“Gruelling Poison” of Remote Events in the Poetry of Mikhail Zalessky

Abstract

In the article, the name of the poet, an emigrant of the first wave, Mikhail Zalessky, is introduced into the field of literary criticism for the first time. Based on various sources, the biography of Zalessky, a cadet of the Don Corps, a member of the NTS, an implacable patriot of Russia, who until the end of his days believed in a homeland without Bolsheviks, was established. All stages of his life were reflected in Zalessky’s poetry, which determines the autobiographical nature of his poems. The article examines the motif complex of Zalessky’s work, which includes the motif of the Cossack freemen, the motif of homesickness and the call to fi ght for its future, the motif of exile, the motif of friend or foe, and the motif of loneliness. The image of the author – the lyrical hero – poet undergoes changes over time: from a boy intuitively tied to his native land, a young cadet, a white warrior grows up, a man consciously and selfl essly devoted to his homeland, ready to go into battle for the ideals of Christian Russia until the end of his life. The work of Mikhail Zalessky fits into the paradigm of the poetry of white emigration, although the author is also involved in the literature of DP.