THE GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN POETRY:

WHO OR WHAT WAS THE PUSHKIN PLEIAD?

MR. MICHAEL PURSGLOVE, M.Phil.

The term "pleiad" has been applied to groups of writers (theoretically seven in number) in Ancient Greece, France and Russia. The term "Pushkin Pleiad" will probably be familiar to anyone who has studied the Golden Age of Russian Poetry. Who first used the term and when? What did they mean by it? Is the term any different from the "Pushkin School" or the "Pushkin Circle"? How many poets can be considered members of the Pushkin Pleiad (critics differ considerably on this question)? What are the criteria for, as it were, membership? Does any other major Russian poet have a Pleiad?

These and related questions will be considered and, hopefully, answered by Michael Pursglove. He is a retired Senior Lecturer in Modern Languages at Exeter University. He also taught Russian language and literature at the Universities of Ulster, Reading and Bath. Among his prose translations are book length versions of D.V. Grigorovich's Anton-Goremyka and Bobyl (1991, with Nina Allan) and I.S. Turgenev'sFathers and Children (2010), Smoke (2013) and Virgin Soil (2014) - all published by Alma Classics. He has also written widely on Russian literature and translation issues in UK and Russian journals. His published translations of Russian poetry include works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tiutchev, Yazykov, A.K. Tolstoi, Apukhtin, Larissa Miller and others. He is currently working on a translation of I.S. Turgenev'sDvoryanskoye Gnyezdo for Alma Classics, to be published in 2016, and has recently posted online an annotated translation of V.A. Giliarovskii's Moskva i Moskvichi and Droozya i Vstraichi (www. Gilyarovsky.com).

This is a GB Russia event and tickets at £7/£5 are only available from the GB Russia Society website at: www.gbrussia.org