The Concept of ‘Freedom’ in Contemporary Russian Poetry Cover Image

Концепт «свобода» в современной русской лирике
The Concept of ‘Freedom’ in Contemporary Russian Poetry

Author(s): Alexander Graf
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Russian Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: concept; freedom; contemporary Russian poetry

Summary/Abstract: The article surveys the concepts of ‘freedom’ (“svoboda”) in contemporary Russian poetry and points out that there is no single understanding of it but a whole complex of approaches. While the concept of “svoboda” seems to have been absorbed by the bigger and therefore less concrete one, “volya”, a certain evolution of the former notion can be observed as well. At the beginning of the 20th century ‘freedom’ was associated with a heroic attitude, during the Thaw it became a term for a collective domestic separation, after perestroika and glasnost the poets started to look for freedom as individuals, having nothing or very little in common with the society. Over the last years a new kind of inner emigration has been evolving, combined with a tendency towards ostentatious indifference to ‘traditional’ values.

  • Issue Year: 2014
  • Issue No: 7
  • Page Range: 193-200
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Russian