In the current political situation when Russia is trying to abandon the European roots of its culture, it seems especially relevant to recall them. This article focuses on one example of cultural transfer: it analyzes the use of the name Lorelei (Russian Loreleja) in Russian poetry. The presented material does not claim to be complete: the main task is to show in which types of contexts this name occurs in Russian poetry and what functions it fulfills. We will consider three main groups of poems: translations, original poems with motifs of German authors and original poems without explicitly borrowed motifs. 

1. Translations

The name of Lorelei enters Russian poetry through translations of Heinrich Heine’s famous poem Die Lore-Ley („Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten...“, 1824). The history of Russian translations of Heine’s poem has been studied in sufficient detail. Especially valuable are the works of Jakov Gordon. [1] According to the researcher, [2] the Heine poem was first translated into Russian in 1839 by Karolina Pavlova, a Russian poetess and translator, the daughter of a Russified German, the hostess of one of the most famous literary salons in Moscow in the 1840s. Pavlova’s translation was published in the major Russian literary journal Otečestvennye Zapiski [Annals of the Fatherland]. To recognize this translation as successful is hindered primarily by “the meter of the verse, which contradicts the content and is absolutely far from the Heine metrics, giving the narrative a bravura and dashing mood, opposite to the whole tone of the original”. [3] The following note was placed by the text, apparently necessary for readers who were encountering an unknown name for the first time: “There is a popular rumor on the banks of the Rhine that on one rock, at the foot of which there are dangerous pitfalls, a lovely woman sits every evening; she combs her long hair and sings such a delightful song that all those sailing on the river are enchanted by its sounds, cannot take their eyes off the enchantress, and thus, immersed in contemplation of her, hit the pitfalls and perish. The people call this singer Loreleja.” [4] Soon after Pavlova’s translation, others began to appear, among them Lev Mej’s translation (1859) which is considered to be the best in the 19th century. [5]

Russian readers of the mid-19th century learned about Lorelei from translations of Heine’s poem – other German sources were unknown to them for a long time. It was only in 1875 that Clemens Brentano’s ballad Zu Bacharach am Rheine (1801) was published in Russia (the first translation of this text into Russian, made by Viktor Toporov, appeared a hundred years later – in 1977). According to Gordon, Heine’s poem was translated seven times in the 1840–60s, [6] and 14 times between 1870 and 1917. [7] The best translation, according to many critics and researchers, is one by Aleksandr Blok (1909), the most famous Russian Symbolist poet. Unlike most of his predecessors, Blok “turned to rendering Heine in tonic verse, which Russian interpreters of the German poet until the beginning of the 20th century had hardly ever used”. [8] After the Russian Revolution, new translations of Heine’s poem continued to appear. Gordon does not provide statistics for the post-revolutionary period, pointing out only that Soviet poets (Samuil Maršak, Vasilij Gippius, Vilʹgelʹm Levik and others) participated in “a creative competition for the most perfect translation of this Heine work”. [9] The poem continues to be translated in the 21st century – several recent translations can be found on the Internet. [10] The works of other German poets containing the name Lorelei have also been repeatedly translated into Russian: Waldgespräch (1812) by Josef von Eichendorff and Loreley (1821) by Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben. Curiously, the process of translation itself became the subject of reflection by the experimental poet Semёn Kirsanov. In 1937 he translated a poem by Heine himself, [11] and 30 years later in his poem Translation he poetically comprehended the very process of image interiorization: he depicts the Lorelei “in the original” who is sitting on a cliff, and under it there is a gallery of “posing fake Loreleis”. [12]

2. Оriginal poems by Russian poets explicitly using or varying motifs of German authors

