This thesis examines the position of the most canonical of official Soviet poets, Vladimir Maiakovskii, in the post-Soviet Russian literary canon. Maiakovskii’s status in the USSR was unchallengeable due to Stalin’s endorsement of him in 1935 as ‘the best, most talented poet’ of the Soviet era. This work will assemble evidence from a range of post-1991 publications to show how Maiakovskii’s position has been affected by the wide-ranging rejection of writers strongly identified as part of official Soviet culture, and examine the extent to which he has nevertheless retained his canonical status. A central question for discussion is how the representation of Maiakovskii has changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I analyse three different socio-cultural fields, which each have the potential to shape the literary canon: school education, literary anthologies and the public media. It is apparent that while Maiakovskii retains his canonical position, his representation has not only changed, but it also remains fluid, and several different (often contrasting) trends of representing the poet exist side by side. In each case I review how post-Soviet representations differ from the Soviet image of the poet. Taking into account the abrupt changes which the Russian literary canon went through in the 1990s and the intended target audience for each case of Maiakovskii’s representation to be investigated, I outline the reasons for these multiple versions of the poet’s life and legacy and argue how this multiplicity became possible in the first place. This work is designed to aid those who wish to have a deeper understanding of the particular position of Vladimir Maiakovskii within the contemporary canon. It also seeks to contribute to the body of research analysing the development of the Russian literary canon in the post-Soviet period.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Classical reception, suppressed under Stalin, returned to Soviet poetry during the Thaw (c. 1953-63), and through the many political upheavals of the late twentieth century it has remained a prominent trend in contemporary Russian poetry. This thesis explores classical reception in the oeuvres of Elena Shvarts, Il’ia Kutik, and Polina Barskova, whose poetry spans from 1963 to the present. They form part of – and serve as case studies for – the wider trend of late- and post-Soviet poetic engagement with classical antiquity. This phenomenon has been studied in the cases of Thaw poets Iosif Brodskii and, to a lesser extent, Aleksandr Kushner, but investigations have not extended beyond these figures to the succeeding Stagnation and post-Soviet poets. Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova come from different generations and different poetic schools, and have very different poetic styles. They share a sustained and playful engagement with the literature and history of Ancient Greece and Rome, which is often in dialogue with earlier Russian receptions of classical antiquity. Their classical reception is frequently intended to ‘estrange’ Soviet/Russian contexts, thus making antiquity an ‘alter ego’ of Russia. This objective is facilitated – and inspired – by the Russian literary tradition. Since its inception Russian literature has set classical antiquity before itself as a model, imitating its literary forms and emulating its characters. This long-standing analogy between Russia and the classical world underpins Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova’s evocations of classical antiquity as Russia’s alter ego. The utility of the classical alter ego lies precisely in its alterity: as well as a vehicle for veiled dissidence, as with Aesopian speech, it can be a more extreme, or fun, or ideal reality. Inherent in Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova’s recourse to classical reception as alter ego is a desire to connect with Europe, from which Russians were palpably divided for much of the twentieth century – the Mandel’shtamian ‘yearning for world culture’. It stems also from their desire to connect with pre-Soviet (classically receptive) Russian literature. The thesis begins with a history of classical reception in Russian literature from Russia’s first contact with the classical world up to the present. Such a history is crucial to understanding contemporary poets’ classical reception, as so many of their references to classical antiquity are refracted through Russian intertexts. The chapters on Shvarts, Kutik, and Barskova examine the entire oeuvre (to date) of each poet, selecting key poems and themes for close analysis. This is conducted alongside the intertexts (quotations from classical texts are given in English only, except where the original language has demonstrably informed reception). As well as literary contexts, historical and personal contexts are considered. Interviews conducted by the author with both living poets (Kutik and Barskova) inform the analysis. This thesis contends that the pervasive classical reception evident in Russian poetry from 1953 to the present responds to the series of ontological crises Russia was precipitated into by the upheavals of the twentieth century. With the loosening of Socialist Realism’s control over literature after Stalin, Russian poets resume Russia’s poetic tradition of using classical antiquity as an alter ego, both to heighten portrayals of Russia, and to imagine another, alternate, Russia.

My thesis addresses two significant misrepresentations in western criticism and translation of Mayakovsky that have developed since his death in 1930: his diminished status as a Marxist poet; and his negative attitude towards everyday life (byt). Part One (‘Mayakovsky and Marxism') contests the consistent refusal in the west to acknowledge Mayakovsky as a Marxist poet and demonstrates instead, through a close examination of the specific terminology used in certain essays and poems by Mayakovsky in relation to that used by Karl Marx in Capital, not only that the poet is keenly engaged with and influenced by Marxist theory, but that he uses that theory explicitly to describe and imagine the production of ideal communist writing. Part Two (‘Mayakovsky and Byt') contests the widespread western characterisation of Mayakovsky as a misogynist whose hatred of domesticity in all its forms has long been accepted as fact. At the heart of this characterisation is the Russian concept of byt (everyday life), which has been systematically misunderstood and mistranslated in relation to Mayakovsky. Through a study of the complex cultural, political and social developments of this concept in early Soviet Russia, alongside the collation of my own translations of twenty-nine never-before-translated poems by Mayakovsky on the subject of byt, this part of the thesis presents a radical and feminist perspective of the poet as a vocal proponent of equality and revolution in everyday life. Both contestations represent the first sustained studies of their kind in English, and – in the case of Part Two in particular, which is the first of its kind in any language – constitute significant and challenging contributions to Mayakovsky scholarship.