Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov

In 1927, Nâzım Hikmet composed several poems based on his impressions of his visit to Azerbaijani capital, the city of Baku. They will be included in the collection Song of the Sun-drinkers (1928) and will soon be translated into Russian. The Baku cycle was one of the first attempts at a symbolic re...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kirill M. Korchagin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University 2023-08-01
Series:Слово.ру: балтийский акцент
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.kantiana.ru/slovo/5364/42533/
_version_ 1827854585251758080
author Kirill M. Korchagin
author_facet Kirill M. Korchagin
author_sort Kirill M. Korchagin
collection DOAJ
description In 1927, Nâzım Hikmet composed several poems based on his impressions of his visit to Azerbaijani capital, the city of Baku. They will be included in the collection Song of the Sun-drinkers (1928) and will soon be translated into Russian. The Baku cycle was one of the first attempts at a symbolic representation of petroleum in Russian poetry, in many ways foreshadowing the later poetics of the subject, which will develop on Russian material only in the 2000s. One can look at these poems by Hikmet as one of the first attempts to create a philosophy of petroleum, which will find its most large-scale embodiment in the philosophical novel “Cyclonopedia” by Reza Negarestani, where petroleum constitutes a new type of subjectivity, simultaneously fluid and explosive. On the other hand, the image of petroleum will play a key role in Alexei Parshchikov’s poem of the same name, where one can also discern echoes of this philosophy in Hikmet’s Baku cycle. For all these authors, petroleum acts as a radical expression of the logic of non-translation: it is a condensed memory of antiquity, which cannot be directly accessed; its mystery cannot be revealed because, in a sense, it contains no mystery. Such a paradoxical semiotics leads all three authors to the idea that petroleum is alien to the human world and has a special inhuman agency.
first_indexed 2024-03-12T11:24:48Z
format Article
id doaj.art-13e771a9e4ea43c3926b69e00b50eaa7
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2225-5346
2686-8989
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-12T11:24:48Z
publishDate 2023-08-01
publisher Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University
record_format Article
series Слово.ру: балтийский акцент
spelling doaj.art-13e771a9e4ea43c3926b69e00b50eaa72023-09-01T10:10:42ZengImmanuel Kant Baltic Federal UniversityСлово.ру: балтийский акцент2225-53462686-89892023-08-01143527310.5922/2225-5346-2023-3-4Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, ParshchikovKirill M. Korchagin0Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; V.V. Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences In 1927, Nâzım Hikmet composed several poems based on his impressions of his visit to Azerbaijani capital, the city of Baku. They will be included in the collection Song of the Sun-drinkers (1928) and will soon be translated into Russian. The Baku cycle was one of the first attempts at a symbolic representation of petroleum in Russian poetry, in many ways foreshadowing the later poetics of the subject, which will develop on Russian material only in the 2000s. One can look at these poems by Hikmet as one of the first attempts to create a philosophy of petroleum, which will find its most large-scale embodiment in the philosophical novel “Cyclonopedia” by Reza Negarestani, where petroleum constitutes a new type of subjectivity, simultaneously fluid and explosive. On the other hand, the image of petroleum will play a key role in Alexei Parshchikov’s poem of the same name, where one can also discern echoes of this philosophy in Hikmet’s Baku cycle. For all these authors, petroleum acts as a radical expression of the logic of non-translation: it is a condensed memory of antiquity, which cannot be directly accessed; its mystery cannot be revealed because, in a sense, it contains no mystery. Such a paradoxical semiotics leads all three authors to the idea that petroleum is alien to the human world and has a special inhuman agency. https://journals.kantiana.ru/slovo/5364/42533/non-translationcultural accommodationnâzım hikmetreza negarestanialexei parshchikovsemiotics of petroleum
spellingShingle Kirill M. Korchagin
Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
Слово.ру: балтийский акцент
non-translation
cultural accommodation
nâzım hikmet
reza negarestani
alexei parshchikov
semiotics of petroleum
title Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
title_full Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
title_fullStr Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
title_full_unstemmed Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
title_short Petroleum as a space for non-translation: Hikmet, Negarestani, Parshchikov
title_sort petroleum as a space for non translation hikmet negarestani parshchikov
topic non-translation
cultural accommodation
nâzım hikmet
reza negarestani
alexei parshchikov
semiotics of petroleum
url https://journals.kantiana.ru/slovo/5364/42533/
work_keys_str_mv AT kirillmkorchagin petroleumasaspacefornontranslationhikmetnegarestaniparshchikov