Comments on Poetry in V. Shalamov’s Memoirs and Epistolary Legacy

Abstract

The article is focused at comments on poetry reflected in V. Shalamov’s memoirs and letters about purpose and essence of poetry, its moral mission, about the identity of a poet, etc. V. Shalamov speculated on these questions in his epistolary intercourse with B. Pasternak, A. Solzhenitsyn, I. Sirotinskaya, N. Mandelshtam, etc., in his memoir sketches (for example, «The 1920s», «My life is my several lives», «Moscow of the 1920s-1930s») and also in his literary and critical essays. Shalamov claims that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement of a personality, that a poet has to be an ethical sample for his contemporaries, and the essence of art is defined by the truth about the time which is expressed by an artist (as the truly talented person, in Shalamov’s opinion, is not capable to lie in his works). The article investigates Shalamov’s understanding of interrelation between life experience of an artist and his works: the essence of poetry does not lie in using some techniques or being skillful (though Shalamov did not deny the meaning of such categories), but it lies in reflecting the poet’s life experience. The only truthful source of creativity, as Shalamov believed, is the fate of an artist. The article concluded about specifics of a poet Shalamov’s creative process (in comparison with A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelshtam, A. Bely). Shalamov’s ideas, expressed in letters and memoirs of certain currents in lyrics of the 20^th century, in particular, about acmeism, are investigated: according to Shalamov, acmeism was not just the trend in Russian poetry, but it was original vital doctrine, a worldview system. The article offers the explanation of seemingly obvious ‘contradiction’ between Shalamov’s statements about moral mission of literature and his late declarations that he does not believe in art.