Scrolls

by Nikolay Alekseyevich Zabolotsky

BRAND NEW FIRST EDITION Cape Editions dust jacket hardcover, free tracking number, clean NEW text, solid binding, NO remainders NOT EX-LIBRARY slight shelfwear / storage-wear; jacket is VERY GOOD WE SHIP FAST. Carefully packed and quickly sent. 201604461 Nikolai Zabolotsky was a much admired Russian poet of the first half of the 20th century. He came to prominence as a poet in the 1920s during the first decade of the Soviet era. He suffered persecution and exile during the period of Soviet purges and died shortly after his rehabilitation. "Scrolls" is Zabolotsky's first and most controversial collection of poems published in 1929. When Zabolotsky published “Scrolls,” the critics branded him a bizarre and dangerous individualist. Few of the poems had been published prior to this collection, so their appearance came as something of a surprise, if not a shock. What struck the reader of this book of twenty-two poems was the grotesque and fragmented vision of the Soviet urban scene as it existed in the Leningrad of the 1920s, and especially as it responded to the New Economic Policy. The poems treated the various aspects of urban life during this Communist version of liberalism and capitalism as it affronted the sensibilities of an impressionable youth from the provinces. What he depicted was a world that was suspended between satire and despair. Please choose Priority / Expedited shipping for faster delivery. (No shipping to Mexico, Brazil or Italy.)

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Hardcover

First published October 13, 1971

About the author

Nikolay Alexeyevich Zabolotsky - (Russian: Николай Алексеевич Заболоцкий; May 7, 1903 - October 14, 1958) a Russian poet, children's writer and translator. He was a Modernist and one of the founders of the Russian avant-garde absurdist group Oberiu.

Nikolay Alekseevich Zabolotsky was born on May 7, 1903 in Kizicheskaya sloboda (now part of the city of Kazan). His early life was spent in the towns of Sernur (now in the Republic of Mari El) and Urzhum (now in the Kirov Oblast). In 1920, Zabolotsky left his family and moved to Moscow, enrolling simultaneously in the departments of medicine and philology at the Moscow University. A year later, he moved to Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) and enrolled in the Pedagogical Institute of Saint Petersburg State University.

Zabolotsky had already begun to write poetry at this time. His formative period showed the influences of the Futurist works of Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velimir Khlebnikov, the lyrical poems of Alexander Blok and Sergei Esenin, and the art of Pavel Filonov and Marc Chagall. During this period, Zabolotsky also met his future wife, E.V. Klykova.

In 1928, Zabolotsky founded the avant-garde group Oberiu with Daniil Kharms and Alexander Vvedensky. The group's acronym stood for "The Association of Real Art" (in Russian, Объединение реального искусства). During this period, Zabolotsky began to be published. His first book of poetry, Columns (Столбцы, 1929), was a series of grotesque vignettes on the life that Vladimir Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) had created. It included the poem "The Signs of the Zodiac Fade" (Меркнут знаки зодиака), an absurdist lullaby that, 67 years later, in 1996, provided the words for a Russian pop hit. In 1937, Zabolotsky published his second book of poetry. This collection showed the subject matter of Zabolotsky's work moving from social concerns to elegies and nature poetry. This book is notable for its inclusion of pantheistic themes.

Amidst Joseph Stalin's increased censorship of the arts, Zabolotsky fell victim to the Soviet government's purges. In 1938, he was sent for five years to Siberia. This sentence was prolonged until the war was over. In 1944 after his appeal he was freed of guard, but still continued the sentence in exile in Karaganda. In Siberia he continued his creative work and was occupied with translation of The Tale of Igor's Campaign. This followed with his release in 1945. Upon his return to Moscow in 1946, Zabolotsky was restored as member of Union of Soviet Writers. He also translated several Georgian poets (including Shota Rustaveli's epic poem The Knight in the Panther's Skin, as well as more modern Georgian poets such as Vazha-Pshavela, Grigol Orbeliani, David Guramishvili) and traveled frequently to Georgia. Zabolotsky also resumed his work as an original poet. However, the literature of his post-exile years experienced drastic stylistic changes. His poetry began to take a more traditional, conservative form and was often compared to the work of Tyutchev.

The last few years of Zabolotsky's life were beset by illness. He suffered a debilitating heart attack and, from 1956 onward, spent much of his time in the town of Tarusa. A second heart attack claimed his life on October 14, 1958 in Moscow.