Red Stars

David MacFadyen delves into influential and widely disseminated songs that had a profound social significance in the Soviet Union. He discusses each singer's life, showing what it was that made them famous while placing the differences in their careers and fame in the context of Soviet culture as a whole. MacFadyen's multi-layered study considers national identity, gender, and the development of individual celebrity in a socialist state. He also looks at whether it is possible for artists to achieve genuine self-expression in a public arena under continuous political scrutiny. Both bold and penetrating, MacFadyen reveals a part of the Soviet Union that, while touching millions of people, has remained almost completely unexamined.