One of the first original works in Russian about Lorelei was published in 1846. Its author was Ivan Krešev, a little-known poet and translator of the mid-19th century. As noted in the commentary on the poem by Èduard Šnejderman, “Krešev’s interpretation is close to Cl. Brentano’s ballad Lorelei (1801), where the heroine, who conquers everyone with her beauty, suffers from the coldness of the man she loves and throws herself into the Rhine in despair.” [13] The commentary is not entirely accurate: in reality, Krešev transmits only fragments of Brentano’s poem and uses its individual motifs. The lyrical subject sees the suffering Lorelei, who has been shedding tears for years on her cliff and waiting in vain for a rendezvous with her lover. Nothing is said about Lorelei ruining anyone, nor is there any mention of her own death. Lorelei’s death, or rather her funeral, is depicted by Georgij Ivanov, one of the major authors of the first wave of Russian emigration, in his poem Volny šumeli: “Skoree, skoree!..” [The waves were roaring: “Faster, faster!..”] (1940–50s). Commenting on it, Andrej Arʹev mentions only Heine’s poem and Blok’s translation of this text as a pretext, and reports that the motif of death is found in all variations of the Lorelei story. [14] This comment is inaccurate: in Heine’s poem Lorelei does not die – Ivanov probably derived this motif from Brentano. Let us pay attention to the alliteration in the words surrounding the name in Ivanov’s poem: “Lunnoe imja tvoe, Loreleja / Rejnskaja polnočʹ tvoich pochoron.” [Your lunar name, Lorelei, / The Rhine midnight of your funeral] [15] The phonetic potential of the name was used by Russian poets very often. One of the founders of Russian Symbolism, Valerij Brjusov, apparently following Brentano, turns to the motif of suicide. In the poem Suicide with the subtitle A Picture for the Cinematograph (1907), [16] he describes a situation partly similar to that depicted by Brentano, but it is not Lorelei who jumps into the abyss of waters, but the hero of the poem. He stands on the bridge, Lorelei looks at him from below, “out of the foam”, her gaze attracts the suicider, and he jumps down.

Of course, the motifs from Heine’s poem are also repeatedly outplayed by Russian poets. In Marina Cvetaeva’s poem To Germany (1914), the Heine story of Lorelei is perceived as a timeless story of poet’s beloved Germany: Lorelei (Cvetaeva uses German transliteration) combs her golden curls “over the eternal Rhine”. [17] Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskij, a Russian émigré poet of the first half of the 20th century who was a member of the Berlin Poets’ Circle (1928–1933), also writes about the “timelessness” of Heine’s story. His poem Loreleja is based on Heine: Lorelei sings on a rock, her golden tresses flowing, sailors silently listening to her singing. In the final of the poem, the Heine story is juxtaposed with the “new world”: Lorelei calls on new victims with a song, breaks the sails and sinks fragile ships. [18] There are also situations when Heine’s and Brentano’s motifs are combined together in a Russian poem. Marija Tolstaja, a Russian émigré poetess, a member of the Prague Skete of Poets, wrote a poem Prologue (1938), in which she uses the name in the plural form. The Lorelei (Russian, plural from Loreleja) in her poem, in accordance with Brentano’s text, are witches. On the other hand, the spread tresses refer to Heine. [19]

Already in the 19th century the name acquires a very special function: it falls into an ironic, satirical or parodic context. The name was repeatedly used by the poets of Iskra, a satirical journal published in Saint Petersburg in 1859–1873. For example, one of the anonymous poets creates the following image: full-breasted Lurleja, languorously melting with voluptuousness, “sang her little song”. [20] Gordon, citing a number of convincing examples, notes that the form of the name Lurleja became a long-lasting nickname, which became attached “to women of very dubious behavior, though not professionally selling themselves”. [21] The tradition of using Lorelei’s name in a satirical-parodic context in Russian poetry is quite long: Gordon, in particular, cites another anonymous poem Loreleja, published in the magazine Šut [Jester] (1898), in which “the legend of the golden-haired mermaid is transferred to an urban setting, the beauty at an imposing country house reads a tabloid novel, she is captivated by a cyclist who, gazing at the maiden, falls on the road.” [22] Russian poets continue to create poems based on stylistic play with Heine’s text up to the present day. A contemporary poet Alexandr Timofeevskij generally retains Heine’s “lyrical plot” in the poem Krasotka, net v mire šikarnej… [Pretty woman, more stylish than anyone in the world...], but seriously reduces the stylistics: “Ot bešenoj strasti šaleja / (Ich desjatʹ, ich dvadcatʹ, ich sto), / Rebjata plyvut k Lorelee, / I žiznʹ dlja nich bolʹše ničto.” [Going crazy out of mad passion / (There are ten of them, there are twenty of them, there are a hundred of them), / The guys are sailing to Lorelei, / And life is nothing to them now.] [23] This poem is also interesting because it contains macaronisms: Faterland [Vaterland], draj minuten [drei Minuten]. [24] In another Timofeevskij’s poem entitled Loreleja, the lyrical subject turns out to be a madman, a patient of a psychiatric hospital, who incessantly repeats lines from Heine, which appear in their original form: “Svjažite menja, uspokojte, / Čtob ja ne bubnil, kak kretin [Tie me down, calm me down, / So that I don’t mumble like a cretin]: / Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, / Daß ich so traurig bin.” [25]

