Topos “Karjala” in Bilingual Poetry by A. Volkov

Abstract

The observations on the specifics of the Karjala topos in the works of the bilingual poet A. Volkov is for the first time presented in the article. It has been proved that in his mind “Karjala” is associated with “native land”, the memory of ancestors, native language, Livvik’s happiness itself. In Russian and Karelian-language poems, the recreated spaces of “Karjala” are semantically similar. This locus is open (the center of the universe) and closed (the outskirts of Russia) at the same time. Like an archeologist, the author turns to the understanding of the mythological genealogy of “Karjala”, its ancestral homeland, proto-language, archetypes of national consciousness, totem signs. The authors found that the bilingual view of the universe allowed the poet to conceptualize in a new way and reveal, in the context of world history and culture, the main concepts in the life of Livvik Karelians: native dialect, memory of tradition, Karelian genotype, Livvik happiness. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the socalled semantic “transitions” from one ethnic picture of the world to another (remembering is transformed into crying, the genesis of the native language as a gift from God — into the path to God). In the poetic reconstruction of the Karjala topos by A. Volkov, the Karelian worldview is fundamental, the Russian language and literature is a guide in the formation of an original poetic tradition. For the first time, the original poems of A. Volkov and their auto-translations were introduced into scientific circulation.

Keywords

• russian-language poetry
• karelian poetry
• poetic bilingualism
• bilingual poet
• alexander volkov
• self-identification
• topos
• karjala
• livvik dialect of the karelian language