Pisateli-“derevenshchiki”: literatura i konservativnaia ideologiia 1970-kh godov. By Anna Razuvalova . Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2015. 616 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. RUB 494, hard bound.

Abstract

new spiritual era but as the prelude to far greater violence, and so, Landa argues, he was prepared to respond immediately to the October Revolution not as a catastrophe that ruined his previous messianic dreams, but as part of the journey towards salvation. Yet, as Landa points out, Voloshin's poems on the Red Terror in Crimea show that he could not always find ways of endowing sustained acts of brutality and degradation with redemptive significance, preferring to give a voice to the victims rather than seek a purpose in their killers' actions.The first part of the book illustrates clearly the characteristics which might make Voloshin an appealing figure for those hoping to construct a twenty-first-century identity for Russia which would emphasize continuity while enabling a cathartic acknowledgement of the "painful complexity" (163) of the Soviet past. Voloshin avoided taking sides; his poems, as Landa shows, were read, published, and admired by those on both sides of the Civil War, offering a vision of at least some hope for a Russian nation in the future. A particularly interesting aspect explored in Chapter 2 of Part One is Voloshin's role as a "poet of Russia." It examines his engagement with readers in the Civil War years, from whom he solicited comments, to whom he both recited his poetry and provided commentary on it at public lectures, and who circulated his work in ways that, Landa argues, anticipated samizdat. The public comes to the fore once more in Part Two of the book, which includes material taken from online discussions of the religious significance of Voloshin's poetry from a forum for Orthodox believers, showing that the poet's nonconformism appealed not just to the educated urban population, but also to more conservative-minded people in small towns and villages.The second part of the book, dealing as it does with very recent developments in contemporary culture, suggests a possible travel direction rather than a destination description. Its conclusion points to a sharp distinction between the Russian President's view of Crimea as Russia's own Holy Land, and Voloshin's view of it as a place that represents a dream of the "spiritually enlightened, multinational, and cosmopolitan Russia" (190). Landa's study is to be welcomed for its careful engagement with a poet who modelled such inclusiveness in his own life and writing.Pisateli-"derevenshchiki": literatura i konservativnaia ideologiia 1970-kh godov.