Nikolai Kliuev-prophet of Loss

The life, work, and reception of Nikolai Kliuev (1884-1937) provide striking illustrations of the intense preoccupation in Russian culture with the association between poetry and prophecy, between poet and prophet. Kliuev's work abounds in prophetic statements of many kinds, while he frequently and selfconsciously positioned himself as a "prophet" and explicitly identified his work as "prophetic." Moreover, the circumstances of his disappearance from and then re-appearance within the Russian literary pantheon have strengthened, posthumously, his claim to a prophetic role. In particular, the timing of his reappearance-in the period of glasnost'and perestroika, as his homeland was enduring yet another period of radical reshaping, leading to the dramatic disintegration of many of its social, political, and cultural institutions--invited readings of Kliuev and his work which emphasized, after the fact, the poet's ability to foretell the tragic fate of twentieth-century Russia, anticipated and apparently predicted in much of his wTiting. What is foregrounded and what is ignored in the presentation (and selfpresentation) of Kliuev the prophet demonstrate important paradigms for the interaction with poetry of the social, political, and cultural during and after the Modernist period in Russia, while the attention paid today to Kliuev the prophet emphasizes the continuing fascination with the vatic role of poet and poetry, even in the post-Soviet environment. As is abundantly obvious, Russian literature and Russian popular culture have frequently been preoccupied with various kinds of prophetic discourse and prophets. The early twentieth century was especially rich in prophetic texts and figures, while Russia today also manifests a clear interest in all kinds of "prophecy."' Since prophetic discourse is generally taken to be powerful, distinct, but obscure and in need of interpretation, and since prophets are ascribed a special, often cultic, status, although that status may be disputed and may even bring with it considerable risk to their own persons, it is hardly surprising to find that poetry and prophecy encounter one another frequently in Russia. Often the model of "prophet" is employed to authorize the superior status of the poet and his/her discourse (it is explicit, for example, in