Viktor Borisovich Krivulin
Viktor Borisovich Krivulin was a notable Russian poet and cultural figure born on July 4, 1944, in Kadievka, now in Ukraine. His family moved to Leningrad after his father's retirement from the military, where Krivulin developed a profound appreciation for poetry and completed his education in philology at St. Petersburg University. Influenced by the literary works of Alexander Pushkin and a member of the Leningrad literary scene, he began writing poetry in the early 1970s, emphasizing themes of mystical inspiration and spiritual vision. Much of his work initially circulated through underground presses, as it did not conform to the state-sanctioned style of Socialist Realism.
Krivulin's poetry was marked by intricate forms and rich imagery, drawing heavily on symbolic landscapes. He gained recognition for his advocacy of free expression in literature, receiving the Andrei Bely Prize in 1978 and contributing to samizdat journals that highlighted experimental writing. After the Soviet Union began to collapse, he lived abroad for several years before returning to St. Petersburg in 1991. Despite facing personal challenges, including a cancer diagnosis, Krivulin continued to write until his death on March 17, 2001. His legacy is that of a visionary poet who sought to elevate the spiritual and transformative potential of literature in a changing Russia.
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Viktor Borisovich Krivulin
Poet
- Born: July 4, 1944
- Birthplace: Kadievka, Russia (now Ukraine)
- Died: March 17, 2001
Biography
Viktor Borisovich Krivulin was born on July 4, 1944, in Kadievka, Russia, now in Ukraine. When his father, an army major in the Communist regime, retired two years after Krivulin’s birth, the family relocated to Leningrad. A precocious child enthralled by the sound and rhythms of poetry, Krivulin completed his undergraduate work and his master’s degree in philology from St. Petersburg University in 1967, where he also mastered a number of languages that enabled him to find work initially as both a teacher and a translator.
By the early 1970’s, inspired by the towering figure of Alexander Pushkin, Krivulin was writing his own poetry as part of the Leningrad literary circle that included most prominently future Nobelist Joseph Brodsky. Most of Krivulin’s early work circulated in underground presses because it did not advocate the Socialist Realism endorsed by the state. These poems centered on his sense of the poet as a mystical figure and the craft of poetry as an expression of divine inspiration. His poetry, often reworking traditional forms such as the sonnet and the quatrain, subtly drew on the musical sounds of speech (hence, the difficulty in translating Krivulin’s work) and manipulated Jungian imagery such as water, sunlight, caves, gardens, and fire.
By the late 1980’s, Krivulin was a prominent member of the Leningrad artistic community. Against the stubborn persistence of the Soviet regime, Krivulin quite vocally endorsed the free expression of ideas within literature. In 1978, he was awarded the Andrei Bely Prize, given to recognize the unconventional thinking of promising young Soviet writers. In addition to his poetry and his underground essays advocating a return to Russian cultural freedom, Krivulin helped edit a number of samizdat journals that brought attention to artists struggling to find a forum for their experimental work.
As the Soviet empire began to collapse and the literary community responded to the promise of perestroika, Krivulin in the late 1980’s took advantage of an offer to oversee a film project about the Soviet émigré community in France, and he lived in Paris and later in England and West Germany. When he returned to St. Petersburg in 1991, Krivulin turned to poetry as a way to express his profound optimism that the poet within the new Russia could reclaim the ancient privilege of spiritual visionary, able to offer the stunning promise of social and cultural transformation.
His poetry, which draws on hallucinations and dream sequences, rejected the contemporary claustrophobic urban environment to shape a symbolic landscape of renewal and spiritual intensity. In keeping with his sense of the poet as messianic mystic, Krivulin cut an eccentric figure in St. Petersburg, with his laser-like eyes, wild thatch of unkempt hair, and Tolstoyesque beard. Unhappy with the direction of post-Soviet government, particularly the war in Chechnia, the questionable endorsement of human rights, and the dangerous rhetoric of Russian nationalism, Krivulin continued, despite a cancer diagnosis, to write essays and newspaper pieces as well as poetry until his death on March 17, 2001.
As a pivotal figure in the Leningrad circle, Krivulin elevated his generation’s poetic expression by using the medium to affirm the spiritual reach of literature and a visionary mission for the contemporary political poet.