Today is Fyodor Tyutchev‘s (1803-1873), one of the greatest Russian poets, 210th anniversary of birth.
I translated his poem “Опять стою я над Невой…” (Opyat’ stoyu ya nad Nevoy…), i.e. “Above the Neva river I stand again…”:
Fyodor Tyutchev’s 210th Anniversary of Birth
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Tyutchev was one of the poet’s we briefly studied in Russian literature at university. I seem to remember that he wrote his poetry in a trance-like state at night, and in the morning had no recollection of his doing so. Clearly he was able to do something that most writers would long to be able to do: let his subconscious mind take the creative lead.
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I’ve never heard about that! I should check this info.
What I particularly like about Tyutchev is that he viewed his poems as not worth publishing. Only after his death his poems became popular among the Russian public.
Speaking of the subconscious there’s a fine example: Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the periodic table of elements, who saw the final version of the table in a dream.
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