Tsvetaeva, (Parnok) and the ‘Unique-Traditional’ in Poetry, Life, and Translation

Please join us for a lecture by Diana Burgin (University of Massachusetts) as part of the Women and Resistance in Russia lecture series, convened by Professor Valentina Izmirlieva. The lecture will be followed by a signing of Professor Burgin’s new book, Five Hard Pieces: Translations and Readings of Five Long Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva (2018).

This event is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Sophia Parnok was a poet who resisted modernism, but her stylistically “traditional” poems express a unique point of view in Russian poetry. Conversely, Parnok’s one-time lover, Marina Tsvetaeva, staunchly resisted traditional poetic diction, yet each of her stylistically “unique” long poems basically tells the same time-worn lyrical story. This paradox is a central concern of Professor Diana Burgin’s recent book on Tsvetaeva’s long poems, Five Hard Pieces. In this talk, Burgin will discuss certain “unique-traditional” passages in these poems in order to show how some of them seem to deny a rather ordinary long-dead love affair while all of them resist conventional translation of their unique living words.

Diana Lewis Burgin is Professor of Russian at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has published widely on Russian 19th and 20th century literature, culture, and gender studies. She has also translated Russian poetry and prose, including, with Professor Katherine O’Connor, their widely acclaimed translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Burgin is internationally known for her books on the Russian 20th century poets Sophia Parnok and Marina Tsvetaeva, most recently, Five Hard Pieces. Translations & Readings of Five Long Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva.











When: Thu., Mar. 14, 2019 at 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Where: Columbia University
116th St. & Broadway
212-854-1754
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Please join us for a lecture by Diana Burgin (University of Massachusetts) as part of the Women and Resistance in Russia lecture series, convened by Professor Valentina Izmirlieva. The lecture will be followed by a signing of Professor Burgin’s new book, Five Hard Pieces: Translations and Readings of Five Long Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva (2018).

This event is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Sophia Parnok was a poet who resisted modernism, but her stylistically “traditional” poems express a unique point of view in Russian poetry. Conversely, Parnok’s one-time lover, Marina Tsvetaeva, staunchly resisted traditional poetic diction, yet each of her stylistically “unique” long poems basically tells the same time-worn lyrical story. This paradox is a central concern of Professor Diana Burgin’s recent book on Tsvetaeva’s long poems, Five Hard Pieces. In this talk, Burgin will discuss certain “unique-traditional” passages in these poems in order to show how some of them seem to deny a rather ordinary long-dead love affair while all of them resist conventional translation of their unique living words.

Diana Lewis Burgin is Professor of Russian at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She has published widely on Russian 19th and 20th century literature, culture, and gender studies. She has also translated Russian poetry and prose, including, with Professor Katherine O’Connor, their widely acclaimed translation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Burgin is internationally known for her books on the Russian 20th century poets Sophia Parnok and Marina Tsvetaeva, most recently, Five Hard Pieces. Translations & Readings of Five Long Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva.

Buy tickets/get more info now