Old Age and Death in the Poetry, Prose, and Translations of Mikhail Zenkevich

• In Event: Fearing and Embracing Aging

Abstract

Mikhail Zenkevich (1886-1973), who would become the longest-living Acmeist, was obsessed by fear of old age. This paper explores aging and death in his work, from his first famous book through his avant-garde and wartime poetry and fictional memoirs, as well as his translations of Edgar Poe, Robert Frost, the poetry of the “Lost Generation,” and the Vietnam War; it considers the evolution in his treatment of aging as he outlasted political rulers and traveled from the Soviet Union to the United States to meet some of the poets whom he translated.

Author

• Svetlana V. Cheloukhina, CUNY Queens College