On the Poetics of Elena Å varc: Poets With and Without History

This essay deals with arguably the most original of contemporary Russian women poets, Elena Shvarts. Shvarts was born in 1948 in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad). Because of the religious connotations of her poetry and a style that shocked Soviet censors, Shvarts's poetry could not be published in Russia officially until 1989. Shvarts's poetry had been widely known before her first official publication in the Soviet Union; it had been published both abroad and in the “Samizdat”, bringing her early fame and a reputation as one of the most unusual writers of her generation. Since the late 1980s, Shvarts experienced a real surge of creativity; she traveled widely, participated in many literary readings and festivals in Europe and the US, and was the recipient of many literary awards. The focus of this essay is the specific ways in which Shvarts, in her poetry and prose writings, ties together Russian history, ecumenical mysticism, sectarianism, and pagan myth with autobiographical narrative. These characteristics of Shvarts's poetics are considered through the lens of the essay 'Poets With History and Poets Without History' by her major poetic predecessor, Marina Tsvetaeva.