Authors’ names:
Zou Xin – Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Abstract:
Vladimir Kucheryavkin’s lyrical cycle “It’s a Thousand Li to Yangzhou” (written in the early 1990s) is an interesting manifestation of contemporary Russian poets’ creative interest in the cultures of the Far East (and specifically the Chinese culture), which until now has not been sufficiently appreciated and interpreted as such. In the cycle “It’s a Thousand Li to Yangzhou,” the author identifies both symbols that go back to classical Chinese poetry (e.g., the image of a butterfly) and details embodied in everyday life (clothes, games, strong drinks, etc.) and provides a detailed discussion of how the poet uses “Chinese” details, referring not to the real China, but to Russian life in the 1980–90s, Leningrad (or St. Petersburg), and, in particular, to the dramatic events of August, 1991. Leaning on their own Chinese perspective, the author suggests that, despite the obvious huge differences between China and Russia, the poet finds common traits between Petersburg and the two Chinese cities explicitly named in the cycle. Yangzhou, Kucherjavkin’s poetic double of Petersburg, is a rich city by the river, whose fate has often determined the fate of the country, and even the words about the “siege of Changzhou” in Kucherjavkin’s poems make the reader recall the siege of Leningrad during WWII. Thus, we conclude that the close and familiar (i.e., St. Petersburg, Russia) is portrayed by Kucheryavkin through the unfamiliar and distant (Yangzhou, Changzhou, China), and this semantic technique can be recognised as that which defines the poetics of the cycle. The cycle is characterised by a mixture of signs of different cultures and the juxtaposition of lexemes derived from different languages. “Chinese” details here not only point to things Russian, but are also mixed with signs of Antiquity (e.g., the names of Chinese deities may be present in a poem written in classical Greek hexameter). “Chinese” often means “rustic”, idyllic, simple and modest; such an understanding of Chinese may correspond to European perception of Chinese philosophy. Sometimes the stylistic grotesque gives the impression of a deliberate joke, and the author suggests that in Kucheryavkin’s cycle one can see, among other things, a humorous response to “The Chinese Journey,” written a little earlier (1986) by the Russian poet Olga Sedakova, who harmoniously combines “Chinese” and “European” and tries to depict the authentic China. The author concludes by outlining fundamental differences in usage and meaning of Chinese motifs and images in different modern poetic systems.
| Section | ARTISTIC TEXT AT THE INTERSECTION OF CULTURES |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2024-66-2-181-195 |
| Downloads | 183 |
| Key words | Vladimir Kucheryavkin; “It’s a Thousand Li to Yangzhou”; Оlga Sedakova; Russian poetry of the 1980s-1990s; reception of Chinese culture in Russia |