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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

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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. This sudden of the artist undertaking a ‘battle for bad: Lanzmann is put on guard at crisis of identity reminds Medvedev his art’—which in our own time will the sound of the term “holocaust of the end of the “objectivist” poetic mean a battle for his position,” writes industry,” which causes the narrator school, which, contrary to its name, Medvedev in his “Communiqué.”6 to interrupt his own story and explain cannot provide an objective view of According to Gessen, “Medvedev’s in detail why he is not an anti-Semite. any thing or situation. announcement, generally ignored or Yet throughout the whole affair, Medvedev began as a confessional misunderstood at the time, appears the narrator is trying to prove that poet and Bukowski translator, but now to have signaled the return of Lanzmann is just like him and his by 2005 he had become a poet political engagement to the Russian friend and they are “like Lanzmann.” whose work made critics seriously literary scene.”7 This striving to portray Lanzmann as reconsider the aesthetic value of left Medvedev’s political-literary an ally pushes the limit, as Medvedev poetry.5 As Keith Gessen puts it: “[In theory was backed by poetry tries to decipher the hidden message 2005 Medvedev] announced that he and methodology, including of Lanzmann’s words and manner:

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He has just one moment left circles, which discuss philosophy, right to desert the frontline of our To die young. social issues, and discrimination. inexpressible, for surely there will Poetry itself was mainly allocated be those who will express it their But what did the fog of those eyes to the book series *kraft, printed way, thus denying our feelings Communicate? on kraft paper, with a notice on and thoughts, and, consequently. Vague sentence fragments, every book: “What you hold in your Existence.”11 That said, there is a lot A dry, unpleasant refusal? hands does not look like a ‘normal’ of self-irony in Osminkin’s poems, book, and this is due to the authors’ which are often sincerely serious • ambition to emphasize the material and self-ironic at the same time. aspect of the cultural process.” In a 2011 poem, Osminkin speaks “Hang in there, boys. Roman Osminkin’s two books, about a worker who wakes up and Be strong just one more time. Товарищ-вещь (Comrade-Thing) goes to work the same hour as the and Товарищ-слово (Comrade- poet goes to sleep. Could it be, then, Communists never surrender.”9 Word), show the evolution of one that the poet serves as guardian poet’s method. Osminkin’s verse of the sleeping worker? The poet *** deliberately sounds lighthearted, deliberates on this for a moment, often referencing folk and pop then suddenly says to himself: On December 4, 2011, Russian songs, and engaging rhyme and legislative elections were held. meter. Sometimes he deals in ah let’s be plain Putin’s United Russia easily won the buffoonery plain and simple: “I came this worker doesn’t exist majority, but there was evidence of in and Putin left / maybe it wasn’t you have imagined him to guard massive fraud. Many Russian citizens even him / although it seemed like his sleep felt that they had been deceived. Putin / I came in and he took off // because otherwise how can On December 10, the biggest rally and wherever I might go / Putin in you exonerate yourself since the fall of the Soviet Union a flash disappears / I just logged in of not sleeping at night was held in Moscow on Bolotnaya to Facebook / there’s Putin’s heel though there’s no one to exonerate Square; a parallel rally was held in St. on its way out.”10 At the same time, yourself to Petersburg, where activists unrolled the theoretical works in these since you’re no real use for the a banner with the slogan that would books serve as explanations for national economy quickly become famous: ВЫ НАС the poems and sound much more ДАЖЕ НЕ ПРЕДСТАВЛЯЕТЕ. The sophisticated and philosophical, *** phrase, coined by St. Petersburg referencing Marx, Althusser, poet Pavel Arseniev, is a clever pun Negri, and Benjamin. “When you One might argue that the narrative on two possible meanings: “You hold a position (prescribed by was the last aesthetic resort before don’t even imagine us” and “You your political beliefs), you can’t poetry plunged into the element of don’t even represent us” (i.e., as equivocate any longer and hide plain manifesto; for example, Galina parliamentarians). Translit entered behind aesthetic autonomy,” Rymbu’s most powerful, best-known, the spotlight. Osminkin writes. “We have no and finest poem:12 Founded in 2005 by Arseniev and friends, the almanac Translit features articles concerning actual problems of literature, literary theory, and art. The almanac and publishing Osminkin’s verse deliberately sounds lighthearted, house are, obviously, leftist; not often referencing folk and pop songs, and in the vulgar sense of the Russian Communist Party, but more in the engaging rhyme and meter. Sometimes he manner of French or American left deals in buffoonery plain and simple.

