Authors

Roberta Sala¹;  ¹ University of Turin, Italy

Discussion

My proposed paper examines Ry Nikonova’s early poetic production, aiming to frame her work within the context of post-war Soviet unofficial culture, while also underlining its deeply original character and genesis. To address this, I consider her samizdat collections of poems Polnoe sobranie stichotvorenii and Genetičeskie cepočki poezii, analyzing the texts written between the late 1950s and mid-1960s as laying the foundations for her poetics. The emotional and artistic isolation experienced by Nikonova during this period – not only from Soviet official culture but also from the major centers of the underground scene – significantly contributed to shaping her peripheral artistic gaze. The detailed biographical notes included in these collections frequently connect her inner states to images of specific animals or insects (especially fish, birds, flies, rats, and lions), which also recur in her verse. By assuming their perspectives, the author emphasizes the marginalized position of her work. At the same time, she seems to shape the visuo-phonetic language of her experimental poems partly drawing on the iconic and indexical communication systems of other-than-human subjects.

Given the creative role of animal symbolism in Nikonova’s verse, I propose a zoosemiotic methodological approach to analyze the selected texts. Relying primarily on the study of Mäekivi Nelly et al. (2016), I highlight the value of the other-than-human gaze as a means to decentralize narratives within her poems. Furthermore, despite her growing contacts with unofficial artists and the influence of ‘Russian’ historical avant-garde on her work, the imagery informing her spontaneous avant-garde aesthetics is preserved and developed in the following decades, marking the distinctive character of Nikonova’s poetry.