Review of Kikhney, L. (2017). Under the sign of acmeism: Collected articles. Moscow: Azbukovnik. 608 pages.

Abstract

The main goal of the collection is to define the specific character of Acmeism as a separate trend inside Russian Modernism. This specification is derived through a series of basic categories like space and time continuum, the philosophy of the written word, and poetic semantics, etc. The collection is divided into several sections. The first, a summary of the general theory about the subject, discusses the significance of Acmeism in the Silver Age semantic paradigm. The second section is devoted to O. Mandelstam’s poetry, and in particular his logos concept. The third centres on A. Akhmatova’s poetics, with particular attention to her world view. It also includes several papers on A Poem Without a Hero [Poema bez geroya]. The fourth section covers various aspects of works by acmeists N. Gumilyov, V. Narbut, and M. Zenkevich.