3. Оriginal poems by Russian poets, in which there are no explicitly borrowed motifs

The name in such poems acquires a new semantics or a new lexical environment compared to the German sources. In some cases, the name is used in love lyrics and becomes the name of the heroine. For example, Sofia Parnok calls her beloved Nina Vedeneeva by this name. [26] In the vast majority of cases, however, the name is placed in a specific cultural, historical or mythological context. This context arises even in personal love lyrics due to the fact that the name is often surrounded by other significative names. For example, Timur Kibirov, a major Soviet and Russian conceptualist poet, in his poem Èleonora (1988) calls his beloved Loreleja or characterizes her as Loreleja, combining this name with other, partly phonetically similar female names: Leda, Linora and Èvridika. [27] The cultural context of the name becomes even more significant in the poetry where culture itself is thematized. For example, in Valerij Brjusov’s poem Affecting Words (1922), the name falls into a number of names-signals of German poetry and culture and becomes a symbol of this culture as such: “Èrlkënig, Rejn, bred Lorelej.” [28] As we see, the phonosemantic function of this name here is manifested clearly. The latter comes to the fore also in the first lines of Irina Odoevceva’s poem (1975): “Ob Ofelii, o fee / Lira-Lir, o Lorelee.” [29] Here the name is part of a number of names belonging to different cultures, including English (Shakespeare) and Russian (Lira Lir is the title of the poetry book by the Futurist Semёn Bobrov, published in 1917), and the main thing that unites these names is sound. The name in the context of Russian reception of German culture appears in Alexandr Gorodnickij’s poem Bronze Heine (1997): three “Russian” names (Petr Vejnberg – a famous translator of Heine, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Malaja Nevka – a tributary of the Neva River in St Petersburg) stand next to three “German” ones (Hamburg, The Harz, Lorelei). [30] Quite often the name appears in a number of names of other female characters. In Marina Cvetaeva’s poem The Second Journey this name is used as a symbol of a femme fatale: “Kleopatra li tam v žemčugach? / Loreleja li s rejnskimi sagami?” [Is Cleopatra wearing pearls there? / Is Lorelei with the Rhine sagas?] [31] Roman Vojtechovič comments on these two names in the following way, revealing the semantic connection between them: “Cleopatra and Lorelei are variants of the same type of female character – a fatal beauty, alluring and ruinous, wasting treasures and lives”. [32] The above-mentioned Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskij in his poem Pisʹmo, kotoroe ne skoro… [A letter that won’t be written soon…] also uses the name series of female characters (all names are plural): Izolʹdy, Lorelei, Ofelii. [33] In Sergej Stratanovskij’s poem O vsesožženʹe v Osvencime... [About the Holocaust at Auschwitz…] (2000) there is an opposition of onomastic series: Loreleja and Margarita denote German women, Sulamifʹ denotes a Jewish woman. The poem refers to how a movie about Auschwitz is interrupted by an advertisement for cosmetics. [34] Here Lorelei denotes Nazi Germany.

