Autobiographical tendencies in Boris Ryzhy’s works. The Rotterdam Diary [Rotterdamskiy dnevnik]

Abstract

The article analyzes the autobiographical features of The Rotterdam Diary [Rotterdamskiy dnevnik], the only prose work by the late poet B. Ryzhy, a native of Yekaterinburg. The Diary was written soon after his trip to the Poetry International Festival in the Netherlands in 2000 and can be viewed as the young poet’s confessions that shed light on the logic of his life and work. The book remained unfinished at the time of Ryzhy’s death — his widow and father came up with the title and initiated a posthumous publication in the Znamya journal. The book’s unique quality lies in its tentative genre attribution as well as significant fragmentation of the narrative. Using narratological methods, the article demonstrates the narrator’s use of a nonlinear narrative to put together his own image — that of a loner, a ‘loser,’ and, at the same time, ‘an ordinary Russian poet.’ Interestingly, this image is partially reflected in the poet’s contemporaries also portrayed in the Diary and helps to form an opinion about the lyrical hero from the viewpoint of his typological traits.