Свобода и отчаяние в поэзии Ирины Кнорринг

Abstract

The article looks at the themes of freedom and despair in Russian émigré literature, namely the poetry of Irina Knorring (1906–1943), who belonged to the junior generation of the Russian emigration’s first wave. The links between the concepts of despair and freedom in her texts were based both on her personal experience of a refugee, and on a perception typical for the entire generation. The interest Knorring’s contemporaries took in these motives is shown here as rooted in Russian literature since the days of Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and other Russian writers, who followed and adopted the traditions established by George Gordon Byron. We trace the link between the poetry of Irina Knorring (who never belonged to any poetic group) and that of the “Paris Note” — a poetic phenomenon shaped by Georgy Adamovich’s literary criticism and the poetic atmosphere set by “Roses”, a collection of poems by Georgy Ivanov. All of these shared the “diary” style of writing. To find elements of intonational affinity, we have analyzed two poems by Irina Knorring. One of them — “Byt’ strannikom, bez zhalob i bez stonov…” (“To be a wanderer and never plea or groan…”, 1928), is an example of the poet’s early work, and the other, “Shumnyi veter derev’ia lomit…” (“A stormy wind is felling trees...”, 1940) was written late in her life. This choice helps us trace the evolution of both poetic creativity and opinions of Irina Knorring. The main motives of her poetry were that of losing homeland, life in Russia and hopeless émigré existence. By analyzing these motives, we can have a better grasp of Irina Knorring’s poetic world and her place in the literature of Russian emigration.