More often, however, the name is associated with old (ancient, passing away, mythological) Germany, as, for example, in Alexandr Gorodnickij’s poem Germany: Lorelei’s name appears next to the images of Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa. [35] The futurist poet Ivan Aksёnov also uses the name of Lorelei as a reference to a bygone era. In Èjfeleja I (1922), the first poem of his cycle Èjfeleja, dedicated to the Eiffel Tower, the “disheartening trill” of Lorelei is contrasted with contemporary urban images (city blocks, industrial turbines, subways), which are evaluated positively. In the context of World War I, the name appears in Sergej Klyčkov’s poem Song about Wilhelm (1914), which comprises an appeal to the last German emperor Wilhelm II. Here, Lorelei, weeping on the Rhine, mourns for old Germany. [36] Another poet who mentioned Lorelei in connection with the image of the First World War was Nikolaj Tichonov. In his poem Germany (1922), the name is used twice in neighboring stanzas, both times in the plural. [37] Tichonov depicts Germany in a revolutionary perspective: in the semantics of the name there is symbolism associated with the “music of revolution”, and it is based on metonymy in the first case (“blood-drunk Lorelei” are German women calling for the destruction of the old regime) and metaphor in the second (“steel Lorelei screaming in the ears” are bullets). The name can also be used in poems thematizing the rejection of the old (traditional, high) culture. Thus, for example, Vladimir Prussak, a poet who imitated the main Russian ego-futurist Igor Severjanin, in the poem Bolʹše ja ne fokusnik, činno napomažennyj… [I’m no longer a magician, decorously pomaded…] (1915) from the collection Flowers on the Dump uses the name in the plural, and it becomes a symbol of the old traditional culture and morality, which the hedonistic hero, who praises an orgy, urges to abandon. [38]

Among the original Russian poems that have no direct motive connection with the German Romantics, there are works that continue the satirical tradition discussed above. The most striking example here is the lyrics of the satirical poet Saša Čёrnyj. The poem On the Rhine (1911) concludes Saša Čёrnyj’s poem cycle At the Germans, created by the poet after his stay in Germany in 1906–1908. The poem is built on the collision of ideal and profane spaces, and the image of Lorelei belongs precisely to the profane level: this image is stylistically transformed, Lorelei (plural) turn into philistine females “soaked with exclamations”. [39] The purpose of this use of the name and this context is to create a satire on the world of the German philistines, sharply opposed in Saša Čёrnyj’s poetic world to the ideal world of Rhine nature. [40]

The most complex and rich in historical and cultural associations context of the name Loreleja appears in the lyrics of Osip Mandelštam, one of the most significant Russian poets of the first half of the 20th century. The last stanza of the poem The Decembrist, written in 1917, contains the most famous Lorelei of all Russian poetry: “Vse pereputalosʹ, i nekomu skazatʹ, / Čto, postepenno cholodeja, / Vse pereputalosʹ, i sladko povtorjatʹ: / Rossija, Leta, Loreleja.” [Everything’s mixed up and there’s no one to tell / That, gradually getting colder, / Everything is mixed up, and it’s sweet to repeat: / Russia, Lethe, Lorelei.] [41] The poet recalls the Decembrists – participants of the Russian anti-government movement, members of various secret societies in the second half of the 1810s – first half of the 1820s, who organized an uprising on Senate Square in Saint Petersburg on December 14, 1825 and were named after the month of the uprising. Mandelštam connects the Decembrists’ desire for freedom, for the “sweet liberty of civitas” with Germany. As Genrich Kiršbaum notes, “Mandelštam links the prehistory and consequences of the uprising in his poem with the Russian-German, so-called Rhine campaign of 1813 and the unrest that engulfed post-Napoleonic Germany”. [42] The poet’s assumption about the Decembrists’ connections with Germany was later confirmed by historians. In particular, Kirill Rogov points out that “it was the German secret unions of the early 19th century that served as a model for the Russian secret societies of 1815–1825, and the statute of the Tugendbund formed the basis for the statute of the Union of Prosperity”. [43] In the last stanza of the poem Decembrist Mandelštam speaks already about his own time, about the tragic year of 1917 (the poem was written between the two Russian revolutions). Kiršbaum reconstructs the poet’s complicated chain of associations: the Decembrists were intoxicated by freedom, the transmitter of which in the text is Germany symbolized by Lorelei; Germany seduced and lured Russia to a ruinous path; the result is the catastrophe of 1917, “the Rhine turns to Lethe: Russia seduced by Germany-Lorelei plunges into Lethe”. [44] In this catastrophic reality, the poet finds the only support in the “sweet repetition” of three harmonious names, which “turns out to be the only effective antidote against the coming chaos and oblivion”. [45] 

