Russia), Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of Russia, Constitution of t ...
These are the times when you have to choose. Fuck you. My right: I want, I choose, I don’t want, I don’t choose. They bring you a glass of vodka and a glass of whiskey, but you want wine. I don't want to choose from this set of yours. This is a false choice.
Shnurov also spoke about the cancellation of performances by artists who condemned the invasion, and the ban on referring to the events in Ukraine as a war:
Banning words is the stupidest thing that can happen. If you don't have words to explain reality, you become mute.
A ban is in any case a sign of powerlessness. Political technology must have soft power. You have to win in rhetoric, you have to win in argument. If we ban the word "brunette", will everyone become blondes? No.
I believe that it is impossible to cancel concerts, to advise what to say to them. There should always be an opinion that you can argue with.
See also
*
Leningrad (band)
Leningrad (), also known as Gruppirovka Leningrad () and Bandformirovanie Leningrad (), is a popular Russian Rock music, rock band from Saint Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), led by Sergei Shnurov, Sergey "Shnur" Shnurov.
Composed of 14 members, ...