Antinomianism and Organic of Life. Review on the Monograph “Poetry of V. Shalamov: Ideological and Figurative Constants and Artistic Genealogy (Modernist Aspect)” by D.V. Krotova

Abstract

The review provides an analytical assessment of the monograph of D.V. Krotova, dedicated to V.T. Shalamov. It demonstrates the large-scale nature of the approach, relevance, and deep scientific study of the topic. The review shows the methodology of the unity of synchrony and diachrony in the disclosure of the Shalamov phenomenon, reflected in the very structure of the work. So, if in the first part, a systematic analysis of the crucial motifs of the lyrics is proposed, then the second part examines the poet’s spiritual ties with his contemporaries, whose creative principles somehow found their refraction in the poetics of Shalamov. The main thread in the research is the idea of inheriting the traditions of modernist aesthetics of the Silver Age, especially acmeistic poetics. The reviewers also note the value of the principle of antinomianism, which reveals itself in considering the synthesis of multidirectional vectors of the embodiment of the motifs of nature, such as stone, light, and snowstorm. Antinomianism as a methodological aspect of literary analysis also appears while considering the category of tragic in Shalamov’s work: life in the poem appears as an unbearable ordeal, as a fatal dehumanization, but at the same time paradoxically coexists with faith, with a creative principle, with catharsis. The book presents the poetic creativity of V. Shalamov in his systemic synchronous-diachronic integrity and unity. Referring to documents, letters, notes, and memories makes the study multifaceted and scientifically convincing.

Keywords

• shalamov
• poetry
• aesthetics
• tradition
• motif
• methodology
• antinomianism.