The second reference to Lorelei by Mandelštam dates back to the time of his Voronež exile (1934–1937; he was exiled for an epigram on Stalin that he wrote in 1933). In 1935 he writes Stanzas, a poem including lines that are very difficult to interpret. The poet admits that he remembers “the necks of the German brothers” and that “the gardener and the executioner filled his leisure time with Loreleja’s purple comb”. [46] Andrej Michajlov and Pavel Nerler interpret Loreleja in this fragment as a “romantic symbol of Germany” (without further explanation), and the gardener and executioner is understood as Hitler, who was fond of gardening at leisure. [47] There is, however, also a possibility to interpret “the gardener and the executioner” as Stalin and to regard “Loreleja’s purple comb” as a complicated (built on sound and semantic associations) metaphor of the high bank of the Kama River, along which Mandelštam sailed to his first exile in early June 1934. [48] “German brothers” are German communists, victims of Hitler’s regime, about whom much was written at this time in Soviet newspapers, [49] and the comb of the pernicious Loreleja (an image dating back to The Decembrist) is a symbolic instrument of execution. [50] Lorelei is thus associated with the motif of execution. [51] The general message of Stanzas is Mandelštam’s reluctant repentance for writing an epigram against Stalin and his intention of cooperation with the Soviet power. Hitler and Lorelei appear in the poem, probably on the associative principle, which is noted, in particular, by Gleb Struve and Boris Filippov who comment the line “Ja dolžen žitʹ, dyša i bolʹševeja” [I must live on, breathing and bolshevising]: “and this in the conditions of both Soviet reality and the emergence next to it of another regime-gardener, the regime-executioner, Hitler’s, also growing its hothouse generation [...] combed in the same manner with ‘Lorelei’s purple comb’. The marvelous detail – the use of the old romantic for the new-totalitarian”. [52]

Mandelštam’s use of the name Loreleja has become a fact of Russian culture: this is evidenced, in particular, by a number of poems in which the name refers to Mandelštam’s texts. For example, Sergej Petrov in The Evening of February 23, 1933 (1957) [53] uses the name in the poem together with the name of Mandelštam; Sergej Gandlevskij and Nikolaj Bajtov include Mandelštam’s series of names from The Decembrist in their own texts: Evrejskim bljudom ugoščala... [She treated me to a Jewish dish...] (1994) [54]; Zdravstvuj, ja pridumal neskolʹko slov... [Hello, I thought of a few words…] (2001) [55] etc.

4. Name in the context of comparison

Аs an addition, we consider separately a rather productive function of the name Loreleja in Russian lyrics of the second half of the 20th century: its use as part of a comparison. The basis for comparison can sometimes include motifs from German sources, for example, David Samojlov in his poem Yard (1961), in which he recalls his childhood, compares one of his heroines – a woman named Elena combing her hair – to Lorelei. [56] The semantics of comparison is more complex in Iosif Brodskij: the heroine of his poem T. Zimina (cycle From the “School Anthology”; 1966–1969) is compared to Lorelei (Brodsky uses a transliteration of the German name: Lorelei). [57] Irina Romanova interprets this comparison in the following way: “The image of Lorelei standing at the linen counter completes the whole poem. The image of Lorelei implies both the peculiarities of her appearance and her unhappy fate: a beautiful woman, victimized by men, defamed, unhappy, tried to drown herself, survived, doomed to stand at the counter like a river nymph [...] In the stormy stream of customers she is looking for her ‘enchanted’ victims.” [58] In other cases, the grounds for comparison are more abstract. For example, in another poem by above-mentioned Samojlov Zdesʹ velikie sny ne snjatsja... [There are no great dreams here…] (1977) the awakening of the hero who has seen a “dream about deceptions” is as painful and devastating as listening to Lorelei’s song. [59] Boris Sluckij in his poem War (1957–1958) writes that war is as cruel as Lorelei. [60]

