Reconfiguring the Canon of Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry, 1991-2008

The cultural changes that accompanied the collapse of the Soviet Union created an opportunity to reassess Russian culture of the twentieth century. This project aims to explore how the century's literary culture has been reassessed in the context of institutional changes in Russian education, publishing, and scholarship. In particular, it will investigate ways in which this process of reassessment has affected the canon of twentieth-century Russian poetry from 1991 to the end of Vladimir Putin's second term as Russian President in 2008. It will explore issues of canonicity in relationship to the prominent role that continues to be ascribed to high literary culture as a focus for educated values and national identity, while also assessing the extent to which the very idea of a canon has become contested. The project will examine the relationship between changes to the canon and the search for a post-Soviet identity, at a time when Russian nationalism started to make itself more widely felt in the cultural, as well as in the political sphere.

The process of canon revision to be investigated came after several decades during which the Soviet state played a dominant role in determining the composition of the canon, prescribing certain themes and styles, controlling what could be published, and what was to be studied in schools and universities. By the early 1970s an underground culture of self-published books (samizdat) and 'informal' associations of writers and artists existed alongside officially sanctioned culture, giving rise to the development of a parallel underground canon, and the impression that the literary world was split between two mutually hostile entities. In fact, the boundaries between establishment and 'underground' were not absolute, and many writers existed on the margins, outside both establishment and 'underground' canons. Moreover, the state-authorized canon should be seen less as a monolith than as a work in progress, discontinuous rather than purely linear in its development. Starting with the destalinization process of the mid-1950s, the canon underwent gradual but significant revisions until the late 1980s when numerous works by émigré poets and poets suppressed by the state were published. The collapse of the Soviet Union gave new impetus to this process of revision.

This project will investigate what became of the canon following the breakdown of the institutions that shaped both official and 'underground' canons, the development of a free market, and the rapid expansion of poetry publications on the internet. It will examine how various canon-forming institutions, such as publishing, literary scholarship, and educational curricula combined to reshape contemporary Russian understanding of the twentieth-century poetic canon. It will assess the extent to which current views on the canon suggest that a broad consensus on its nature and composition has been reached, or whether such a consensus is even seen as desirable.

The emphasis will be on determining how the canon represented in official publications of the early- to mid-1980s has changed, exploring the mechanisms involved in canon revision, and examining critical responses to these changes. Key issues for discussion will be the changing position of figures and groups who have either been 'canonized' or 'de-canonized', including those thought to represent the heritage of 'classic' Soviet poetry and the variety and experimentation of the Silver Age; also to be considered will be those poets with no strong affiliation either to 'official' or 'unofficial' Soviet culture, who have tended to be excluded by perceptions of Russian twentieth-century literary history shaped by binary division rather than a continuum.

The beneficiaries of this research are likely to be members of the general public in the UK with an interest in Russian culture and in poetry. Other beneficiaries may include Russian listeners to the BBC Russian Service, students of literature at Russian HEIs, and both Russian- and English-speaking members of the public in the US and beyond. There is potential benefit for poetry publishers in the UK, and for publishers of Russian-language university textbooks.

The main area of impact is likely to be in the cultural sphere, as the project will offer a wide audience a number of outputs and events that will foster awareness and knowledge of twentieth-century Russian poetry, and enhance understanding of the complexities and richness to be found through engaging with a different culture.

To ensure that the project benefits those groups listed above, the project will seek to engage a wider audience through:
1. the project website, which will include short, user-friendly articles and/or podcasts on poets and their historical and cultural context;
2. presentations at poetry festivals, introducing audiences to less widely-known twentieth-century poets and to the broader findings of the project;
3. print publications, such as the arts journal Rossica, a translated and adapted version of either the co-authored or co-edited volume for Russian students, and a possible anthology of twentieth-century Russian poetry;
4. internet publications, in particular the bilingual (Russian/ English) US-based literary journal Storony sveta / Cardinal Points;
5. radio broadcasts, both in English and in Russian.

An important element in ensuring impact will be partnership with Academia Rossica, which aims to foster cultural relations between Russia and the West, and to promote Russian literature in the English-speaking world. This partnership will involve two routes to impact by participating in Academia Rossica's activities: a guest-edited issue of the journal Rossica, and a session at the annual Russian Literature Week.

A significant proportion of these activities are likely to have impact during the lifetime of the project, stimulating interest in and enjoyment of Russian culture. Publications such as the anthology and Russian textbook may not begin to benefit their intended audiences until after the project is finished.

All members of the project team are likely to be involved in impact activity: the ARF will play a major role in supporting impact through the website, with involvement from project students, and will also engage directly with the public at events and through print publications, alongside the PI and CI. The PI has some experience of both writing for and contributing to radio broadcasts for a wider non-academic public. Training and support will be made available to the project team, including media training from the University of Exeter Press Office, and support from the press officer for arts and humanities at Exeter.