Article

Name: “From the Letters from the Road” by O. F. Bergholtz: the history of the text and the problem of the cycle

Authors: Natalya А. Prozorova

Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkinskij Dom) of the Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

The paper examines the long-term work of O. F. Bergholz on the cycle “From the Letters from the Road” first published in the collection “On the Stalingrad Land” (1953) under strict censorship. While working on the cycle, the poetess expanded the meaning and deepened the semantics. She completed the pivotal episodes of the lyrical heroine’s stay on the Volga-Don, “velikaya srtoyka” (the great construction site), introduced spatial images of the Volga-Don steppe that was hostile to man, and supplemented the text with substantive content (“watchtower”, “sentry bayonet”). The poetess changed the content, composition, and context of the cycle. It was published either as part of a collection or book sections or as a separate lyrical unity. Eventually, Bergholz transformed the travel cycle “From the Letters from the Road,” which predominantly focused on the Volga-Don theme, into the love cycle “Letters from the Road” (1965). This new cycle became a fully formed and cohesive collection with consistent content and structure. The central theme in “Letters from the Road” was that suffering caused by the situation in the Volga-Don land could not be separated from the protagonist’s experience, leading to a rift between her and her friend who “etoy zhestkoy zemli ne potrogal” (did not touch this hard land). The analysis of the lifetime publications of the cycle has revealed the incorrect reproduction of the cycle in posthumous editions (1983, 1989), emphasizing the importance of the author’s cyclization as a productive way of plot realization and communication with the reader.

Keywords: O. F. Bergholz, lyrical cycle, thematic selection, Volga-Don, transformation of meaning, contextual environment

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