Open-access edition of "Snapshots of the Soul: Photo-Poetic Encounters in Modern Russian Culture" by Molly Thomasy Blasing

FAIN: DR-292404-23

Cornell University (Ithaca, NY 14850-2820)
Mahinder Singh Kingra (Project Director: November 2022 to March 2025)

Snapshots of the Soul considers how photography has shaped Russian poetry from the early twentieth century to the present day. Drawing on theories of the lyric and the elegy, the social history of technology, and little-known archival materials, Molly Thomasy Blasing offers close readings of poems by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Joseph Brodsky, and Bella Akhmadulina, as well as by the late and post-Soviet poets Andrei Sen-Sen'kov, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, and Kirill Medvedev, to understand their fascination with the visual language, representational power, and metaphorical possibilities offered by the camera and the photographic image.

Media Coverage

Review (Review)
Author(s): Yelena Severina
Publication: Ab Imperio
Date: 1/28/2025
Abstract: The author studies photographic motifs, themes, and allusions in the poetry and prose of the four protagonists, drawing on a wide range of additional sources: their personal correspondence, essays, interviews, recollections of their descendants, and black-and-white photographs. Each new chapter effectively builds on the findings of the previous one, thereby creating a sense of continuity and a cohesive reading experience that makes the book feel like a unified whole rather than a collection of disparate parts. By using this approach, Blasing masterfully shows how the adoption of "photo-poetic thinking" played a pivotal role in shaping the distinctive artistic styles of these poets.
URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/178/article/906855

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: Snapshots of the Soul: Photo-Poetic Encounters in Modern Russian Culture
Year: 2021
ISBN: 9781501753701
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Author: Molly Thomasy Blasing
Abstract: Snapshots of the Soul considers how photography has shaped Russian poetry from the early twentieth century to the present day. Drawing on theories of the lyric and the elegy, the social history of technology, and little-known archival materials, Molly Thomasy Blasing offers close readings of poems by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Joseph Brodsky, and Bella Akhmadulina, as well as by the late and post-Soviet poets Andrei Sen-Sen'kov, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, and Kirill Medvedev, to understand their fascination with the visual language, representational power, and metaphorical possibilities offered by the camera and the photographic image.
Primary URL: https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501753701/snapshots-of-the-soul/
Primary URL Description: This URL links to the book's webpage on the Cornell University Press website, which allows users to download the Open Access ebooks as either ePub or PDF files for free.
Secondary URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/255/oa_monograph/book/84317
Secondary URL Description: This URL links to the book's record on the Project MUSE site, indicating its status as an Open Access title. NB: Although updated files with changes to the copyright page indicating that Open Access publication has been supported by the NEH have been disseminated to our ebook partners like Project MUSE and JSTOR, these platforms may not have replaced the existing file with the revised file.
URL 3: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv180h6wp
URL 3 Description: This URL links to the book's record on the JSTOR site, indicating its status as an Open Access title. NB: Although updated files with changes to the copyright page indicating that Open Access publication has been supported by the NEH have been disseminated to our ebook partners like Project MUSE and JSTOR, these platforms may not have replaced the existing file with the revised file.
Type: Single author monograph

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