Russian Romantics

Romantics of the past in Russian literature include Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Fyodor Tutchev.

What are the others?

Konstantin Batyushkov was a contemporary of Pushkin, and played a significant role in the dismantling of neoclassical verse in Russian (a biography can be found here: http://www.rvb.ru/batyushkov/bio/bio_eng.htm).

His poem, "My Spirit":

Oh, heart’s remembrance! You are, yet,
Mush stronger than sad one of reasons;
And, often in a distant land,
Bewitch me with your even sweetness.
I hear the sound of your word,
I see the blue of eyes, so dear,
I see your golden locks, right here,
Of the hair so negligently curled;
I see the whole simple dress
Of my superior shepherdess,
Your image, so sweat and peerless,
Wanders with me from a place to a place.
It is my guarding spirit-fellow,
Given, as solace, me by love:
I fall at sleep, and by my pillow,
It’ll comfort dreams that ran above

Interestingly, like Pushkin and, to a lesser extent Gogol and Lermontov, his first verses were satirical, before becoming steadily more atmospheric and abstract.

Zhukovsky was another contemporary, and his Ludmilla and Svetlana have a very important place in Russian verse (some verses can be found here: http://www.russianlegacy.com/en/go_to/culture/poetry/zhukovsky.htm).

It is interesting that the natural world and psychological introspection were both examined side-by-side in Zhukovsky and Lermontov. Zhukovsky's 'The Boatman' begins:

Driven by misfortune's whirlwind,
Having neither oar nor rudder,
By a storm my bark was driven
Out upon the boundless sea.
"midst black clouds a small star sparkled;
"Don't conceal yourself!" I cried;
But it disappeared, unheeding;
And my anchor was lost, too

...

... while Lermontov's 'A sail' runs:

Afar sail shimmers, white and lonely,
Through the blue haze above the foam.
What does it seek in foreign harbours?
What has it left behind at home?

The billows romp, and the wind whistles.
The rigging swings, and the tall mast creaks.
Alas, it is not joy, he flees from,
Nor is it happiness he seeks.

Below, the seas like blue light flowing,
Above, the sun's gold streams increase,
But it is storm the rebel asks for,
As though in storms {there}* were peace.

In both verses, the motif of a receding image (a star, and his poet's "bark", for Zhukovsky and a sail for Lermontov) both suggest psychological contours; both poets, here, aim to grasp, to understand, an image that drifts away from them, obscured, as it were, by the language itself (when Zhukovsky writes, "But it disappeared, unheeding", it is his own poetry that causes it to disappear as it was neither visible or existing before he had written it (!)). As such, both poet's contemplate the paradoxical and frustrating tension of poetry, that it can destroy and mislead as well as create and inform. In both cases, there is a clear and resonant 'yearning' for that which seems impossible to comprehend, and language seems all the more inadequate for it. This doesn't have the easy confidence or structure of neoclassical verse, but the uncertain and mystifying atmosphere of romanticism. 'A sail' is one of my favourite verses in Russian.

* I've added this to Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky's 1927 translation

This is fantastic post above. I think satire is an important element there. And of course it can be present in many other time frames and styles, there is something about it that is very important in romantic writing. If can be very subtle of course, but just as potent.

Lermontov is a major star of Romantics of course. His Hero of our time is a great example of the style.

Would we be able to place Mayakovskiy into Romantics group? He is of course a class of his own, but there are many elements in his work that would resonate well with other Romantics.

maxbolli, yes I agree; satire, and especially irony I think, were central. This is where you're on the money with Mayakovsky -his egocentric, self-aggrandizing style which I suppose you could call a poetics of boasting. Like Lermontov, I think, he was very aware of image and how the image of the man, and of the poet, was very dependent on perspective. That's why he was able to boast of his great, gigantic words and, at the same time, write about his feelings of turmoil and insignificance.

If we take the 'boat/storm' theme further, you can see it very clearly in Mayakovsky's verse:

Were I
like the ocean of oceans little,
on the tiptoes of waves I’d rise,
I’d strain, a tide, to caress the moon.
Where to find someone to love
of my size,
the sky too small for her to fit in?

(from 'To his own beloved self ...')

And here his egoism and his anxieties about his future reception:

I wish I were tongue-tied,
like Dante or Petrarch,
able to fire a woman’s heart,
reduce it to ashes with verse-filled pages!
My words
and my love
form a triumphal arch:
through it, in all their splendour,
leaving no trace, will pass
the inamoratas of all the ages!

The man wishes that he were "tongue-tied", that he was not the great poet he was -to be creative, he says, is to be tormented. I think this is very similar to Lermontov's Pechorin in A Hero of our time. That sense of being isolated, and how isolation is both a pleasure and a curse.

I love both of these. Someone to love of his size. Is both large like the sky and small like a tip of a wave. Amazing love it.

Well, yes, too creative means some don't understand it. Or even if understand, consider is a "deviation" from " norm". But norm is hardly something inspiring.

Vasily Zhukovsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasily_Zhukovsky
one the Russian romantic poets. Also - translated West European romantic poetry into Russian.

Vasiliy does look like an interesting one!