Article

Name: The Image of Zhuang Zhou and the Plot of the Parable of the Butterfly in the Poetry of Igor Burdonov

Authors: Leonid V. Dubakov

Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Shenzhen, China; A. S. Griboedov Moscow University, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section Chinese Plots in Russian Literature

Abstract:

The article examines how the modern poet Igor Burdonov engages with the image of the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou, the plot of the butterfly parable and, in general, the appeal to the treatise “Zhuang Tzu” in the socalled “Zhuang cycle” of poems. This cycle includes the poems “Reading ‘Zhuang Tzu’” (1986), “Reading Zhuang Tzu” (1988), “Philosopher of the Other World” (1990), “Butterfly of Zhuang Zhou” (2020), “Chinese Daughter” (2024) and “Bradbury and the Butterfly of Zhuang Zhou” (2025). The novelty of the study lies in its combined literary and religious studies approache, enabling a systematic analysis of the evolution of Taoist motifs in Burdonov’s work. Employing a comprehensive suite of analytical methods – intertextual, structural-semiotic, comparative-historical, motif, mythopoetic, linguistic-stylistic analysis, and, finally, the cultural-historical method – this work examines the author's poetic optics as they evolve: from a respectful examination of ancient texts to a playful repetition and the incorporation of Taoist motifs into a contemporary cultural context. Particular attention is paid to intertextual connections, revealing parallels with the poetry of Mikhail Lermontov, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Ray Bradbury’s story “A Sound of Thunder”. In his texts, Burdonov consistently masters the central categories of Taoism, including non-action (wu-wei), naturalness (zi ran), and transformation (hua). His early poems are dominated by respectful citation, the discovery of the relevance and fruitfulness of the Taoist cultural code, and the creation of a “Taoist landscape”. His later poems feature ironic recursion and a combinatorial enumeration of oneiric states in a cross-cultural environment. The image of Zhuang Zhou, from the 1980s to the 1920s, evolves from an ancient sage to an interlocutor and double, whose butterfly narrative is woven into a far-reaching cultural landscape. Burdonov creates poetry in which Taoist philosophy is not illustrated but becomes a way of thinking and experiencing. Burdonov’s poems from the “Zhuang cycle” represent an attempt to create a “Chinese text” for Russian literature, in which the Taoist tradition is not philologically reconstructed but poetically transformed.

Keywords: Igor Burdonov, Zhuangzi, parable of the butterfly, Taoism, “Chinese text” of Russian literature, recursion, intercultural dialogue

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