HARRIMAN | 55 ­­ and you say: “well, Bulgaria isn’t Russia, less poison and rot, here in old Russia, under the heel, under pressure, we have to bend over backward thinking up slow methods of struggle, clear political positions”

Rymbu’s poem goes on to enumerate weaknesses of those who could become allies in the struggle with the filthy and macabre regime; it fiercely speaks of the regime’s lies and atrocities, mingling them with images of sex, gore, and consumption. Yet the fire that propels the poem forward is strong enough to let Rymbu speak of the ecstatic visions of a clear, fire- cleansed future:

I see students, fire people marching, fire trembling, feeling, blind invincible and kind, fire I see you fire Galina Rymbu. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Brooks Platt love you fire knowledge rage emotion and fire for those who have occupied our reality prison and fire where all the city squares are I change at Trubnaya metro and “FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!” ours — fire see — fire thinking what’s next — fire I get off at the university and ...... other galaxies books science fire see — fire death to the anthropological I go down the escalator at Chistye while we were writing and screwing machine fire Prudy and see — fire while we were tortured by Diderot in the Kremlin with a skull when we fall at Begovaya, at loneliness in his hands fire Vykhino, while dealing with the dead body of I see Benjamin with a red flag and a we see — fire, fire, fire politics and burying the state’s cup of coffee in the Kremlin fire lamented carcass in heaven everyone rising from the camps boys and girls their eyes filled with Bulgarian students have occupied and blood Sofia University demanding the marching with us to the squares (to hell with ’68) government be dissolved, and into the institutes fire students in hats with pompons they say: “because we felt, we knew, for our grandfathers and great- walking silently next to me that our fellow citizens would grandfathers the forests and the and suddenly they start to shout: support us” wheat

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fields fire the way it makes a reader unable to Russian-language poets no longer for wine and cigarettes fire dislike or disregard it: tolerated being called Russian poets. for the possibility of a personal Ukrainian poet Anastasia Dmitruk’s stance fire When the most important news poem “We Will Never Be Brothers” for solidarity for weakness for comes from the courtroom, the went viral on the Internet.17 Ukrainian breaking the blockade fire whole culture becomes an agora. Russian-language poets produced for death to the consumer system Everyone’s attention is focused many notable poems on the war. for an end to media violence fire on gestures and formulae. The Boris Khersonsky, the renowned for our meetings real meetings of actor’s charisma and oratorical Odessa-based poet and psychiatrist, people alive speaking us fire talent are prized. The flamboyancy wrote his book Missa in tempore beyond alienation beyond limits of statement is the criterion of belli (published, significantly, by a and nations fire truth. The one who is the first to St. Petersburg–based publisher). get applause is right. . . . “The new Although Khersonsky’s allegiance This is not Rymbu’s only poetic social poetry” is a colossal fake, but to one side of the conflict is manifesto; see, for example, “Sex Is it didn’t emerge out of the blue. unconditional, he implies that there a Desert”13 or the seemingly more It emerged out of the dreams of is a place for complex feelings about composed White Bread, where the sociality. In an atomized society, the war. His book is mainly about the measured intonation meets the there always will be a demand for forced choice of identity and about central image of white bread, the food unity. In a society like this, you rage in the face of the rapid return of of the poor, a substance merely to always want to say “we,” and that the past: the annexation of Crimea is fill one’s bowels. This text somehow euphoric “we” has to have its own seen as an act completely in keeping makes the reader feel guilty, or, at voice. . . . An artist in the middle of with Russia’s Soviet character, where least, uneasy, and one could argue this field is absolutely invulnerable the Soviet monster arises zombie- that this is the same thing as making for criticism. It is indecent to like from its grave. Kharkiv-based the reader think. Gessen calls Rymbu’s question his or her creative Russian-language poet Anastasia poetry, “part confession, part social credibility. He will always have an Afanasyeva also wrote some striking commentary, part incantation.”14 indulgence for working in a hotspot poems about the war, such as this This “new social poetry,” however, of culture.16 one, reflecting Theodor Adorno’s led by the likes of Rymbu and thought about the impossibility of Medvedev, is not without its critics. *** writing poetry after Auschwitz: Some have criticized it for the very urge to politicize virtually everything, The annexation of Crimea and Is poetry possible after or to reduce everything to oppositions the war with Ukraine caused a Yasynuvata (if not in poetry itself, then in literary dramatic rift within the Russian Horlivka strategy).15 One of the most interesting literary world; bonds were broken Savur-Mohyla points was made by literary scholar and unspeakable things were said. Novoazovsk Aleksandr Zhitenyov, who in 2013 took Some poets emigrated; others took a After this kind of poetry to task precisely for firm pro-Russian stance. Ukrainian Krasnyi Luch Donetsk Luhansk After the division of people Between those who rest and those The annexation of Crimea is seen as an act who perish completely in keeping with Russia’s Soviet Those who starve and those who party character, where the Soviet monster arises zombie-like from its grave......

