A Sense of Place: Tsarskoe Selo and Its Poets : Papers from the 1989 Dartmouth Conference Dedicated to the Centennial of Anna Akhmatova

A Sense of Place contains papers, from a conference dedicated to Akhmatova's centennial, which focus not on her poetry by itself, but on the place where she spent her formative years, Tsarskoe Selo (now, of course, called Pushkin), and on the poetic tradition that was connected with the town. By Akhmatova's day Tsarskoe Selo was fraught with connotations: it was, thanks to Pushkin and the other poets who had attended the lycee, in a sense the birthplace of modern Russian literature, at the same time that its formal layout and striking architecture created an ambience of their own. Around the turn of the century an entire cluster of poets became closely associated with the town, including Innokenty Annensky, Nikolai Gumilev, and Vasily Komarovsky. The contributions to the conference, taken as a group, comprise an exploration of what might be termed the poetics of Tsarskoe Selo. Some papers examine the effect of the town on Akhmatova's poetry or on that of her contemporaries, others look at the relationship among the writers who lived there and who formed a kind of Russian Bloomsbury, and still others focus on the sculpture and landscaping of Tsarskoe Selo, which in turn had a great effect on the poetry. In short, the collection, taking an interdisciplinary approach, attempts to define what might be termed a Tsarskoe Selo style. A recognition of that style not only provides insights into the writings (and lives) of this particular set of poets, but it can also help lead to an understanding of the ways in which other locals have interacted with and influenced various schools of literature.