Russian stars in the German sky (Ivan Elagin’s poem “Stars” in the context of the collection “On the road from there”)

Among the most significant ideological, thematic and figuratively expressive dominants in Ivan Elagin’s lyrics are the following: the pitch-black horrors of World War II, the tragic loss of the motherland, the unbearable longing for it, with the traditional Russian “window with a large cross in the middle” seeming a capacious symbol of it to the poet, Shakespeare’s idea of the world as a “Hall of the Universe” under “The constellation of the Axe.” However, the most universal and concentrated expression of the poet’s artistic world is certainly the star motif, presented with exceptional abundance and variety in his lyrics. It fully manifested himself in the poet's very first collection “On the Way from there” (1953). The poem “Stars”, which occupies a central place in it, conceptually concentrated both the ideological and artistic constants of Elagin’s idiostyle. The poet masterfully combines in it the epic unfolding of the event plan with the associative principle of movement of the lyrical theme, which accompanies, or even organizes, the poetic discourse. In the end, the despairing lyrical subject acknowledges the catastrophic absence of the sky above his head, and consequently, the One who manifested in the world with a Christmas star. The existence of the Almighty Himself is also questioned: how could He allow Hell to open up on earth? These and related motifs are also supported in many other “starry” poems by Ivan Elagin in this collection: “Gorjat za oknami naprotiv...”, “Kak ruki - vlastiteli klavish...”, “Ljubeznaja serdcu osen’!..», «Tam nebo priblizilos’ k samoj zemle...”, “Golosa s Luny”, “Dnevnyh luchej osennee lit’e...”, “Tam zhe zvezdy barahtalis’ v ozere...”, “Sverkajut restorannye hleva...”, “Konchaetsja noch’ snegovaja...” and many others. In the end, the author comes to the conclusion: the starry sky motif, traditional for Russian poetry, acquires specific style-forming properties in Ivan Elagin’s work, inseparable from the motifs of nostalgia, abandonment, a sense of universal catastrophe and even in a certain sense of God-fighting.