“Oh, baionetta che dappertutto voli!”: per una lettura trockiana di “Stolbcy” di Nikolaj Zabolockij

Abstract

The article demonstrates the existence of a significant symbolic substrate related to Lev Trotskii and his sociocultural model in the 1926 collection of poems, Stolbtsy, by Nikolai Zabolotskii. A close analysis of Stolbtsy reveals keywords, slogans, direct quotations and idioms that belong to the ‘lexical web’ typical of the trotskian age of Soviet culture (1918-1928). This ‘lexical web’ allows us to easily recognize the influence of Trotskii in public as well as literary discourse, and we can see the impact in a wide range of texts. The article first outlines the functioning of the ‘lexical web’, analysing the main keywords and their corresponding semantic areas. We will then show how these elements appear in Stolbtsy, thus bringing to light the affinities between the polemical vein present in Zabolotskii’s poetry and the worldview of the Trotskiist opposition.

Keywords

• lev trotskii
• nikolai zabolotskii
• stolbtsy
• oberiu
• avant-garde