“For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. But she saved herself with poetry in her notebook there are lines from Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, her husband. She had no children, she never married again. The entire “active phase” of her life - from 26 to 45 years old - took place in the camps. Elena, as an “enemy of the people,” was sent to a Kazakh camp for 19 years. Once I happened to hold in my hands an amazing handwritten collection of poems that belonged to Elena Vyalova, the widow of the Russian poet Pavel Vasiliev, who was tortured and shot in 1937. Poetry is the most intimate of the arts, what teaches us to think, feel, speak and hear first of all, ourselves. Maybe poetry and poetic thought - in the broad sense of the word, where you can include music, painting, and theater - are generally the only thing that can somehow comprehend, explain our life, reconcile us with our own existence.īrodsky said: Mankind, probably, can no longer be saved, but for the individual man there always remains a chance. In the life of a 21 st-century person, what place does poetry have? I just follow my Muse - almost by touch, because I can’t imagine any other way to live my life. Yes, this is not new “there is nothing new under the sun,” and “I stand on the shoulders of giants.” How it is justified? I don’t know, it’s not for me to judge. As mountains appear at the junction of lithospheric plates, so for me the most powerful creative energy is born at the junction of the arts.
#Behind enemy lines sasha series
For example, once I launched a campaign where I pasted my poems on message boards in different cities where I was, among “garage sale” and “manicure at home.” Recently I have created a series of abstract paintings, where my lines “flourish” through the coloristic substance. I have done projects that combine word and music, word and modern exhibition facilities, word and performance, etc. Yes, indeed, the intersection of various arts is my passion. Such an experiment is not new: someone painted on sculptures, someone exhibited texts in frames, etc. Sasha, it is written about you that you, as a poet, mix poetry with other types of art. My conversation with her is focused on how Ariadne’s thread led her to the Ararat valley.
Migration and the path as a lifestyle and creativity define Sasha Zaitseva. After that, she released the album of melodies, “Calluna,” dedicated to Armenia, and participated in the first ArmArtFest-2021 at the Armenian Embassy in Moscow. She has traveled to 20 countries, and two years ago she spent almost six months in Armenia in a spiritual and creative retreat. Sasha was born near Krasnodar, raised in Kazakhstan, now lives between two cities, Novosibirsk and St. Petersburg and Moscow, and a senior lecturer at Novosibirsk State University.
She is the author of the collection of poems titled The Snow That Was Not, published in Germany, laureate of several international literary competitions, a participant in art projects in Siberia, St. YEREVAN/NOVOSIBIRSK - Sasha Zaitseva is a modern Russian poet, art activist and editor.