“The Captain Doesn’t Count Alone…”: M. Kuzmin and “The Sailors of Marseilles”...

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the history of a short-lived Petrograd literary group “The Sailors of Marseilles” (spring-autumn, 1917) united around M. Kuzmin. Despite its ambitious plans announced in the press, and self-positioning as a literary and artistic society, the creative output of the group was quite modest. The degree of commitment within the group remains unclear – to what extent the members of the Second Workshop of poets were involved in the new literary project? The paper brings out certain coincidences and similarities in the texts of the poets – regular members of the group, highlights their connections with other artistic communities. A special attention is paid to the name of the group – “The Sailors of Marseilles”, and a new hypothesis about its origin is put forward. The paper comprises the first publication of a fragment of Marseillaise translated by M. Kuzmin in 1921.

Keywords

• literary societies and communities of petrograd
• second workshop of poets
• “the sailors of marseilles”
• e.a. baratynskii
• m.a. kuzmin
• yu.e. degen
• m.m. bamdas