Willem G. Weststeijn (Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Contrary to the nineteenth century, the first three decennia of the twentieth century and the 1970s and 1980s, contemporary Russian literature, the literature of the “nulevye gody”, cannot boast world-famous writers. The last two Russian authors who created themselves an international reputation, the Nobel Prize winners Solzhenicyn and Brodsky, have died, and there do not seem to be any successors of the same stature.
As regards Russian poetry, it is customary to call the time of Pushkin its Golden Age, the beginning of the twentieth century (Symbolism, Acmeism and Futurism) the Silver Age and, less customary, but certainly justified, the end of the twentieth century the Bronze Age, with Brodsky as its apex. The Bronze Age of Russian poetry more or less coincided with Postmodernism. This movement having come to an end at the close of the twentieth century, it is not easy to see what the main features are of the new and present cultural period, which, for want of a better name, we for the time being call Post-postmodernism. Russian poetry of this period is extremely variegated and ranges from daring experimentation to religiously inspired, formally traditional works. In the lecture I will tentatively discuss the main tendencies and the main authors in present-day Russian poetry.