In the Twenty-First Century

50 | HARRIMAN FEATURED IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY BY LEV OBORIN oetry can serve as a contradictory tendencies. One of political poetry in Russia has to some means of liberation them, which he called ‘policy,’ aims for degree inherited this defensive stance; and does not need to the collective unity of different people, now left activism and poetry have once be called “political” in and, hence, total control. The other, again appeared on stage and sparked order to do so. Political poetry, then, ‘politics’ as such, or ‘emancipation,’ domestic and international interest. requires some sort of definition or aims for equality for all, for granting a For instance, the fall 2016 issue of the clarification. In an interview the poet voice to those who lack one: the poor, influential U.S. magazine n+1 includes and literary critic Kirill Korchagin victims of oppression. The political a selection of new Russian political states, “We are used to thinking that emerges when these two tendencies poetry with a brief introduction by political poetry is all about satire on collide, and it is in the space between Keith Gessen. The featured poets the shortcomings of a political system. policy and politics that the new are Kirill Medvedev, Galina Rymbu, I think there is a more meaningful political poetry exists.” 1 Elena Kostyleva, Roman Osminkin, understanding.” Korchagin goes on Political poetry of the final Soviet and Keti Chukhrov, most of whom are to refer to the French philosopher decades was largely dedicated to grouped around Translit, the leading Jacques Rancière, who “defined escaping “policy”; politics was not publication for contemporary Russian politics as a clash between two even up for discussion. Contemporary left philosophy and poetry based in Lev Oborin. Photo courtesy of Stanislav Lvovsky HARRIMAN | 51 poets that the liberation of language was a political idea or act, but the boundaries of the possible widened greatly: for example, now for the first time in Russian history, poets could freely use swear words and openly talk about sex (e.g., Vera Pavlova and Yaroslav Mogutin). Contemporary politics and current events now became subjects fit for poetry: the poet and publisher Dmitry Kuzmin put out an anthology endorsing the liberal presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky (acknowledging the uselessness of the act at the very beginning); Soviet- nostalgic poets raged about Yeltsin and the democrats; Yunna Morits, Alexei Tsvetkov. Photo by Mark Polyakov once a fine lyric poet, wrote profane poems condemning NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia; and, of course, many poets were appalled by the war in Chechnya—Mikhail Sukhotin’s “Verses St. Petersburg. Some of the poets are neither were poets performing to on the First Chechen Campaign” still familiar to Western readers: Medvedev, stadiums full of fans, as had been shocks us with its blunt account of war perhaps the best-known Russian poet the case with Yevgeny Yevtushenko, crimes, torture, violence, and political of his generation, garnered critical for example. Instead readers were cynicism. On a lighter note, witty acclaim for his collection It’s No Good,2 devouring works from abroad and funny political satire emerged while Rymbu’s poetry has appeared that had been concealed from and would later become a significant on a number of prominent English- them—everything from Brodsky phenomenon (e.g., Dmitri Bykov). language literary websites in advance and Nabokov to Henry Miller and During the Putin years, the of the publication of her book White William S. Burroughs, not to mention state grew increasingly concerned Bread , translated by Jonathan Brooks literature suppressed in the USSR. with the image of the Soviet Platt (After Hours Ltd.). Owing to They had to learn to talk about sex past. Not, however, without a limitations of space, I am unable to take and crime, pop stars and millionaires, certain ambiguity: the Russian into account here the full range of the to struggle through waves of government officially welcomed poetics and politics of contemporary economic crisis and unemployment. home Solzhenitsyn and condemned Russian political poetry, but will focus This was not a good time for enjoying Stalin’s crimes, and yet state-run my essay on a handful of important poetry—and yet it turned out to TV denigrated the liberals for developments and poets.3 be a great time for poetry to truly “dismantling our great country.” diversify. Poets began to experience An integral part of this complex *** new languages, drawing upon the image is the Great Patriotic War, “uncensored poetry” of the past i.e., the war between the Soviet In the early 1990s, Russian poetry (and, of course, fully legitimizing it) Union and Nazi Germany, and the found itself no longer vital to the