POETRY BY DZIGA VERTOV AND ANATOLY MARIENHOF: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The article focuses on a comparative analysis of poems written by Dziga Vertov and Anatoly Marienhof. Despite the fact that the two poets were not acquainted and there is no documentary evidence of their mutual influence, they share a number of similarities in the development of their lives and artistic endeavours, in which the cultural and historical context of their era was reflected. The authors’ early writings share a common cutting technique. Montage became the main technique for describing both the rapidly changing reality of the post-revolutionary era and the fragmentation of the world and consciousness. That explains the duality of the protagonist and the appearance of the image of a buffoon. The similarity between Marienhof’s early poems and Vertov’s ones is also revealed in the predominant tragicomic tone, which is conditioned by the perception of the Revolution as a traumatic experience. Similarity can also be traced in the composition of images: it is cutting again that they use while organizing their metaphors (separate images are combined by thematic or associative links). In later works Marienhof and Vertov reevaluate their personal histories, using the antithesis of “now” and “then”, which shows a tragic turn in the lives of both artists. Apart from that, they turn from avant-garde poetic forms to more traditional ones. Thus, the article explores important stylistic, ideological, and biographical correlations in the work of two Russian avant-gardists.