The waltz of cultural layers, through which the Russian birch sprouted

The article is dedicated to the problem of unofficial symbolism, which served as a marker of Russian-Soviet identity, using the example of the birch as the Russian national tree. The old lyrical waltz “Berezka” (“Birch”) is taken as a starting point and occasion to answer questions about the reasons for the popularity of the state dance ensemble “Birch” (“Berezka”), founded in 1948, among Soviet audiences and about the genealogy of the image of the birch as a “Russian tree”. The tasks set are solved in several steps. First, the correspondence of the audience with the management of “Berezka” in the spring of 1962 is examined, then the role of the round dance “Berezka” and especially the old waltz of the same name in the concerts of the ensemble, in the feature film “Maiden Spring” (1960) and in the perception of the fans of the ensemble is revealed. The history of the music and lyrics of the waltz “Birch” is then illuminated. The bizarre combination of cultural phenomena and influences of different origins in the genealogy of the waltz makes it possible to speak of several different “cultural layers” from which the Russian tree and its successful reception by the Russian population “grew”. The most important of these “layers” were the peasant, Romantic and Soviet ones. The last and most recent one of these, in the search for an ideal image of the USSR for the imaginary West, consolidated the idea of the birch tree as a symbol of Russia in the years of late Stalinism.