Гедонизм в поэзии и имидже Генриха Сапгира

Slavic Literatures (ранее - Russian Literature). 2024. Т. 150. С. 91–115.

Pavlovets M.

Genrikh Sapgir was an author of the “Lianozovo school” of Russian uncensored poetry. He held a dual position in the literature of his time, as he was a well-known official children’s writer, which provided his relatively good (for the USSR) standard of living, while simultaneously his whole “mature” period of poetry lay in the field of uncensored poetry, without crossing its borders into official poetry. In his personal life, however, Sapgir would often cross borders: in artistic circles his image was that of a hedonistic trouble-making dandy who loved feasts, women, and the bohemian lifestyle. This image did not fit within the frame of the common concept of the “illicit poet” due to Sapgir’s many acquaintances among official authors and his material wellbeing; however, it also challenged the conventions for official literature, because official artists’ personal behavior was constantly monitored by the party apparatus and labor unions. Hedonistic motifs played a very important role throughout his uncensored poetic oeuvre. It would be reasonable to assume that Sapgir’s behavior continued the traditions of “life creation” of the modernist period under the new sociocultural and political circumstances of the cultural underground in the late Soviet era.

Keywords: жизнетворчество, андеграунд, гедонизм, Soviet underground, неподцензурная поэзия, hedonism, Генрих Сапгир, uncensored Russian poetry, Lianosovo school, Лианозовская школа, Genrikh Sapgir, Life creation