Abstract

The article analyzes poems by Yan Satunovsky, which reflect his military experience (1939–1945). By first identifying a number of taboos created by official Soviet historiography and violated by Satunovsky, the article demonstrates even deeper violations, transgressions, and discoveries. It shows how Stunovsky lays bare the erotic in military experience, and reads his poetry side-by-side with another poetics of transgression, that of Gennady Gor. Satunovsky not only shows that war sows death and breeds murderers and rapists; he depicts war and death as routine, boring, pitiful, and completely unheroic. Satunovsky’s discourse on war is thus multifaceted and flexible: the poet combines different linguistic registers, trying them on like masks. The primary task of Satunovsky’s poems about war is to demonstrate military experience as exceptionally destructive, in particular for the personality and language of the person producing this poetic statement. Thus, through provocative avant-garde poetics, Satunovsky hits his political target.