One of many wonderful rewards of learning a foreign language is the ability to read literary masterpieces in the original. It is especially true for poetry which was once defined as “something that is not translatable”. Russia is well known for its rich literary legacy, but while many great novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky can be read and appreciated in translation, it is not possible for poetic texts which remain largely unknown to foreign students of Russian because poetry loses so much in translation. The purpose of this book is to introduce all learners of Russian to the great treasures of Russian poetry in the original, starting with Alexander Pushkin and the poets of the Golden Age of Russian poetry in the nineteenth century, and moving chronologically into the twentieth century ending with the poets of the Silver Age.
All the poets selected for the anthology represent the classic canon of Russian poetry, well familiar to any Russian and taught in Russian schools as part of the school curriculum. The chosen poems reflect the essential poetic heritage of each poet, and the editor aimed to include a wide variety of texts suitable for learners of different levels of language proficiency.
The poems selected for each author are coded by difficulty of comprehension, starting with level (1) accessible to the beginners in the first year, level (2) better suited to intermediate students, and level (3) for advanced. The editor’s coding by level of difficulty remains an approximation – it is certainly possible to read a more complex poem earlier, it would just take more time and effort on the side of the reader.
There is a brief biographical sketch for each poet, allowing the reader to situate the poet in the Russian literary tradition. Each poem is accompanied by additional background information where appropriate. It also contains a glossary in the margins, a series of assignments focusing learners’ attention on new lexical items and grammar, stressing root recognition and morphology in order to facilitate vocabulary retention, and general questions in English for discussion. The anthology has a companion website, and complete audio files for each poem are also available for downloading through CD Baby.
The audio component of the anthology is especially valuable. Learning poems by heart has been shown to have many benefits for improving foreign language skills since by listening to the poem over and over and repeating it, the student is automatically learning the correct pronunciation, new vocabulary and correct structure. For that reason it is highly recommended that students of all levels try to memorize the poems as they read them. In my institution many foreign language departments organize annual spring poetry readings where the students recite the poems and win prizes for best performance.
While the anthology is designed to give an introduction to Russian poetry as it was developing through the centuries, and the poets and poems are listed chronologically, the poems can be read out of order, if the instructor wishes to focus on a particular author or a theme. Each poem contains a complete set of glossed items, so that it is not dependent on the previous reading. In “questions for discussion” in English there are frequent questions calling for comparisons between the poems on the same subject by different authors (e.g. compare “Portret” by Lermontov and “Ya vas lubil” by Pushkin; compare the winter landscape in Pushkin and in Tyutchev, etc.) to draw readers’ attention to the interconnectedness of the Russian literary tradition.
The anthology can be used by any learner of Russian, be it a current student or an independent learner who studied Russian and wishes to refresh his/her language skills. It can be a component of a language course or a literature course or used in a Russian for Heritage Learners class. In my courses, in addition to memorizing the poems, I assign students’ presentations on the author of their choice, so that they can do additional research in the target language, depending on their level, taking a more active role in their learning process. This works especially well in the heritage speakers’ courses where students are accustomed to memorizing poetry and want to share the poetic heritage of their parents and grandparents.
This book grew out of the editor’s firm conviction that reading poetry in the original is extremely rewarding and motivating for any learner of a foreign language. It is especially true for Russian where poetry has always been an integral part of Russian literary tradition and culture. I hope to inspire all readers to continue their study of Russian and share my pleasure of reading and love of poetry by providing a step-by-step guided introduction to the masterpieces of Russian poetry.