The Poetry and Poetics of Olga Sedakova
Origins, Philosophies, Points of Contention

Stephanie Sandler (Edited by), Maria Khotimsky (Edited by), Margarita Krimmel (Edited by), Oleg Novikov (Edited by)

9780299320102

Hardback, published 12 February 2019

376 pages, 6 black & white illustrations
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.735 kg

A comprehensive overview of Olga Sedakova's poetry and thought that will be an essential resource for anyone interested in this poet and, more broadly, in contemporary Russian culture."" - Barry Scherr, Dartmouth College

Olga Sedakova stands out among contemporary Russian poets for the integrity, erudition, intellectual force, and moral courage of her writing. After years of flourishing quietly in the late Soviet underground, she has increasingly brought her considered voice into public debates to speak out for freedom of belief and for those who have been treated unjustly. This volume, the first collection of scholarly essays to treat her work in English, assesses her contributions as a poet and as a thinker, presenting far-reaching accounts of broad themes and patterns of thought across her writings as well as close readings of individual texts.

Essayists from Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Italy, and the United States show how Sedakova has contributed to ongoing aesthetic and cultural debates. Like Sedakova's own work, the volume affirms the capacity of words to convey meaning and to change our understanding of life itself. The volume also includes dozens of elegant new translations of Sedakova's poems.

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on Transliteration and Sources
• Introduction
• Stephanie Sandler
• Ways of Seeing the Poet and Her Poems
• If This Is Not a Garden: Olga Sedakova and the Unfinished Work of Creation
• Benjamin Paloff
• The Poet and Darkness: The Politics of Artistic Form
• Ksenia Golubovich (translated from Russian by Philip Redko)
• Childhood and Vibrant Stasis in Olga Sedakova’
  s Poetry
• Emily R. Grosholz
• The Guest at the Door: The Poetry of Olga Sedakova
• Aleksandr Kutyrkin (translated from Russian by Bethany Braley)
• Constricted Freedom: On Dreams and Rhythms in the Poetry of Olga Sedakova
• Stephanie Sandler
• Theology, Philosophy, and Modes of Knowing
• Sedakova’
  s Book of Hours and the Devotional Lyric: Reading “
  Fifth Stanzas”
  
• Andrew Kahn
• The Art of Change: Adaptation and the Apophatic Tradition in Sedakova’
  s Chinese Journey
• Martha M. F. Kelly
• Disruption of Disruption: The Orthodox Christian Impulse in the Works of Nikolai Zabolotsky and Olga Sedakova
• Sarah Pratt
• The Topography of the Other World in Olga Sedakova’
  s Poetics
• Ketevan Megrelishvili (translated from Russian by Maria Vassileva)
• The Immanence of Transcendence: Poetic Reflections on the Mystical Aspects of Olga Sedakova’
  s Lyric Poetry
• Henrieke Stahl (translated from German by Philipp Penka)
• Contextual Readings: Languages, Cultures, Sources
• Stylized Folklore as a Recollection of Europe: Olga Sedakova’
  s Old Songs and Alexander Pushkin’
  s Songs of the Western Slavs
• Ilya Kukulin (translated from Russian by Ainsley Morse)
• The Poetic Anthropology of Olga Sedakova: In Dialogue with Sergei Averintsev and Boris Pasternak
• Vera Pozzi (translated from Italian by Gabriella A. Ferrari)
• The Semantic Vertical: Church Slavonic Heritage and Olga Sedakova’
  s Poetics of Translation
• Maria Khotimsky
• Olga Sedakova’
  s Journey through The Book of Changes
• Natalia Chernysh (translated from Russian by Sarah Vitali)
• Afterword
• On Olga Sedakova and Poetic Thinking
• David Bethea
• Chronology
• Notes on Contributors
• Index