Nikolai Klyuev: Time and Text, Place and Poet PDF
Preview Nikolai Klyuev: Time and Text, Place and Poet
Nikolai Klyuev Northwestern University Press Studies in Russian Literature and Theory Series Editors Robert Belknap Caryl Emerson Gary Saul Morson William Mills Todd III Andrew Wachtel Nikolai Klyuev TIME ANd TExT, PLACE ANd PoET Michael Makin Northwestern University Press / Evanston, Illinois Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2010 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2010. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 978-0-8101-3483-6 The Library of Congress has cataloged the original, hardcover edition as follows: Makin, Michael. Nikolai Klyuev : time and text, place and poet / Michael Makin. p. cm. — (Studies in Russian literature and theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8101-2657-2 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Kl(iue˙v, Nikola˘ı Alekseevich. I. Title. II. Series: Studies in Russian literature and theory. PG3476.K544Z76 2010 891.713—dc22 2009040434 To my wife, Alina Contents Preface ix Note to the Reader xv Introduction 3 Chapter One Lives of the Poet: Klyuev’s Life, as Lived, Imagined, Re-created, and disputed 9 Chapter Two Text, Time, and Place: What, When, Where, How, and Why in Klyuev’s Poetics 73 Chapter Three Texts of Fraternity: Klyuev’s Early Collection Bratskie pesni, Transformation of the Lyric, Popular-Religious Motifs 155 Chapter Four Prose of Identity and the Identity of Prose: “Gagar’ya sud’bina”—Klyuev’s Prose, Questions of Genre, Problems of Autobiography 210 Chapter Five Poetry of destruction and the destruction of Poetry: Klyuev’s Late Lyric Poetry and the “Razrukha” Cycle 231 Chapter Six Mother Song: Pesn’ o Velikoi Materi and other Poemy 276 Conclusion 325 Notes 329 Selected Bibliography 359 Index of Works by Nikolai Klyuev 373 Subject Index 387 Preface I first became interested in Nikolai Klyuev while working on Marina Tsve- taeva. Searching for points of contrast and comparison for her folkloric poemy, I read Bazanov’s article on Klyuev’s narrative poem Pogorel’shchina, and then that work itself (both are discussed in the following pages). I was fascinated, at times mesmerized, by Klyuev’s language and by the story told in Pogorel’shchina. I was also intrigued to see that Bazanov had published in the Soviet Union a scholarly article on a poem which itself had not, at that time (1979), been published there. Reading through Sochineniya (the two- volume edition of Klyuev published in Munich in 1969, which was for many years the most complete and reliable edition of his poetry and prose) and then looking at the glasnost-era publications of the poet, I was even more fascinated by his poetry, by his story, and by the story of his texts (the three things which form the core of this book). I began to work on him, first casu- ally, and then more seriously. Reading Klyuev, even as provisionally and hes- itantly as I have often read him, is a serious challenge, perhaps a task for a lifetime (especially, it must be confessed, for a non-native speaker). My desk and the floor of my study have often been covered in piles of books more varied in character than is usually the case, even with the most demand- ing of Russian authors. Many dictionaries and atlases, books on and from the old Belief, guides to the folk arts of the Russian north, collections of medieval literature, architectural and artistic compendia, and encyclopedias of popular beliefs have demanded space in my study alongside philological volumes and collected works. This book is the result of that reading, of my fascination and my struggles with Nikolai Klyuev. It aims to look at Klyuev as both a “philo- logical” and a “culturological” (to use the Russian terms) phenomenon, and aspires to be of interest not only to readers of literature, but also to anyone engaged in the study of modern Russian culture. I hope that it will help to introduce Klyuev and his work to the English-speaking reader, while also using the example of the poet to discuss some of the most intriguing cultural problems and paradoxes of Russian culture, as they appeared in the later de- ix
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