"Poetry of those who lived by the sea": a creative evening was held at the National Centre RUSSIA branch in Primorye

Primorsky Krai

On 14 October, the poetic history of Vladivostok was discussed at the branch of the National Centre RUSSIA in the Primorye region. Another meeting of the cycle "Literary Life of Primorye", a lecture titled "100 years of the Vladivostok poetry", was held in the space of the Centre. 

The lecture was delivered by Ivan Kozhin, philologist and leading librarian of the city library No. 12, and was dedicated to poets whose work has shaped the cultural image of Vladivostok and Primorye for more than a century.

"Every epoch in the poetry of Primorye is a reflection of movement, exploration, and constant search. Our literature is about the path. This is the poetry of those who lived by the sea, in the mountains, in the taiga, who felt the space and wrote about it," said Ivan Kozhin.

One of the first poets of Primorye was Pavel Kuzikov, military doctor, author of collected poems published in 1895 in the printing house of the Eastern Ocean Port. In the 1930s, Pavel Vasilyev occupied a special place in Far Eastern literature, whose poems featured images of the sea, fishing artels, everyday work, and the heroics of creation. 

Vyacheslav Afanasyev, poet, intelligence agent and officer, wrote his poetry during the Great Patriotic War. His famous lines "...caught by the last summer..." became a symbol of the generation that did not return from the war.  After the war, literary life actively developed in Vladivostok: such magazines as "Soviet Primorye", "Pacific Ocean", "Golden Horn", "Pacific Surf", "Far East", "Literary Vladivostok" appeared. It was their pages that became a platform for publishing the works of poets of the 1950s-1980s, a generation seeking harmony between industrialization, the sea, and the inner world of man.

The lecturer also spoke about the poets of Vladivostok during the Perestroyka period, and modern times. The audience was presented with a unique panorama of characters and destinies, styles and trends — in the local taiga and fishing environment.