GLORIOUS · Digital Poetry in Today’s Russia: Canonisation and Translation

Digital Poetry in Today’s Russia: Canonisation and Translation

GLORIOUS studies the impact of the internet – in particular, but not exclusively social media – on Russian poetry. My research has focused on two areas: how poetry is published, and how it is translated. The internet has had a major impact on the publication of Russian-language poetry. The poetry boom on the web takes place on various platforms: online journals that function much like print journals; specialist repository sites that can include author pages, journals and other literary projects; and individual authors’ channels on social media such as VKontakte, Facebook and YouTube. This phenomenon has also invigorated the practice of poetry translation into English – the lingua franca of the internet and scholarly discourse. While the translation of Russian poetry is a vibrant field that draws in many scholars and graduate students, Anglophone academia neglects translation practice; translation is underrated as an (impact-generating!) result of research. New media has opened up interactive ways for writers to engage with their audiences, with each other, and with their translators. Yet scholarship is slow to catch up with these contemporary forms. Moreover, the editors of non-specialist translation journals, which have a wide public reach, are often not aware of writers who publish predominantly online. These are the central objectives of the project: a) To explore and interpret the contemporary scene of younger poets who promote their writing online. b) To promote selected poets to the academic and reading communities through scholarship and translation. c) To bring poetry and scholarship closer by working with both scholars and translators on highly visible publications, including non-specialist journals. The objectives have been achieved. Some planned steps had to be modified or abandoned due to the coronavirus restrictions during the pandemic (this concerns first and foremost the field trip to Russia to research literary festivals). Conversely, the practice of moving many events online has provided me with unprecedented opportunities for conference/invited lecture participation.

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