Whither drifted “The Sailors of Marseilles” in 1917?

Abstract

The article analyzes the history of lesser-known literary union “The Sailors of Marseilles” that existed in Petrograd in 1917. Mikhail Kuzmin was the central figure and the most popular writer in this union. Other “sailors” were young poets who wanted to reach out the audience and to get the opportunity for publication. Until now, this union has not been studied in the context of Kuzmin’s oeuvre, literary reputation and author’s strategies. Some conclusions have been made in the process of our research. First of all, Kuzmin’s attitude to literary unions has been specified. As we can see, he considered literary groups as a commonwealth of independent authors exploiting shared writing technics. On the other hand, he did not approve ideological unification within such unions. Denying hierarchy in literary groups, Kuzmin strove to create a literary union on an equal footing. He emphasized the individuality of each “sailor” to create to make it real, but in fact, this union was just adopting Kuzmin’s techniques, i.e., it followed the authoritative model. It should be mentioned, that the organization of the group was also the Kuzmin’s endeavour to assert his literary reputation that was in decline during 1917. Moreover, the whole concept of “The Sailors of Marseilles” was carried in accordance with the nautical symbolics developed by Kuzmin in 1917. The sea was the sign of power and war, and the sailors were the image of fraternity capable to contradict this power. “The Sailors of Marseilles” in the final count can be considered as creative-life Kuzmin’s project.

Keywords

• mikhail kuzmin
• “the sailors of marseilles”
• literary union
• literary reputation
• yuri degen
• moisey bamdas