Resisting the Weather: Dragomoshchenko's Revolution

The work of Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, one of the most prominent Russian poets of his generation, is, on the face of it, supremely apolitical. Compared to many of his peers, not to mention younger poets, he hardly ever spoke on political matters; his poetry is even less concerned with politics. And yet, there is every reason to believe that the politics of his poetics is nothing short of revolutionary. This follows directly from Dragomoshchenko's conviction that language cannot be appropriated and that any claim to language is laughable by definition as it always proceeds through “an idealistic repression of difference and desire in the name of law and equation” ('Tam. To. Togda', 1999). This conviction also underlies his own unique strategy of political resistance which he once described as “resisting the weather”. The article attempts to explicate the politics of Dragomoshchenko's poetry and the ethical consequences of his political strategy through a close reading of his poem 'Politiku' ('To a Statesman') and several other texts included in his last poetry collection Tavtologiia (Tautology).