and other sources as well, including siege of Leningrad, which took nation’s cultural code. No one was rock music and the new political the lives of a million civilians. being jailed for writing poetry, but discourse. Perhaps it did not occur to Soviet poetry praised Leningrad’s 52 | HARRIMAN FEATURED heroism, yet the scope and depth Terrorist attacks were not; they were of the human tragedy remained new to post-Soviet Russia and had largely unacknowledged. In recent a profound impact on society and years, a number of important books culture. One of the finest poets of the and poems about the siege have 1970s and 1980s, Alexei Tsvetkov, had appeared, including those by Polina been absent from the poetry scene Barskova, Sergei Zavyalov, and for some seventeen years. “It was the Igor Vishnevetsky. In 2009, Vitaly third of september . ,” one of the Pukhanov wrote a poem that sparked first poems written after he broke his a raging fire on the Russian Internet: silence, takes as its subject the horror of the three-day Beslan school siege, Keith Gessen and Kirill In Leningrad, on Marat Street when 1,100 people were taken hostage Medvedev at the Harriman In 1943 and in the ensuing siege 330 were Institute (April 24, 2013) Somebody ate a bowl of soup. killed, almost half of them children. Thus the order of things was broken. It was the third of september they were treating our runny nose Two cars of militiamen emerged: with plague “ I am interested You shouldn’t eat! the servants of herod the king exclusively in You’ve broken the rules! were wanking their greedy stings We don’t eat meat here. they sodomized the whole country the position they did as they said of the artist . a sweaty slave served undertaking a a dish with children’s eyes Neither awake, nor dreaming ‘battle for his Can you be alive here? music ring louder art’—which in We will win approve of the beast’s Because we won’t eat! entertainment our own time will if there is heaven for someone mean a battle for At the end of time, i don’t believe in it anymore his position” Our flesh will turn into stone. i won’t go with the saints Our enemy will remember i agree to live in hell Our transfiguration.4 the blood has dried at the sunrise It is telling that critics who found in herod’s kingdom the poem to be blasphemous were it’s daybreak over the country shocked not only by the idea that children play on the grass this self-murderous heroism was all of them innocent everyone’s bestowed upon Leningrad as a kind ours of ultimate weapon, but also by i will betray and you will betray the meter of the poem, a trochaic tetrameter commonly used in Russian The grammatical ellipsis in the poetry for children. This was viewed poem marks the brusque intonation. as inappropriate fiddling with the The poem engages some of Tsvetkov’s sacred context. crucial motifs: death, the rejection of War and the Soviet experience God, ancient history. Among other were familiar ground for many poets. notable poems on Russian domestic HARRIMAN | 53 instructions to critics on how they should perform their work (“Ten Instructions to a Critic”). Despite the utter seriousness of his theoretical statements, in Medvedev’s poetry the narrator/ speaker often plays with changing identities or the forceful collision of theory and practice. More than once Medvedev reacts to current events by imagining extreme outcomes. For example, depicting a routine protest action, Medvedev suddenly turns it into a violent gun fight between protesters and OMON forces; afterward the typical intelligentsia- style political talk anecdotally resumes (“But the main thing is for there to be no revolution,” said the environmentalist Evgenia Chirikova, as we stood over the bloody troops Roman Osminkin. Photo by Vadim F. Lurie of the riot police, wondering what to do next”8). Medvedev’s poetic interests fit naturally into the left agenda, e.g., his stance on Israel and its ongoing terrorism is Kirill Medvedev’s “The was leaving the literary world. It was conflict with Palestine. One of End of the Ceasefire (The End of the an extension of global capitalism, he Medvedev’s latest works is the book- Objectivist School),” which opens with writes, and he wanted nothing more length rhymed poem Жить долго a description of an encounter in the to do with it. He renounced copyright умереть молодым (“Live Long, Die metro: The day after the expiration to all his works and published only Young”), describing his interview of the ceasefire with Chechens, a on the Internet or through other with well-known French filmmaker man sees the narrator on the metro, self-publishing mechanisms.” “I am Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah. mistakes him for a terrorist, panics, interested exclusively in the position The interview immediately goes and leaps out the doors.

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