Аксиосфера «сортавальского цикла» Б. Ахмадулиной
AXIOSPHERE OF THE “SORTAVALA CYCLE” BY BELLA AKHMADULINA

Summary/Abstract: The article examines the axiological dominants of Bella Akhmadulina’s poems written in the summer of 1985 in Karelia, and proposes an approach of their analysis that takes into account the uniqueness of the poetess’s late work. The study specifically focuses on the author’s strategies in the area of expressing the system of values, which could be described as “poetics of silence”, when the values important to the lyrical heroine (ethical, aesthetic or religious) are not mentioned directly, but expressed metaphorically and periphrastically. The poetic devices that reveal the axiosphere of these poems to the reader include the use of poetic topoi and repetitions, indicating their special significance in the poet’s worldview. Among such topoi are the oppositions of one’s own and alien, top and bottom, light and darkness, the image of a garden (going back to the garden of Eden) and the image of the monastery island of Valaam, as well as names representing Russian and world culture – Derzhavin, Pushkin, Blok, Nabokov, Mendeleev, Vrubel, Ibsen, etc. The non-triviality of the poetic language complements and partly masks the value conservatism of Akhmadulina’s later poetry, which relies on the Christian canon and the tradition of Russian poetry of the XIX and early XX centuries. The stylistically clearly expressed principle of the complicated form helps the poetess return to the traditional values of Russian culture without being stereotypical and to balance locus communis with a high degree of the poetic text originality.

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