Reception of Classical Text in the Poetry of Alexander Kushner, Ekaterina Polyanskaya

The study of the reception of classical texts in the works of contemporary poets allows us to identify intertextual relationships at various levels of intertextuality (quotations, allusions, and reminiscences that form a “text within a text”), paratextuality (titles and epigraphs), metatextuality, hypertextuality, and the “memory of the genre” (M.M. Bakhtin), as well as the poetic paradigm (images, plots, and motifs). In literary studies, the specifics of the reception of classical texts in contemporary Russian poetry have not been sufficiently explored. Research has identified the reception of antiquity in Russian classical and modern poetry (G.S. Knabe and P.A. Tsypileva), and the intertextual connections between classical Russian poetry and contemporary literature have been studied most thoroughly in the works of Alexander Pushkin (M.V. Zagidullina, L.A. Karpushkina and R.G. Kruglov). The relevance of the study is due to the fact that the study of the specifics of the interaction between the pretext of Russian classical poetry and modern Russian poetry can reveal significant trends in modern artistic thinking and the use of classical text to preserve traditional values in modern literature. A study of the poetry of contemporary Russian poets Alexander Kushner (b. 1936) and Ekaterina Polyanskaya (b. 1967), who belong to different generations of St. Petersburg poets, allows us to examine their work on the diachronic and synchronic levels, revealing similarities and differences in their treatment of classical texts. A.S. Kushner purposefully and consciously actualizes the tradition of Russian classical poetry, turning to the poetic texts of G.R. Derzhavin, A.S. Pushkin, L.N. Tolstoy, and the “living classic” I.A. Brodsky, which allows us to understand the theme of creativity (“Paradise is the place where Pushkin reads Tolstoy”), actualizes the odic and elegiac canons, and reflects on philosophical themes (on the transience of time, on the meaning of life, for example, in the poem “And the Butterflies Read Derzhavin’s Poems”).