Gogol Bordello

[Lily Alexander]

"Gogol Bordello" is actually a very interesting NY based rock group that 
works along the lines of bakhtinian or gogolean carnivalesque, making 
fun, quite wittingly, and tastefully, of the clichés of various cultures.

The diverse group integrated the musicians/artists who came from the 
former SU, Ukraine in particular, the sabras (Israeli born) from Israel, 
and the New York born  Americans of the Irish decent, who  have joined 
forces to produce a metaparody of a high quality. The leading musician 
defined his roots as the  Ukrainian cultural underground, and they are 
getting very good reviews in the context of the genre they chose. I 
first enjoyed the group having seen them  featured on the ABC Sunday 
Breakfast with the Arts. Although they are transcultural hooligans, they 
do deserve a respectable introduction by this respectable program. I 
have been trying to catch them in New York live ever since, but they are 
in demand and traveling all the time. I recommend.

This is a link if anyone is interested.
http://www.gogolbordello.com

As for Gogol's name in the movies, this reflects a trend when the media 
producers and TV writers, when need a Russian name, do not go any 
farther than familiar names form Russian literature, be it a name of a 
writer or character. They don't of course realize they deal with rare or 
"constructed" names, and this has been a very funny trend. The Law and 
Order and similar series have had terrible murderers and other scary 
barbaric looking criminals with Russian accent and the last names like 
Rostov or Zhivago. There are many other example of this kind.

Lily Alexander

Elizabeth M.Sheynzon wrote:

>Good point. Add to it "Gogol Bordello," a punk rock group. (And there is another one called "Taras
>Bulba.")
>
>
>
>Elizabeth M. Sheynzon, Ph.D.
>Northwestern University
>Slavic Languages and Literature
>e-sheynzon at northwestern. edu
>
>==============Original message text===============
>On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 12:20:13 am CST Prof Steven P Hill wrote:
>
>Dear colleagues:
>
>In popular American and British movies, Nikolai Vasil'evich's name has been applied to 
>some rather different people.
>
>1.  In over half a dozen of the best-selling "James Bond" series, 1977-92,  a character 
>called "General Anatol Gogol" is played by actor Walter Gotell.
>
>2. Back in 1935,  newly arrived in Hollywood, the Hungarian-German actor Peter Lorre 
>[ Laszlo Loewenstein ] starred in a prestigeous horror film, "Mad Love."  For this, his 
>U.S. debut, Lorre's character was a murderous mad doctor named "Gogol" !  Lorre 
>followed that role by playing Raskolnikov in the '35 U.S. film version of "Crime and 
>Punishment." (Edward Arnold was Porfirii.)
>
>I leave it to the counters of "web hits" to determine whether these much-discussed 
>films would have any noticeable effect on the Gogol statistics. 
>
>Best regards to all,
>Steven P Hill,
>University of Illinois.  
>
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