Konstantin Lipskerov’s “Eastern” Triolet (“Asia”)

Abstract

Konstantin Lipskerov’s sonnetized triolet “Asia” from the book of the poems about Turkestan “Sand and Roses” (1916) is considered in the article. The composition of the extended triolet “Asia” is a descriptive picture of the East. The genre supports the meditativeness and emphasized nominative nature of the poems, which don’t have even a single verb (there is only a single gerund “murmuring”). The non-linearity of the lyrical plot of the poem, “reversed moves, radial features, centrifugal and centripetal” (Yu. N. Chumakov) are analyzed. The initially given symmetry of Lipskerov’s 14-line triolet with the refrains removed from each other turns into asymmetry: two verses from the second part are eliminated, repetitions become an ornament framing the lyrical plot. At the same time, they intrude into the main course of the narrative, weaving their own line into it. An intermedial analogy of triolet colouristics with V. Vereshchagin’s Turkestan paintings is carried out. On Vereshchagin’s oriental canvases, and especially in his “Turkestan Series”, as in Lipskerov’s poem, the leading colours are yellow (desert, soil, floor), various shades of pink and blue (sky, temples, palaces, clothing details, etc.). These colours become the symbols of Turkestan.