Article

Name: Siberian Free Verse of the 1920s – 1930s: General and Special in a New Poetic Form

Authors: Yu. B. Orlitsky

Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section Siberian Writers and Siberia in the Russian Literature of the 20th Century

Abstract:

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, free verse (vers libre) begins an active penetration into Russian poetry, decisively moving from the category of a marginal poetic phenomenon into the most active forms of national verse. Since the end of the 1910s Russian free verse also appears in the thriving Siberian poetry. First of all, this occurs in the works of authors who work with verse in line with the main currents of the general Russian poetic tradition – relatively speaking, among the Siberian futurists, acmeists, and imagists. The article examines the process of the emergence of free verse (free verse) in the Siberian branch of Russian poetry in the first third of the twentieth century. Examples of early free verse from periodicals and books of the 1920s – 1930s, which were created in line with the all-Russian trends in the development of versification, are given. However, if we talk about the absolutely specific features of the Siberian free verse of the first third of the twentieth century, then this is, without a doubt, its use in translations and arrangements (including quite free ones) of the lyrics and epic of the peoples of Siberia. Publishing interlinear translations was common practice in those years. However, falling into the context of Russian literature, these interlinear translations were already perceived as poems, and precisely as written in free verse.

The most productive source of Siberian free poetry can be considered the so-called “self- laying”, author’s variations on the themes of which are published by Anton Sorokin, Vsevolod Ivanov, Leonid Martynov and Pavel Vasiliev.

Of particular interest are the Altai and Khakass “songs” of Ivan Eroshin, a significant part of which is also written in free verse. For the most part, these are small stylized lyric poems. His “Songs of Altai” is a rare example in world poetry of the reincarnation of a European poet into foreign characters – hunters, shepherds, even girls – on whose behalf most of the miniatures of the books “Blue Yurt” and “Songs of Altai” are written, performed by different types of verse. In total, from 1923 to the beginning of the 1950s, Eroshin wrote more than 40 vers libre, distinguished by the utmost laconicism combined with a bright “barbaric” imagery.

A special place among the stylists of folk poetry (including the folklore of the peoples of Siberia) in Soviet poetry of these years is occupied by the poet and playwright Andrei Globa. His cycle of 1922 “Kyrgyz Songs”, consisting of 17 poems, was written mainly in free verse. His collection “Songs of the Peoples of the USSR”, which has survived three editions, includes translations and stylizations of works of different genres, many of which are also written in free verse.

In addition, the paper examines the features of the use of free verse in translations and free transcriptions of the folklore of the peoples of Siberia, performed by V. Zazubrin, O. Cheremshanova, E. Tager.

Keywords: free verse (vers libre), folklore and quasi-folklore, A. Sorokin, Vs. Ivanov, P. Vasiliev, L. Martynov, I. Eroshin, O. Cheremshanova

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