5. Summary

Considering the cases of the use of the name Lorelei (Loreleja) in Russian poetry, we divided the available material into three main groups of texts: numerous translations (mainly of Heine), original poems using and varying motifs of German authors, and original poems in which there are no explicitly expressed borrowed motifs. The latter group of works clearly demonstrates that the name, which came to Russian literature from German poetry, later became a significant fact of the language of original Russian poetry. Russian poets used and varied in their original works the motifs of Brentano, Heine or both authors. At different periods of the development of Russian poetry, the name was included in an ironic, satirical or parodic context. In poems independent of German pretexts, the name could be used in love lyrics to name the beloved, but more often it was associated with some historical and cultural context. A special role in the formation of a new semantics for the name played its inclusion in the series of other proper names. The name Lorelei in Russian lyrics most often serves as a maximally generalized symbol of Germany: it is not by chance that this name is found in poems entitled Germany or To Germany. The name can denote the old, passing away, mythological Germany, Germany in the era of the First World War, Nazi Germany. In case of expanding semantics, the connection with any German context can disappear. The most complex semantic structure of the name is presented in the lyrics of Mandelštam. In later Russian poetry this name became one of the symbols of Mandelštam’s lyrical world, and his “incantation” “Rossija, Leta, Loreleja” was quoted by later Russian poets.

The productive rhetorical strategies accompanying the name Lorelei in Russian lyrics include appellativation, i.e. the use of the name in the plural, thanks to which the proper noun turns into a common noun, the use of the name in alliteration series, the use of the name as part of comparisons, which may or may not be related to the motives of the German authors.
In conclusion, let us mention one more specific function of the name Loreleja, which is not directly related to internal structure of Russian lyrics and poetics. Jakov Gordon mentions, that in the last third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century this name, both in the original and in the Russified variants (Lorelei, Loreleja), could be a literary pseudonym. [61] We see that the name not only belonged to Russian poetic language, but also served an important paratextual element (pseudonym or title) accompanying poetic texts.

Notes

[1] Jakov Gordon: Gejne v Rossii: 1830–1860-e gody, Dušanbe 1973; Jakov Gordon: Gejne v Rossii (1870–1917 gg.), Dušanbe 1979; Jakov Gordon: Gejne v Rossii. XX vek, Dušanbe 1983.

[2] Gordon: Gejne v Rossii: 1830–1860-e gody, p. 95.

[3] Ibid., p. 163.

[4] Karolina Pavlova: “Loreleja”, in: Karolina Pavlova. Polnoe sobranie stichotvorenij, ed. by Nikolaj Gajdenkov, Moskva/Leningrad 1964, p. 399.

[5] Gordon: Gejne v Rossii: 1830–1860-e gody, p. 167.

[6] Gordon: Gejne v Rossii (1870–1917 gg.), p. 57.

[7] Ibid., p. 58.

[8] Ibid., p. 59.

[9] Ibid.

[10] See for example Genrich Gejne: “Loreleja”, translated from German by Aleksandr Markov, in: Stichi.ru, https://stihi.ru/2010/01/05/766, last accessed on August 12, 2024.

[11] Semёn Kirsanov: “Lorelei”, in: Semёn Kirsanov. Stichotvorenija i poèmy, ed. by Èduard Šnejderman, Sankt-Peterburg 2006, p. 145–146.

[12] Semёn Kirsanov: “Perevodčeskoe”, in: Semёn Kirsanov. Stichotvorenija i poèmy, ed. by Èduard Šnejderman, Sankt-Peterburg 2006, p. 258–259, here p. 259.

[13] Poèty 1840–1850-ch godov, ed. by Boris Buchštab/Èduard Šnejderman, Leningrad 1972, p. 490.

[14] Georgij Ivanov: Stichotvorenija, ed. by Andej Arʹev, Moskva/ Sankt-Peterburg 2021, p. 660.

[15] Georgij Ivanov: “Volny šumeli: ‘Skoree, skoree!..’”, in: Georgij Ivanov. Stichotvorenija, ed. by Andej Arʹev, Moskva/ Sankt-Peterburg 2021, p. 313.

[16] Valerij Brjusov: “Samoubijca”, in: Valerij Brjusov. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Pavel Antokolʹskij et al., Moskva 1973, p. 503–504.

[17] Marina Cvetaeva: “Germanii”, in: Marina Cvetaeva. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Anna Saakjanc/Lev Mnuchin, Moskva 1994, p. 231–232, here p. 232.

[18] Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskij: “Loreleja”, in: Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskij. Pozdnij gostʹ. Stichotvorenija i poèmy, ed. by Tomas Venclova, Moskva 2012, p. 293.

