“I ended up in this gray and uninteresting city…”: From Valery Pereleshin’s Shanghai letters to his mother, 1943–1946

Abstract

This publication presents wartime letters written in Shanghai by Russian émigré poet Valery Pereleshin to his mother in Harbin. Their family arrived to Harbin in 1920 with the wave of refugees from Russia. There, Pereleshin graduated, published his first books of poetry, and took monastic vows. When Harbin was occupied by the Japanese Army, he left it for the Russian Orthodox Mission in Beijing. In Beijing Pereleshin met his love and wrote many lyrical poems about Chinese nature. In 1943, Pereleshin was transferred to Shanghai. There he conducted church services at the Cathedral. All these years, his mother remained in Harbin. In his letters, Pereleshin tells his mother about difficult life of Russian emigrants in occupied Shanghai during Sino-Japanese War, about his difficult relationship with the Harbin monastic community, and about his friends. The main theme, passing almost through all of his letters, remained the subject of his poems. He continued writing. In Shanghai Pereleshin's Harbin friends met again. Many of them were former participants of the poetic association “Churaevka” in Harbin. In Shanghai they created a new literary association and named it “Pyatnitsa” (“Friday”). On Fridays, the poets gathered in the rebuilt garage to read and discuss their new poems. These works were included in the collection “Ostrov” (“Island”) published in Shanghai. Pereleshin and his mother left China for Brazil in 1953. In Brazil, Pereleshin released new books of poetry, wrote memoirs about Harbin and Shanghai, made translation, and was engaged in active correspondence.

Keywords

• letters
• emigration
• literature
• harbin poets
• literary association “churaevka”
• a collection of poems
• russian orthodox mission in beijing
• a poetmonk
• “russian shanghai” of the 1940s
• literary association “pyatnitsa”