«I Would Like to Leave a Mark on Poetry»: Creative Biography of Boris Burshtyn

Abstract

The article is based, first of all, on the archival materials of the Literary Museum of the Smolensk State University. The paper reconstructs the life and creative path of Boris Sergeyevich Burshtyn, a poet, literary and theater critic, translator of the people’s poets of the USSR. Much attention is paid to his Smo- lensk period of life. In the early 1920s, Burshtyn was an organizer of the Arena Artel of Word Artists and the Club of Poets, that played an important role in the development of Smolensk poetry. As a critic, he collaborated with local and na- tional magazines. Smolensk forever made friends with the poet Mikhail Isakovsky and Alexander Tvardovsky, who considered Burshnyn their literary mentor. In 1938, in connection with the repressions of the state security agencies, he moved to Moscow, where he began to engage in literary translation, highly appreciated by his contemporaries.