Počitaj staršich. Il rap russo in dialogo con i classici

In this contribution, I investigate the relationship between rap and the national and international literary tradition, particularly that of literary classics. This link has been highlighted, for instance, by Yandex and Beeline’s digital project Pochitai starshich, which systematically collects quotations from works of world literature in the texts of rappers, and by the series of podcasts produced by the radio station Serebryanyj Dozhd, which are included in the project, also entitled Pochitai starshich, itself a quotation from a famous song by Noize MC. Although it is well known that the classics appear with some frequency in rap lyrics, it is interesting to investigate what semantic processes govern the relationship between these songs and the literary reference, i.e. how intertextuality is used by artists. To this end, I propose a subdivision into four categories or types of intertextual dialogue between the rap text and the classic reference, offering examples taken from literature but also from the ‘classics’ of the music scene.