The genre of miniature in poetry of Lee Yanling

The article reveals the peculiarities of the genre of miniature in poetry by Lee Yanling, a Chinese poet writing in the Russian language, a member of the Union of writers of Russia, Deputy Chairman of the Amur writers’ organization, the chevalier of the Russian Order of Friendship. The paper identifies the features of traditional Russian and Chinese poetry in his work, analyzes the place of miniatures in contemporary literature and the distinctive characteristics of Russian and Chinese miniatures. An attempt is made to analyze the genre specificity of Lee Yanling’s miniature. His poems are written in Russian but contain features of Chinese poetics. At an early stage of his work, Lee Yanling, who adhered to the native Chinese literary tradition, turned to the form of laconic lyrical philosophical poems of traditional Chinese miniatures ‘weixingshi’; but, despite this genre affiliation, his poetry cannot be considered exclusively ‘Chinese’. Lee Yanling engaged in translation of Poems in prose by Ivan Turgenev into the Russian language, which, in our opinion, also influenced his work in terms of refrains, rhythm, phonics and the strophe pattern. In addition, Lee Yanling uses traditional images (for example, the image of a birch tree), place names and derivatives thereof (for example, Amur), a two-part composition of the text typical of Russian miniatures, distich, which V. A. Zhukovsky used in his works, rhythmics, unexpected rhyming and graphic breaking of stanzas, as well as tropes and stylistic figures typical of Russian poems. The main themes in the works by Lee Yanling are: 1) international friendship between the Russians and Chinese in the border areas; 2) Russia and the Russians. His miniatures, like the author himself, are on the border between China and Russia, between Chinese and Russian miniatures, on the territory of the unique literature of the Amur region. Lee Yanling’s works organically combine the features of poetic traditions of both countries in a special cultural system. They cause a great interest of Russian scientists, poets, journalists, readers, and require further study.