HARRIMAN | 57 ­­ Maria Stepanova. Photo by Mikhail Stepanov

Is poetry possible Many Russian poets, such as Finally, Maria Stepanova’s latest When history has woken up Tsvetkov or Elena Fanailova, felt the book, Spolia, consists of two long When its steps need to express their sense of shame fragmentary poems where the daily Rock every heart and guilt before Ukraine. In 2016, buzz is pierced by the absurdity of You can’t speak of anything else, Fanailova wrote a very personal war news and propaganda. Here But you can’t speak. poem summarizing her attitude the fabric of the folklore song, toward the Russian government Stepanova’s natural element, cannot As I write this that had gone to war with Ukraine. incorporate those piercing word Somewhere very near The poem condemns the willingly bombs, and it looks as if they drop Any possibilities are being unnamed man who personalizes and leave holes in the fabric: canceled out. this power (“I know by heart your wolfish habit / your yellow teeth a fascist is the mousiest faciest your hardliners your tanks”); sweetest Fanailova mixes propagandistic and mossiest and longest-shanked clichés with personal images of a but the air knows that none And yet poetry still childhood spent in southern Russia, of you and us is fascist close to Ukraine: makes things happen remove the threads from in the minds of the [I am] a lame duck, and agent the words, people who live, read of the let them be in their corner, Department of State, and the forest will call its about, and contribute a traitor to the Motherland, a heralds back to these events, damned symbolist and I shall not all die. and the Milky Way above my sometimes knowingly, grandmother’s hut These poems can be read as an sometimes not. by the middle course of the Don attempt to put together the pieces

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of a shattered world, an attempt to the Russian military involvement Lev Oborin (b. 1987) is a poet, translator, and coordinate “normal” politics and in Syria. Most certainly changes literary critic. He has two collections of poetry to cultural life; they chronicle this lie ahead; yet the vision is still his name, with more forthcoming. He has received the Znamya Award and the Tadeusz Różewicz attempt and bear witness to unclear. So perhaps it is the right Prize for translators. He works as an editor at its failure. moment to summarize the ways New Literary Observer Publishing House and and achievements of contemporary cocurates the Razlichie Prize for poetry. He has The war in Ukraine arguably came Russian political poetry, if only to also worked for the Russian edition of Rolling as the biggest shock for Russians conclude that Auden’s idea that Stone magazine. Among his translations of poetry are works by Robert Frost, Czesław Miłosz, John since the collapse of the Soviet poetry makes nothing happen is Ashbery, and Mary Jo Salter. His poems and Union. Three years later, society probably true in terms of its direct articles on contemporary Russian poetry have has sunk into a state of sluggish impact on historical events. And yet appeared in numerous Russian literary magazines. equilibrium—this likely accounts for poetry still makes things happen His poetry has been translated into English, the fact that virtually no significant in the minds of the people who Polish, German, and Latvian and has appeared poems written after 2014 concern live, read about, and contribute to in international magazines, including Poetry, Columbia, and International Poetry Review. such major events as the murder of these events, sometimes knowingly, In 2015, Oborin delivered a talk on contemporary opposition leader Boris Nemtsov or sometimes not. Russian poetry at the Harriman Institute.

