The Poetry and Poetics of Olga Sedakova: Origins, Philosophies, Points of Contention
edited by Stephanie Sandler, Maria Khotimsky, Margarita Krimmel and Oleg Novikov
University of Wisconsin Press, 2019 eISBN: 978-0-299-32013-3 | Cloth: 978-0-299-32010-2 Library of Congress Classification PG3486.E24Z8313 2019 Dewey Decimal Classification 891.7144
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Olga Sedakova stands out among contemporary Russian poets for the integrity, erudition, intellectual force, and moral courage of her writing. After years of flourishing quietly in the late Soviet underground, she has increasingly brought her considered voice into public debates to speak out for freedom of belief and for those who have been treated unjustly. This volume, the first collection of scholarly essays to treat her work in English, assesses her contributions as a poet and as a thinker, presenting far-reaching accounts of broad themes and patterns of thought across her writings as well as close readings of individual texts.
Essayists from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Italy, and the United States show how Sedakova has contributed to ongoing aesthetic and cultural debates. Like Sedakova's own work, the volume affirms the capacity of words to convey meaning and to change our understanding of life itself. The volume also includes dozens of elegant new translations of Sedakova's poems.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Stephanie Sandler is the Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Slavic Department at Harvard University. Maria Khotimsky is a senior lecturer and the coordinator of the Russian-language program at MIT. Margarita Krimmel has worked as principal editor for the website olgasedakova.com and on numerous books by Olga Sedakova. Oleg Novikov is a cofounder of the Foundation for Research in Logic and Philosophy in Moscow.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration and Sources
Introduction
Stephanie Sandler
Ways of Seeing the Poet and Her Poems
If This Is Not a Garden: Olga Sedakova and the Unfinished Work of Creation
Benjamin Paloff
The Poet and Darkness: The Politics of Artistic Form
Ksenia Golubovich (translated from Russian by Philip Redko)
Childhood and Vibrant Stasis in Olga Sedakova’s Poetry
Emily R. Grosholz
The Guest at the Door: The Poetry of Olga Sedakova
Aleksandr Kutyrkin (translated from Russian by Bethany Braley)
Constricted Freedom: On Dreams and Rhythms in the Poetry of Olga Sedakova
Stephanie Sandler
Theology, Philosophy, and Modes of Knowing
Sedakova’s Book of Hours and the Devotional Lyric: Reading “Fifth Stanzas”
Andrew Kahn
The Art of Change: Adaptation and the Apophatic Tradition in Sedakova’s Chinese Journey
Martha M. F. Kelly
Disruption of Disruption: The Orthodox Christian Impulse in the Works of Nikolai Zabolotsky and Olga Sedakova
Sarah Pratt
The Topography of the Other World in Olga Sedakova’s Poetics
Ketevan Megrelishvili (translated from Russian by Maria Vassileva)
The Immanence of Transcendence: Poetic Reflections on the Mystical Aspects of Olga Sedakova’s Lyric Poetry
Henrieke Stahl (translated from German by Philipp Penka)
Contextual Readings: Languages, Cultures, Sources
Stylized Folklore as a Recollection of Europe: Olga Sedakova’s Old Songs and Alexander Pushkin’s Songs of the Western Slavs
Ilya Kukulin (translated from Russian by Ainsley Morse)
The Poetic Anthropology of Olga Sedakova: In Dialogue with Sergei Averintsev and Boris Pasternak
Vera Pozzi (translated from Italian by Gabriella A. Ferrari)
The Semantic Vertical: Church Slavonic Heritage and Olga Sedakova’s Poetics of Translation
Maria Khotimsky
Olga Sedakova’s Journey through The Book of Changes
Natalia Chernysh (translated from Russian by Sarah Vitali)
Afterword
On Olga Sedakova and Poetic Thinking
David Bethea
Chronology
Notes on Contributors
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
The Poetry and Poetics of Olga Sedakova: Origins, Philosophies, Points of Contention
edited by Stephanie Sandler, Maria Khotimsky, Margarita Krimmel and Oleg Novikov
University of Wisconsin Press, 2019 eISBN: 978-0-299-32013-3 Cloth: 978-0-299-32010-2
Olga Sedakova stands out among contemporary Russian poets for the integrity, erudition, intellectual force, and moral courage of her writing. After years of flourishing quietly in the late Soviet underground, she has increasingly brought her considered voice into public debates to speak out for freedom of belief and for those who have been treated unjustly. This volume, the first collection of scholarly essays to treat her work in English, assesses her contributions as a poet and as a thinker, presenting far-reaching accounts of broad themes and patterns of thought across her writings as well as close readings of individual texts.
Essayists from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Italy, and the United States show how Sedakova has contributed to ongoing aesthetic and cultural debates. Like Sedakova's own work, the volume affirms the capacity of words to convey meaning and to change our understanding of life itself. The volume also includes dozens of elegant new translations of Sedakova's poems.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Stephanie Sandler is the Ernest E. Monrad Professor in the Slavic Department at Harvard University. Maria Khotimsky is a senior lecturer and the coordinator of the Russian-language program at MIT. Margarita Krimmel has worked as principal editor for the website olgasedakova.com and on numerous books by Olga Sedakova. Oleg Novikov is a cofounder of the Foundation for Research in Logic and Philosophy in Moscow.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration and Sources
Introduction
Stephanie Sandler
Ways of Seeing the Poet and Her Poems
If This Is Not a Garden: Olga Sedakova and the Unfinished Work of Creation
Benjamin Paloff
The Poet and Darkness: The Politics of Artistic Form
Ksenia Golubovich (translated from Russian by Philip Redko)
Childhood and Vibrant Stasis in Olga Sedakova’s Poetry
Emily R. Grosholz
The Guest at the Door: The Poetry of Olga Sedakova
Aleksandr Kutyrkin (translated from Russian by Bethany Braley)
Constricted Freedom: On Dreams and Rhythms in the Poetry of Olga Sedakova
Stephanie Sandler
Theology, Philosophy, and Modes of Knowing
Sedakova’s Book of Hours and the Devotional Lyric: Reading “Fifth Stanzas”
Andrew Kahn
The Art of Change: Adaptation and the Apophatic Tradition in Sedakova’s Chinese Journey
Martha M. F. Kelly
Disruption of Disruption: The Orthodox Christian Impulse in the Works of Nikolai Zabolotsky and Olga Sedakova
Sarah Pratt
The Topography of the Other World in Olga Sedakova’s Poetics
Ketevan Megrelishvili (translated from Russian by Maria Vassileva)
The Immanence of Transcendence: Poetic Reflections on the Mystical Aspects of Olga Sedakova’s Lyric Poetry
Henrieke Stahl (translated from German by Philipp Penka)
Contextual Readings: Languages, Cultures, Sources
Stylized Folklore as a Recollection of Europe: Olga Sedakova’s Old Songs and Alexander Pushkin’s Songs of the Western Slavs
Ilya Kukulin (translated from Russian by Ainsley Morse)
The Poetic Anthropology of Olga Sedakova: In Dialogue with Sergei Averintsev and Boris Pasternak
Vera Pozzi (translated from Italian by Gabriella A. Ferrari)
The Semantic Vertical: Church Slavonic Heritage and Olga Sedakova’s Poetics of Translation
Maria Khotimsky
Olga Sedakova’s Journey through The Book of Changes
Natalia Chernysh (translated from Russian by Sarah Vitali)
Afterword
On Olga Sedakova and Poetic Thinking
David Bethea
Chronology
Notes on Contributors
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE