Intertextual Connections in Nikolai Shchegolev’s Lyrical Poetry: Pasternak, Mayakovski, Futurists

Abstract

This article analyses the poetics of Nikolai Shchegolev’s works from the point of view of the influence of the futuristic and avant-garde tradition on the artistic world of his works. The research aims to identify semantic (themes and motifs) and asemantic aspects (such as the rhythmic structure and construction peculiarities of stanzas and rhymes) of Shchegolev’s poems. These aspects resonate with such phenomena in the poems that were associated in émigré circles with the revolution and Soviet Russia’s art. There is a tendency in scholarly literature to consider the works of poets and writers of the “Eastern branch” of emigration as part of the development of nineteenth-century classical literature and as a continuation of the traditions of symbolism and Acmeism. This approach is often associated with the special position of Harbin, the Russian city in China, which has become a kind of symbol of the past, as life there was based on the model of pre-revolutionary Russia. Nevertheless, some scholars (A. A. Zabiyako, G. V. Efendiyeva, E. O. Kirillova, E. Yu. Kulikova) note the reflection and development of Harbin poets’ avant-garde experience. Nikolai Shchegolev’s works, including these aspects, remain insufficiently explored. In this work, referring to historical and literary and structural and semiotic approaches and the principles of intertextual and poetic analysis, the author turns to the study of themes, motifs, and images, as well as rhythm and strophic structures in the poetry of Nikolai Shchegolev, which makes it possible to deepen and summarise ideas about the poetics of his works. When considering individual texts, the author concludes that some themes and motifs (such as urban themes, the images of a cinematograph and a mannequin which is coming back to life, and the associated theme of oscillation between the living and the dead), as well as experiments with rhythm, strophic division, and word coinage were accepted and understood by Shchegolev through the poetry of Vladimir Mayakovski, Boris Pasternak, and the futurists.