Слово.ру: балтийский акцент (Feb 2024)
Vladimir Bibikhin: the connoisseur of poetry and the poet
Abstract
The publication of «Selected Records from 1965 to 1989» has exposed the reader to poetry of Vladimir Bibikhin’s poetry as a key to understanding the patterns of culture. In these records, Bibikhin discussed the formation of the canons of national poetry and its peculiarities. In his poetry, Bibikhin emulated the poetic style and essence of Russian poetry, surrounded by the aura of myth and replacing moralistic content with existential themes. These poems delved into the ethical-metaphysical question of how presence in existence is possible without arrogance or violation of the rights of others. Bibikhin reflected on the relationship between poetry and prose during the formation of national literatures. He insists on the non-conditionality of the distribution of forms of poetry and poetic expression, political construction as a source of the national language, and the role of bodily movements, such as walking, running, and swimming. The exploration of these movements, discovered during the implementation of a cultural and missionary national programme, gives rise to both stable forms of verse and new genre-thematic complexes. The Records demonstrate how poetry allowed the poet to unveil the underside of the myth of the poet, revealing the role of conceptualizations in the development of creative individuality and the associated rhythm. A comprehensive examination of Bibikhin's expertise in verse and his poetry addresses several related questions: how late Soviet independent philosophy initially interpreted cultural creativity, not predetermined but aimed at the formation of universal social organization; how hermeneutic efforts were directed towards metacritique of social rituals; and how composing verses helped explain the regularities of text interpretation in different periods, thus elucidating the specificity of pivotal epochs in culture as eras of problematizing this interpretation.
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