I had the happiness of being a Russian poet ... ". Five poems by David Samoilov

The book is devoted to the analysis of one of the most important semantic lines of the poetry of David Samoilov - his reflection both over his own literary affairs, fate, mission, and on wider problems (the purpose of poetry and the poet, the fate of the poet in Russia and its features in the twentieth century) Five chapters analyzes poems written at different stages of the creative path: "from childhood" (1956), "Old Man Derzhavin" (1962), "Poet and Citizen" (1970-1971), "Night Guest" (1972), "To me The happiness of being a Russian poet fell ... "(1981) At the same time, the reader unfolds the story of not only Samoilov, but also the Russian poet of the second half of the twentieth century and the poet in general: gaining a gift in childhood, joining literature in youth, conjunction of the achieved high status and severe responsibility in maturity, and summing up on the threshold old age. Much attention was paid to the inclusion of Samoilov’s poetry in the national tradition, his dialogue with his predecessors and contemporaries (Derzhavin, Pushkin, Akhmatova, Pasternak, Slutsky, Brodsky, etc) The book was written by the Ordinary Professor of the National Research University "Higher School of Economics" Andrei Nemzer, the author of the accompanying articles, the compiler, a commentator on a number of representative publications of poetry, prose and epistolary Samoilov