Article

Name: The Russian China as a historical chronicle and a lyrical plot («Poem without a Subject» and «Two Stations» by V. Pereleshin)

Authors: E. Kapinos, E. Kulikova, I. Silantjev

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper discusses «Poem without a Subject» and the prosaic memoir «Two Stations» by V. Pereleshin. Valery Pereleshin was part of the junior branch of the Russian émigré community in Harbin. The value of his literary work lies in its attempt to preserve the poetic atmosphere of the Russian China and to compose a chronicle of its life. The first part of the article, captioned «‘Onegin’ in Chinese», discusses «Poem without a Subject» which was written in the second half of the 20th century using Pushkin's «Eugene Onegin» as a model and can be considered an «encyclopedia » of the Russian literary life in China in the 1920–1940s. An important structural feature of the poem is the inclusion of numerous Chinese borrowings in the Russian text. The Chinese borrowings (as well as borrowed vocabulary as a whole) do not just add an exotic flavor but also eliminate the linguistic monotony of the text and change its composition. The linguistic diversity of the poem is related to its lyrical composition and also, as demonstrated in the article, parallels the ekphrastic quality of the text which is capable of combining a multitude of images interconnected not by a plot but by verbal-phonetic links or lyrical emotion. The structural unity of the poem is preserved through the unity of the autobiographical lyrical ego while the author’s personal biography is described against the background of a martyrology of the 20th-century Russian poets who died in Russia, Harbin or as emigres in Europe. Thus, Pereleshin interprets the history of the Russian China both as a series of Chinese-stylized lyrical images and a series of historical names and facts that are elevated to a legendary stature through the poem’s lyrical force. The article also analyzes «Poem without a Subject» as part of the post-«Onegin» literary tradition. Finally, the climactic point of the poem describing the lyrical hero’s love affair with Liu Xin is discussed from the standpoint of the influence of M. Kuzmin’s homoerotic poetry. The motif of homoerotic love is related to the treatment of the flow of time in the poem. The eternal and inexhaustible renewal of generations is interrupted and yields to a different «formatting» of time that transfers existence from an actuality into a potentiality. The second part of the article analyzes a fragment from Pereleshin’s prosaic memoir «Two Stations».

Keywords: russian émigré community in the 1920–1940s china, v. pereleshin, k. baturin, v. mart, poem, novel in verse, «eugene onegin» by a. pushkin, «poem without a subject» by v. pereleshin, m. kuzmin, plot structure, complex motifs, foreign borrowings in poetic t

Bibliography:

Andersen L. Odna na mostu. Stikhotvoreniya. Vospominaniya. Pis’ma [One on the bridge. Poems. Memories. Letters]. Moscow, Russkiy put’, 2006. (Biblioteka-fond “Russkoe Zarubezh’e”).

Akhmatova A. “Ya ne takoy tebya kogda-to znala…”: Anna Akhmatova. Poema bez geroya. Proza o Poeme. Nabroski baletnogo libretto: materialy k tvorcheskoy istorii [“I am not as you once knew ...”: Anna Akhmatova. Poem without a hero. Prose about the Poem. Outline ballet libretto: materials for creative history]. St. Petersburg, Mir, 2009, 1488 p.

Bakich O. Valerii Pereleshin: The Life of a Silkworm. Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 2015, 391 p.

Baturin K. Luna [The Moon]. In: Vernut’sya v Rossiyu – stikhami… 200 poetov emigratsii: Antologiya. Sost., avt. predisl., komment. i biogr. svedeniy V. Kreyd [Return to Russia – in poems... 200 poets of emigration. V. Kreyd (Comp.)]. Moscow, Respublika, 1995.

Buzuev O. A. Tvorchestvo Valeriya Pereleshina: Monogr. [Creativity of Valery Pereleshin]. Komsomol’sk-na-Amu-re, KnAGPU, 2003, 122 p.

Chumakov Yu. N. Perspektiva stikha ili perspektiva syuzheta [Perspective of verse or perspective plot]. In: Pushkin. Tyuchev: Opyt immanentnykh rassmotreniy [Pushkin. Tyutchev: The experience of immanent considerations]. Moscow, LRC Publ. House, 2008, pp. 79–85.

Dobrodomov I. G., Pil’shchikov I. A. Leksika i frazeologiya “Evgeniya Onegina”: Germenevticheskie ocherki [Vocabulary and phraseology of “Eugene Onegin”: Hermeneutical essays]. Moscow, LRC Publ. House, 2008, 312 p.

Karlinskiy S. “Poema bez predmeta” Valeriya Pereleshina [“Poem without a subject” by Valeriy Pereleshin]. In: Pereleshin V. Poema bez predmeta. S. Karlinskiy (Ed.). Holyoke, New England Publ. Co, 1989, pp. 7–31.

Kirillova E. O. Dal’nevostochnaya gavan’ russkogo futurizma. Kn. 1: Modernistskie techeniya v literature Dal’nego Vostoka Rossii 1917–1922 gg. (Poeticheskie imena, ideynokhudozhestvennye iskaniya) [Far Eastern branch of Russian futurism. Book. 1. Modernist trends in the literature of the Far East of Russia 1917–1922. (Poetic names, ideological and artistic quest)]. Vladivostok, 2001, 634 p.

Kuzmin M. Izbrannye proizvedeniya [Selected works]. Leningrad, Khudozh. lit., 1990, 576 p.

Mart V., El’f G. Fain [Fain]. Vladivostok, Khay Shin Vey, 1919, 36 p.

Mariengof A. Tsiniki [Cynics]. Moscow, Sovremennik, 1990, 110 p.

Marfo-Mariinskaya obitel’ miloserdiya. 1909–2009: K 100-letiyu sozdaniya Obiteli [The Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy. 1909–2009]. Moscow, Izd. Glavnogo arhivnogo upravleniya Moskvy, Belyy gorod, 2009, 496 p.

Ocherki istorii knizhnoy ku’tury Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka. T. 3: 1917–1930 [Essays on the history of book culture in Siberia and the Far East. Vol. 3. 1917–1930]. A. L. Posadskov (Ed.). Novosibirsk, 2002, 534 p.

Pereleshin V. (Monah German). Dobryy uley: Vtoraya kn. stikhotvoreniy [Good beehive: the second book of poems]. Harbin: V. V. Plotnikov, 1939, 29, [2] p.

Pereleshin V. Zvezda nad morem: Tret’ya kn. stikhotvoreniy [Star above the sea: the third book of poems]. Harbin, 1941, 31 p.

Pereleshin V. Poema bez predmeta [“Poem without a subject”]. S. Karlinskiy (Ed.). Holyoke, New England Publ. Co, 1989, 411 p.

Pereleshin V. Yuzhnyy dom: Pyataya kn. stikhotvoreniy [Southern house: the fifth book of poems]. Munich, Author’s Publ., 1968, 47 p.