Self-reflection of the creative process in Yegor Letov’s lyrics

The article is devoted to the topic of self-reflection in artistic creativity, which is relevant for modern literary criticism. The author of the article focuses on the self-reflection of the creative process and the “final product” of creativity. The material for the study are lyrical texts by Russian rock poet Yegor Letov. The specifics of his own work is not one of the central themes for this author. However, this theme is present in many of his works in the form of small fragments. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that Letov often uses epithets to characterize his own texts and words, thus emphasizing the intractability of language, the drama of the poet’s relationship with language which manifests itself in the inability to express the high truths of language in human poetic speech. Letov borrows a number of epithets indicating the insignificance and imperfection of his own words and songs from the ancient Russian hagiographic tradition of author’s self-deprecation. Based on this, we can also say that the lyrical subject is gradually learning to hear a Big word in the world - the Word of God, which has more perfect characteristics than the human word. At the same time, the creator receives a privilege compared to other people, because he has at least some gift to express his thoughts and feelings, to convey to people the meanings of Big words. Fixing attention on sometimes prosaic circumstances of work’s genesis, Letov points out unbreakable link between the personality of the author and the creative process that forms this personality and without which it cannot not exist in the full sense of the word.