The essay page has been updated: read the new work about the German poet Hölderlin
A new essay by Alexander Korotko
“From Hölderlin to Tsvetaeva”
Continues a series of poetry appeals to those whose creativity is close to his soul. Poets, musicians, artists are increasingly becoming his interlocutors – it does not matter that Mandelstam, Zabolotsky, Mozart, Modigliani, Gogol, Pushkin and many others lived and left the world in other epochs, the word reduced the distance and time, and here they are, next to, they say, they think, feel. It is surprising that, having revived on the pages of the essay, they all look very modern, as if they are with their interlocutor Alexander Korotko in the neighborhood and behave “on equal terms” – without pathos, arrogance, but without familiarity.
The essay refers to a genre where everything is not by the rules, the tone is set by the author: style, form, volume, techniques – this is how he himself will decide. Alexander Korotko completely lacks any assessment of the creativity of those about whom he writes – literary criticism has nothing to do with it. There is also no savoring of biographical facts and details. Alexander Korotko is interested in the scale of the individual in a philosophical, existential sense, and therefore his characters, while remaining alive and earthly, seem to be carved out of stone – who is made of marble, who is made of granite.
The presence and at the same time detachment of Hölderlin allows the author of the essay to conduct a dialogue with him and simultaneously follow how the master remains alone, and more recently he was surrounded by close and distant, admirers and epigones. The names flicker, German poetry intertwined with the Russian, but no one compares, for poetry is indivisible and has no nationality in the literal sense, like Holderlin. But why is his fate so tragic? The answer to this rhetorical question in fact is the very first phrase of the essay – “Poets do not live on the sunny side.”
