Even literature has enlisted in the glorification of the Russian “special military operation.” The Z-poets dust off the warlike accents of the First World War and the generation of writers who supported the controversial exploits of the Red Army.
Moscow () – Independent researcher Tatiana Shakhmatova has published a new version of her collection of Z poems – dedicated to the Russian war of the “Zeta swastika” – and recalling the “Golden Age” of Russian literature of the 19th century and the “Silver Age” of the symbolists of the early 20th century, calls the current literary version the “Zinc Age.” In Russia, literature, especially poetry, has also been enrolled in the glorification of the “special military operation” – the SVO in Ukraine – which now seems to be in the process of being redefined after the abortive uprising of the Wagner group. And in several places they are trying to gather the testimonies of this form of “theater of the absurd”.
According to the propagandists of warring Russia, also called “hurray-patriots”, the new military poetry is “a real masterpiece”, a new word in world literature. However, despite the agreement in support of the war, in this form of propaganda there are different literary genres, and on the other hand it is not a novelty in the panorama of Russian culture, where a century ago the great writers put themselves at the service of the revolution with quite different results, from Majakovsky to Gumilev and many others. To put it in the same words as the Z poets, there are the “naknižaty” (bookish) and the “naknjažaty” (princely), that is, the supporters of the ruling power.
The upper echelons of power in Russia, from medieval grand dukes to tsars and Party secretaries, have always sought glorification of their exploits through literature, like the generation of poets who supported the controversial exploits of the Red Army during World War II, with Kuprin, Gorodetsky, Severjanin and many others. Agit-prop writing is characterized by some specific dimensions: the theme imposed from above, the illustrative and documentary capacity, the reference to particular episodes and geographical names linked to the facts, and above all the moral pathos of the contents. There is no room for between the lines or diversified interpretations, and therefore the literary form is always very direct.
As was the case at the time of the First World War, on the eve of the revolution, today the real and political reasons for the conflicts are also ignored, to focus solely on the defense of the interests of Russia and the peoples linked to and subjected to it. . Russia is the “Zastupnik”, the “intercessor” country, while the enemy – as Austria-Hungary was called – is the “Začinščits”, the culprit of the world’s problems, and in general, as in the subsequent war, Germans are the “blood enemies” of all Slavs, a rhetoric taken up literally in Putin’s Russia for Ukraine’s “defense” against resurrected Nazism.
In any case, the higher-level poet-propagandists distinguish themselves from the mass of slogan repeaters. A specialist in Russian war poetry from the First World War, Yurij Zobnin, offers examples of correspondence with the authors of that time, such as the chauvinist collection entitled “Death to the Germans!”, or another titled “Woe to the occupiers , of the German pigs in Russian land”, where it is said that the German pigs have caught a crab / it is hard to fight with the Russian male / From evil they have forgotten the rage / and have hidden their heads in the sand … (poem The famous Sologub wrote God be with the beginner! / his fist in the iron armor / but the encirclement will be broken / against our eternal castle (1915).
Z-propagandists like María Batutina, who sings Let’s raise our heads, they begin to listen to us / Soon we will be princes, and they won’t be able to hurt us / Memory returns, the truth is with us / As in the Great War, the homeland will win / Memory returns, the truth is with us / Wake up granny, there will be no shame (poem entitled “Get up granny, dress granny”). The expression “there will be no shame”, net styda, reveals more than any other the fear, not only of poets, but of all Russians these days: that of sinking into the contempt and ridicule of the whole world. So they shout: who is ashamed of the Ukrainian adventure / go to hell with your Bandera!, remembering the hated Ukrainian leader who collaborated with the Nazis, “resurrected” by the Russian rhetoric of this war.
Image: Excerpt from “Hades” by Hieronymus Bosch
