How Mikhail Gorshenev Became a People’s Anarchist of the Russian Federation

The pot was born in Pikalevo – this is the Leningrad region; his own older brother Alexei led the rock group “Kukryniksy”. And Mikhail himself became the leader of the cult punk rock band King and Shut. He founded it in 1988 together with two classmates. Initially, the gang was called “Office”, later a second vocalist and lyricist, Andrey “Knyaz” Knyazev, joined it. Thus the legend was born.

It so happened that a young man without teeth, with a mohawk, forever young, forever drunk, absolutely insane in appearance, with a voice that is immediately memorable, suddenly became not just an idol of several generations, but also, in his own way, the brightest representative and everyday writer of that life that at a certain moment took possession of Russia and the entire post-Soviet space.

A few more years will pass, and Mikhail Gorshenev will be on a par with such iconic characters as Yegor Letov, Igor Talkov, Viktor Tsoi. Yes, someone like my statement may seem redundant, outrageous, but, excuse me, did everyone at one time accept Vladimir Vysotsky or Eduard Limonov? In no way am I comparing Pot with these people, no – I’m just talking about how the pantheon of heroes is formed, those who remain in history.

And it is no coincidence that together with Vysotsky I remember the writer Limonov. After all, Pot itself, that’s what is important, not only went beyond the musical genre, but also beyond the musical sphere as such. This is one of the secrets of his cult status. Gorshenev, like the heroes of his songs, appears at the same time as an epic hero and a unique storyteller who, no matter how it sounds now, managed to create his own universe and his own mythology. Yes, you may not take him seriously, but do you take Howard Lovecraft seriously? Did Edgar Allan Poe get his status right away? The question is in perception, time and how the sieve of history sifts people.

And personally, I have no surprise why the series “The King and the Jester” thundered. I am not talking about its quality, reliability now, there are many unpleasant questions, but it is pointless to deny its popularity. And in some places – well-deserved popularity. Moreover, it was this series that gave way to similar projects. Soon we will surely see a series about the leader of the Gaza Strip, Yuri Khoy. Well, about Yegor Letov someday – definitely. Tsoi, on the other hand, has long been “filmed” – though not very successfully.

I am not surprised that large Russian cities host exhibitions dedicated to the Korol i Shut group and Russian punk in general. Well, dozens of musicians and groups successfully ride around the country with the Gorshka repertoire. And over time, the popularity of “The King and the Jester” will grow. And not only in popular culture – with all sorts of biopics, serials, sagas – but also in intellectual circles.

Actually, the fact that Pot would end up in the pantheon became clear when Russia found out about his death. Then there was a feeling that not just a musician left, but a person who really meant a lot to thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. And his funeral turned into an endless send-off. Something similar was observed, although, of course, on a much larger scale, when Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain passed away. Not a single director or writer, and even more so a politician, has not been so mourned.

So Pot put a bullet in his biography. All in the mind: “A rock and roll star should die without a joke.” And Jim Morrison, and Ian Curtis, and John Lennon will easily confirm this. An old belly-bellied rock musician (and for some reason Russians are mostly belly-chested) looks tragicomic. You can, of course, turn into a respectable part of the establishment, like Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney, but you can also become a grumbling wreck, like Ozzy Osbourne. Few succeed in growing old in rock music; Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon) is one example.

Pot lived like a punk and died like a punk. But the trick is that for all his self-destruction, for all his bathing in entropy, he was surprisingly vital, ebullient, energetic. Because in itself was a phenomenon. Yes, his vocals were not perfect from a professional point of view – Sergey Penkin (I am now without irony, by the way) will do everything ten times better. But Gorshenev took individuality – not even charisma, no, I can’t stand this word, but selfishness. Nervous, sometimes aggressive, in some ways even insane, but he was his own, because he always remained sincere. This is actually an extremely rare quality for an artist.

I don’t want to idealize, but in the minds of many – not only fans – Pot was for the truth and spoke the truth. Was it really so? Hardly. But the image remained and entrenched. That is why, after Gorshenev’s death, they bring to light his interviews on any issue, and he really said a lot of things – about literature, about cinema, and about politics. In general, he had different concepts and ideas intertwined in his head, like headphone wires in his pocket. And he tried on himself either a villainous or a heroic role. By the way, the first album of The King and the Jester, which I bought with my own money, was called Heroes and Villains.

Yes, Mikhail Yuryevich Gorshenev is Mikhail Yuryevich, like Lermontov. And for all the paradoxical nature of this comparison, there is something in the Pot from the great Russian poet. Not only in terms of temperament, but also in terms of methods – too. Gorshenev, albeit in his narrow segment, solved the eternal “damned” Russian question. He was able to combine Western and Russian, “made one out of two great cultures,” as one song sang. He repeated what Turgenev, Limonov, Pushkin, Tsoi once succeeded. Take the best in the West, combine it with Russian and eventually create a truly Russian.

In the music, “King and the Jester” played high-quality punk in the style of the Ramones, Sex Pistols, Misfits, Dead Kennedys – in general, all those whose logos were on the Pot’s clothes. Visually, by the way, “The King and the Jester” took most of all, of course, from the Misfits with their aesthetics and ideas. But at the same time – this is largely the merit of the Prince, of course – their texts created their own universe, and each album became a kind of collection of stories, and texts were created and referred to Russian plots, fairy tales and archetypes. A special phenomenon, unlike anything, saturated with internal energy and energy. And it so happened that these moods coincided with the moods of many.

“Long way to the top if you want to play rock ‘n’ roll,” sang AC/DC. So the “King and the Jester”, which started from the St. Petersburg underground and reached the stadiums, existed for a quarter of a century. At first they were not taken seriously, and then they were accepted as a phenomenon. It turned out that it was possible to survive the 90s only by periodically moving away to other worlds, and this was what “The King and the Jester” gave. And he also accumulated the destructive energy of thousands, concentrated and dissipated the appetite for violence at concerts, so that in the end it turned out: we have adult children living in slavery to illusions, but always dreaming of only one thing – freedom.

So Mikhail “Pot” Gorshenev, despite all his addictions, was a truly free person. And, perhaps, this is the best definition of it.