[19] Marija Tolstaja: “Prolog”, in: Poèty pražskogo “Skita”, ed. by Oleg Malevič, Moskva 2012, p. 492–494, here p. 492.

[20] Gordon: Gejne v Rossii (1870–1917 gg.), p. 229.

[21] Ibid., p. 230.

[22] Gordon: Gejne v Rossii. XX vek, p. 65–66.

[23] Aleksandr Timofeevskij: “Krasotka, net v mire šikarnej…”, in: Aleksandr Timofeevskij. Izbrannoe, ed. by Natalja D’jakova, Moskva 2018, p. 159.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Aleksandr Timofeevskij: “Loreleja”, in: Aleksandr Timofeevskij. Izbrannoe, ed. by Natalja D’jakova, Moskva 2018, p. 123.

[26] Sofija Parnok: “Vam so storony vidnee…”, in: Sofija Parnok. Sobranie stichotvorenij, ed. by Sofija Poljakova, Sankt-Peterburg 1998, p. 419.

[27] Timur Kibirov: “Èleonora”, in: Timur Kibirov. “Kto kuda, a ja – v Rossiju...”, ed. by Timur Kibirov, Moskva 2001, p. 81–95, here p. 86, 92.

[28] Valerij Brjusov: “Umilʹnye slova”, in: Valerij Brjusov. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 3, ed. by Pavel Antokolʹskij et al., Moskva 1974, p. 179–180, here p. 179.

[29] Irina Odoevceva: “Ob Ofelii, o fee…”, in: Irina Odoevceva. Stichotvorenija. Na beregach Nevy. Na beregach Seny, ed. by Evgenij Vitkovskij, Moskva 1998, p. 159.

[30] Aleksandr Gorodnickij: “Bronzovyj Gejne”, in: Aleksandr Gorodnickij. Stichi i pesni Dvadcatʹ pervogo veka, Moskva 2015, p. 20.

[31] Marina Cvetaeva: “Vtoroe putešestvie”, in: Marina Cvetaeva. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Anna Saakjanc/Lev Mnuchin, Moskva 1994, p. 23.

[32] Roman Vojtechovič: [Kommentarij k stichotvoreniju “Vtoroe putešestvie”], in: Nasledie Mariny Cvetaevoj, https://www.tsvetayeva.com/poems/vtoroe_puteshestvie, last accessed on August 12, 2024.

[33] Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskij: “Pisʹmo, kotoroe ne skoro…”, in: Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovskij. Pozdnij gostʹ. Stichotvorenija i poèmy, ed. by Tomas Venclova, Moskva 2012, p. 220.

[34] Sergej Stratanovskij: “O vsesožženʹe v Osvencime...”, in: Novyj Mir 5 (2003), https://magazines.gorky.media/novyi_mi/2003/5/korobochki-s-peplom.html, last accessed on August 12, 2024.

[35] Aleksandr Gorodnickij: “Germanija”, in: Aleksandr Gorodnickij. Stichi i pesni Dvadcatʹ pervogo veka, Moskva 2015, p. 19.

[36] Sergej Klyčkov: “Pesnja pro Vilʹgelʹma”, in: Sergej Klyčkov. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Mišelʹ Nikë et al., Moskva 2000, p. 234–235, here p. 234.

[37] Nikolaj Tichonov: “Germanija”, in: Nikolaj Tichonov. Stichotvorenija i poèmy, ed. by Vladislav Šošin/Anna Morščichina, Leningrad 1981, p. 106.

[38] Vladimir Prussak: “Bolʹše ja ne fokusnik, činno napomažennyj...”, in: Poèzija russkogo futurizma, ed. by Vladimir Alʹfonsov, Sergej Krasickij, Sankt-Peterburg 1999, p. 572.

[39] Saša Čёrnyj: “Na Rejne”, in: Saša Čёrnyj. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Anatolij Ivanov, Moskva 1996, p. 253–254, here p. 253.

