Roma Liberov. "About One Poem by Vladislav Khodasevich"

Roma Liberov's lecture
"On One Poem by Vladislav Khodasevich."

Roma Liberov had long before the war been involved with the "unnoticed generation" and the history of the first emigration. At the time, it seemed like a history textbook, exciting but distant.

The history textbook, without being asked, entered our lives. And here we read poems written 100 years ago differently. We feel the life and power in them. At the same time, we realize that for a couple of lines created decades ago, it's easy to get caught up in the denunciation these days. And, at the same time, it is lines like these that are support and healing.

Roma Liberov's lectures and films today are about historical rhyme through a century - about the roll call of trials and fears. To live and understand. And to feel hope.

This lecture is not a philological study, but only an occasion to remember the early émigré years of Vladislav Khodasevich and to compare them with what some of us are now experiencing.

By the time he emigrated, Vladislav Khodasevich was a famous poet and literary critic. He emigrated from Russia in 1922, anticipating a forced exile. Khodasevich lived in Berlin for less than two years. And it was here that his last poetic cycle "European Night" was written.

"It was half-dark outside,
The window banged somewhere under the roof.
The light flashed, the curtain went up,
A quick shadow from the wall.
Happy is the man who falls headlong:
The world is a different place for him, even for a moment."

After Berlin, Khodasevich switched to translations and prose. He published a biography of Derzhavin. He wrote and published many critical articles, essays, essays, literary portraits. After leaving for Italy and, later, settling in Paris, he practically stopped writing poetry.

"No, I shall not find food today
For a comforting dream:
"Only organ-grinders and beggars,
And rain from the same height."

ROMA LIBEROV
Russian film director, screenwriter, producer. Since 2009 he has been working on a series of films in memory of Russian writers, in which he uses non-fiction and staged shots, animation, puppet and shadow theater, installations, computer graphics, etc. The director's visual language conveys the literary style of the writers about whom the film is made. Journalists call this style quasi-documentary cinema. He attracted actors for the project: Armen Jigarkhanyan, Valentin Gaft, Inna Churikova, Sergei Makovetsky, Viktor Sukhorukov, Chulpan Khamatova, Sergei Puskepalis and others.