Abstract:
After the fall of the USSR, a new wave of Russophone authors emigrated from the former Soviet republics. Many Russophone authors abroad have advocated that the phenomenon of the fourth emigration wave is structurally different from that of their émigré predecessors of the first and third waves. As pointed out by Yuri Slezkine, the Modern Age is indeed the age of ‘Mercurians’, professional border crossers with a mobile relation to time and space. This thesis seeks to find out if and how traces of mercurial sensitivity can be found in contemporary Russophone poetry. For this purpose, three authors of the Post-soviet emigration were chosen: Leningrad-born Polina Barskova, living in San Francisco; Moldovan-born Katia Kapovich, living in Cambridge (MA); and Ukrainian-born Elena Mikhailik, living in Sidney. Our analysis revolves around three thematic focuses: their relation to land, their relation to water, and how they combine in the poetic geography of an archipelago. We argue that the deep stratigraphy of times and spaces in their work creates a polyphony of cultures that can be well described in terms of rhizomes. In rhizomatic systems, elements do not come together to compose hierarchical structures but rather form an interplay of connections. This sparks creative and epistemological freedom that finds its most accurate description in terms of nomadic subjectivity and, in art, mercurial poetry.
