A doubting Avvakum Sergey Petrov (1911—1988)

Abstract

In her article devoted to the 2018 publication of selected works entitled Psalms and Fugues [Psalmy i fugi] by the poet and translator Sergey Petrov, the author analyzes the poet’s artistic method and worldview. Key to understanding his work is the figure of the protopope Avvakum, who exercises a preeminent influence on Petrov’s language and with whom he may identify himself. He appears to have inherited Avvakum’s taste for the archaic and unabated verbal self-flagellation, as well as the incessant urge to challenge common rules and accepted facts. According to the author, Petrov emerges as a doubting Avvakum of his time, when any thinking individual has nobody but God to put his faith in: that, and world art, which Petrov worshipped with his translations of skaldic verse. Along with the ‘Avvakum’ allusion, the author examines Petrov’s principal poetic methods, trying to explain the reasons for the unusual form and rather complex meaning of the poems composed by one of the most interesting yet unjustly obscure poets.