Poetry recital: 101st km – The Fate of Russian poets

An evening dedicated to poetry written by Russian poets who were persecuted during the Soviet era.

It will include poems by poets who were imprisoned, forced into exile or executed, who perished in prison or prison-camp or who were silenced or denounced by the Soviet regime.

This event is responding to the installation in our pavilion on Bloomsbury Square, 101st km – Further Everywhere (18th October-10 November). The 101st km, a concept well known in Russia, refers to the distance that poets and others were forced to maintain from major cities, often after returning from the labour camps – a kind of internal exile and attempt by the authorities to suppress them.

The poems will include several of those which feature in the installation. These include those by Osip Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Vladislav Khodasevich, Nikolay Zabolotsky and Daniil Kharms. Poems by less well-known poets such as Yuri Daniel and Yuri Dombrovsky will also be read.

The poems will be read in English translation, and then in Russian by three outstanding readers of Russian verse: Elena Dobson, Alla Gelich and Tatiana Schofield.

The text of both the original poems and the translations will be provided with the programme for the Evening.

The Evening will be introduced by David Brummell, a long-standing member of Pushkin Club anda former trustee of Pushkin House.