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Kuzmin, Mikhail A.
(Author)
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Until recently almost unknown to most Soviet readers, Kuzmin occupied an important place in Russian literature of the early twentieth century. An erudite and talented poet and prose writer, personally close to the symbolists, he developed a distinct aesthetic credo, advocating an abandonment of the multilayered "forest of symbols" for an appreciation and celebration of the concrete world of the body and culture. He presented these views in a 1910 article, regarded as a manifesto of Acmeism. In general, Kuzmin's writings reflect his profound immersion in the worlds of literature, art, and philosophy from antiquity to the present. His works often involve a retelling of historical and legendary subjects, as in "The Deed of Alexander of Macedon." Some of his poetic cycles involve a degree of experimentation matched only by Mandelstam and Akhmatova. Finally, in both prose and poetry, Kuzmin often freely treated the theme of homosexual love (e.g., in the novella Wings [1907]), almost alone in Russian literature in this regard.
Major editions of Kuzmin, in Russian and edited by U.S. scholars, appeared in the West during the 1970s and 1980s. In the last several years, some anthologies of his texts have finally been published in Russia.
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