1Danil Burygin, “Taktika uskol’zaniia: Kirill Korchagin o tom, kak poniat’ sovremennuiu poeziiu,” http://theoryandpractice.ru/posts/8736-modern- poetry. Accessed December 21, 2016. Unless credited otherwise, all translations from Russian are mine—L.O. 2 See D. Garner, “A Litany of Betrayals, Petty Yet Terrifying,” New York Times, March 20, 2013; L. McKeon, “New Emotion: On Kirill Medvedev,” Paris Review, April 8, 2013; D. Peak, “It’s No Good by Kirill Medvedev,” Rumpus, April 13, 2013; P. Missaghi, “In Review: It’s No Good by Kirill Medvedev,” Asymptote, April 21, 2013; M. Liu, “It’s No Good by Kirill Medvedev,” Independent, June 25, 2015. 3 My essay here is excerpted from a much longer survey of contemporary Russian political poetry. I intend to publish the full version in the near future. 4 Translated by Polina Barskova, in “Poetry after the Siege of Leningrad: Montage, Ekphrasis, Allegory,” (http://jacket2.org/article/poetry-after-siege- leningrad). See this article for details about the siege of Leningrad in contemporary Russian poetry. Accessed December 21, 2016. 5 For details on Medvedev’s background, see Marijeta Bozovic, “Poetry on the Front Line: Kirill Medvedev and a New Russian Poetic Avant-garde,” Arcade (http://arcade.stanford.edu/content/poetry-front-line-kirill-medvedev-and-new-russian-poetic-avant-garde). Accessed December 21, 2016. 6 Kirill Medvedev, “Communiqué,” translated by Keith Gessen, in Kirill Medvedev, It’s No Good (Brooklyn: Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012), 104. Furthermore, Medvedev announced that he had decided to quit writing altogether, but a few years later he began to publish his poetry again. 7 Keith Gessen, “New Russian Political Poets: Introduction,” n+1, no. 26 (Fall 2016), 108. 8 Medvedev, It’s No Good, 285. 9 Medvedev, “Live Long, Die Young,” translated by Keith Gessen and Michael Robbins, Poetry (December 2016), https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ poetrymagazine/poems/detail/91315. Accessed December 21, 2016. 10 Roman Osminkin, “I Came In and Putin Left,” translated by Jonathan Brooks Platt, in Not a Word about Politics! (New York: Cicada Press, 2016),131. The poem is not included in either of the *kraft collections, but illustrates the author’s method just as well. 11 Osminkin, “S kem vy, mastera kul’tury,” Tovarishch-slovo (St. Petersburg, Svobodnoe marksistskoe izdatel’stvo); Al’manakh, Translit (2013), 4. 12 Galina Rymbu, “Untitled,” translated by Jonathan Brooks Platt, n+1, no. 26 (Fall 2016), 111–17. 13 See http://www.thewhitereview.org/poetry/sex-is-a-desert/. 14 Gessen, “New Russian Political Poets,” 108. 15 See, for example, the debate between Pavel Arseniev and Igor Gulin concerning “protest poetry readings” in 2012 (http://os.colta.ru/literature/ events/details/37230). Accessed December 21, 2016. 16 See Aleksandr Zhitenev, “ Megafon kak orudie proizvodstva,” http://archives.colta.ru/docs/27338. Accessed December 21, 2016. 17 For details on Dmitruk’s poem, see V’iacheslav Iaremchuk, and Alina Zuikov’ska, “’Nikogda my ne budem brat’iami’: fenomen polytichnykh virshiv u konteksti ukrainsko-rosiys’koi informatsiinoi viiny,” Naukovi zapysky Instytutu politychnykh i etnonatsional’nykh doslidzhen’ im. I. F. Kurasa, no. 1 (2015), 163–78. 18 On Ukrainian poetry about the war, see: https://pionline.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/letters-from-ukraine/. Accessed December 21, 2016.

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