Nikolay
Zabolotsky
Nikolay Alexeyevich Zabolotsky -
(Russian: Никола́й Алексе́евич
Заболо́цкий; 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 near 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 university
there. 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 Lenin's NEP
(New Economic Policy) 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
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 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.
