Observations on the Garden in Alexander Kushner’s Lyrics

Abstract

The article surveys how the European topos of the garden is reflected in Alexander Kushner’s poetry, in the form of both continuations and modifications. The analysis of the poet’s selected lyrical pieces reveals, on the one hand, a maintained relation with the tradition, while on the other, the emergence of certain new features – the latter connected with axiological transformations. The semiotic approach is applied, in which space is seen as an independent world-modelling category (V. N. Toporov and Yu. M. Lotman).

In Kushner’s poetic picture of the world, the garden is a valuable image; it is multifaceted and multifunctional. The new features and meanings result from an individual reception of the garden(s), i.e. a new type of relationship between the subject and the presented space. For the poet, the garden is one of the main protagonists of his urban (and dacha) landscape. The diversity of his poetic incarnations allows us to state that it is a place with an exceptional atmosphere; an oasis of poetic imagination; a metaphor of creative consciousness; a space of memories – personal, historical, cultural; a contact zone of two spaces – real and imaginary; a meeting place with his beloved and with the poets predecessors; a space where past and present, life and creativity are combined. Regardless of the themes, pathos, and intonation (lyrical, dramatic, ironic) in Kushner’s lyrics, the garden becomes an “entrance” to another space, the space of eternity.