Mikhail Kuzmin: Selected Readings

This book consists largely of previously untranslated work. Kuzmin was a master of many genres: poet, dramatist, writer of narrative prose, and influential literary manifestos. All these facets of Kuzmin's creativity are represented in this volume, which traces his development from a "decadent" to a key figure of Russia's artistic underground during the repression of the Soviet period. A cycle of poems, "Thrall" (1919), published here for the first time in English, provides the book with its dominant theme. "Thrall" is a leitmotif of Kuzmin's early love poetry, where it signifies a lover's impassioned submission. Kuzmin the playwright is represented here by his only full-length drama, The Death of Nero (1929); Kuzmin the prose writer by two short stories that exemplify contrasting periods of his evolution. The collection also contains two literary manifestos that played pivotal roles in the development of Russian letters.