“Petrovskoye-na-Oke” by Vyacheslav Ivanov: Space and Time

The article examines space-time framework of Vyacheslav Ivanov's poetic cycle “Petrovskoye-na-Oke” that includes two poems, “The Last Summer” and “To Maria Baltrušaitis' Album” (“The White Columns Behind the Meadow…”) dedicated, respectively, to the poet Jurgis Baltrušaitis and his wife Maria (1915, 1946–1949). The spatial position of the lyrical subject is of special interest. The poetic subject of the “Petrovskoye-na-Oke” topos sees a dramatic picture of the universe and discovers the dynamics of historical processes. This makes these poems by Ivanov a direct continuation of the metaphysical Russian poetry of the 18th century (e.g. Gavriil Derzhavin) as well as of the romantic Russian lyric poetry of the 19th century (Vassily Zhukovsy). Reminiscences from the Netherlandish painting tradition of the 15–17th centuries also come to mind. The topos of “Petrovskoye-na-Oke” poems, one of the lyric constants of Ivanov's poetry, invites a comparison with Mikhail Bakhtin's aesthetic theory of being outside.