[40] See for more details Sergej Ždanov: “Obrazy nemcev-filisterov v stichotvornom cikle Saši Černogo ‘U nemcev’”, in: Ot teksta k kontekstu 1 (2013), p. 139–142; Sergej Ždanov: “Romantičeskie čerty nemeckogo chronotopa v doèmigrantskoj poèzii Saši Černogo”, in: Filologičeskie nauki. Voprosy teorii i praktiki 10-2 (40) (2014), p. 51–54.

[41] Osip Mandelštam: “Dekabrist”, in: Osip Mandelštam. Sočinenija, vol. 1, ed. by Andrej Michajlov/Pavel Nerler, Moskva 1990, p. 115.

[42] Genrich Kiršbaum: “Valgally beloe vino...”: nemeckaja tema v poèzii O. Mandelʹštama, Moskva 2010, p. 86.

[43] Kirill Rogov: “Dekabristy i ‘nemcy’”, in: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 26 (1997), p. 105–126, here p. 113.

[44] Kiršbaum: “Valgally beloe vino...”, p. 98–99.

[45] Ibid., p. 97.

[46] Mandelštam: Sočinenija, p. 217–218.

[47] Ibid., p. 545. Hitler also took part in May Day tree planting events (Kiršbaum: “Valgally beloe vino...”, p. 319).

[48] Lev Gorodeckij: “Rossija, Kama, Loreleja…: k dešifroke ‘temnych mest’ v voronežskich ‘Stansach’ Mandelʹštama”, in: Vestnik Permskogo universiteta 5 (11) (2010), p. 140–146, here p. 141–142.

[49] Kiršbaum: “Valgally beloe vino...”, p. 315–318.

[50] Ibid., p. 319–320.

[51] Irina Mess-Bejer: “Èzopov jazyk i poèzii Mandelʹštama 30-ch godov”, in: Russian Literature 29 (1991), p. 243–394, here p. 277.

[52] Osip Mandelʹštam: Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Gleb Struve/Boris Filippov, Washington, 1967, p. 525. On the possible semantics of the epithet purple see Genrich Kiršbaum: “Valgally beloe vino...”, p. 322–323.

[53] Sergej Petrov: “Večer 23 fevralja 1933 goda”, in: Sergej Petrov. Sobranie stichotvorenij, vol. 1, ed. by Vladislav Rezvyj, Moskva 2008, p. 455–456, here p. 456.

[54] Sergej Gandlevskij: “Evrejskim bljudom ugoščala...”, in: Sovremennaja russkaja poèzija. Sergej Gandlevskij. Izbrannoe, http://modernpoetry.ru/main/sergey-gandlevskiy-izbrannoe?ysclid=lymzvrbfh1542658126, last accessed on August 12, 2024.

[55] Nikolaj Bajtov: “Zdravstvuj, ja pridumal neskolʹko slov...”, in: Nikolaj Bajtov. Stichotvorenija 2000-2001 godov, https://frkr.ru/FRIENDS/BYTOV/stihi29.html, last accessed on August 12, 2024.

[56] David Samojlov: “Dvor”, in: David Samojlov. Stichotvorenija, ed. by Andrej Nemzer/Viktor Tumarkin, Sankt-Peterburg 2006, p. 471–472, here p. 472.

[57] Iosif Brodskij: “T. Zimina”, in: Sočinenija Iosifa Brodskogo, vol. 2, ed. by Jakov Gordin. Sankt-Peterburg 2001, p. 317–318, here p. 318.

[58] Irina Romanova: “Poètika cikla I. Brodskogo ‘Iz školʹnoj antologii’”, in: Izvestija Smolenskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 3 (15) (2011), p. 31–44, here p. 34.

[59] David Samojlov: “Zdesʹ velikie sny ne snjatsja...”, in: David Samojlov. Stichotvorenija, ed. by Andrej Nemzer/Viktor Tumarkin, Sankt-Peterburg 2006, p. 239.

[60] Boris Sluckij: “Vojna”, in: Boris Sluckij. Sobranie sočinenij, vol. 1, ed. by Jurij Boldyrev, Moskva 1991, p. 230.

[61] Gordon: Gejne v Rossii (1870–1917 gg.), p. 54; Gordon: Gejne v Rossii. XX vek, p. 26.

Der wissenschaftliche Impuls ist unter folgendem Link dauerhaft abrufbar: https://doi.org/10.22032/dbt.62561