Obvodnyi kanal

In the picture, the table of contents of “Obvodnyi kanal” no. 4, 1983. From M. Sabbatini, “Quel che si metteva in rima”…, p. 451.

Title of the magazine:
“Obvodnyi kanal. Literaturno-kriticheskii zhurnal [The Obvodnyi canal. Journal of literary criticism]

Dates: 1981-1993

Place of publication: Leningrad

Editors: Kirill Butyrin, Sergei Stratanovskii

Main contributors: Boris Rokhlin, G. Benevich, A. Zhidkov, N. Il’in (Mal’chevskii)

Total numbers: 19

Description:
The periodical was produced in Leningrad between 1981 and 1993, under the leadership of Kirill Butyrin, supported by Sergei Stratanovskii, who edited the poetry section, and Boris Rokhlin, who edited the prose section. Rokhlin, who helped initiate the project, soon left the editorial staff (cf. Severiukhin 2003: 435-436). “Obvodnyi kanal” was the continuation of “Dialog”, a critical journal directed by Butyrin and Stratanovskii, three issues of which had been published between 1979 and February 1981. The name of the new journal refers to the symbolic Obvodnyi Canal in Saint Petersburg’s (cf. Butyrin, Stratanovskii 2017: 139) which represents the boundary between industrialised Soviet Leningrad and the city centre which preserves signs of its pre-revolutionary Petrine identity (cf. Sabbatini 2013: 272-275). It is no coincidence that many unofficial Leningrad authors like Stratanovskii himself, Elena Shvarts and Aleksandr Mironov found inspiration in the neighbourhood adjacent to the canal (cf. Sabbatini 2004: 250).
The magazine aimed to combine contemporary aesthetics with a search for a broader cultural-historical identity than that acknowledged by Soviet ideology (cf. Sabbatini 2020: 254-261). “Obvodnyi kanal” was born at a time of increasingly strict censorship that had led to the closure of the magazines “37” and “Severnaia pochta”. The columns on prose, poetry, literary criticism, and translation were flanked by articles on the figurative arts, philosophy, ideology and historiosophical thought (cf. Butyrin 1993: 124-126). The magazine stimulated dialogue between the different schools of literary expression in Leningrad and Moscow. The second and fourth issues featured the Moscow poets D. Prigov, L. Rubinshtein, O. Sedakova, B. Kenzheev, G. Sapgir and Iu. Kublanovskii. Among the Leningrad poets the magazine published were D. Bobyshev, L. Aronzon, E. Shvarts, A. Mironov, V. Krivulin, E. Pudovkina, O. Okhapkin, V. Ėrl’ and E. Ignatova as well as V. Filippov and S. Zav’ialov from the younger generation. Individual collections were published as appendices including Korabl’ (The Ship), and in 1984 Kniga malen’kikh poėm (The Book of Poems) and Trudy i dni Lavinii (Works and Days of Lavinia) by Elena Shvarts.
Prose by young Leningrad writers, such as M. Berg, B. Kudriakov, B. Dyshlenko and E. Zviagin, alternated with that of established foreign authors such as George Orwell (no. 9, 1986). Translations of verse by John Donne, William Blake and Germany’s Stefan George were also published. Literary criticism and non-fiction was also given prominence; in the fourth issue of 1983 Elena Ignatova presented an essay entitled Kto my? (Who are we?), which reflected on the identity of the ‘Second Culture’ and on the need to recognise oneself as an ‘unofficial writer’ in a Soviet context that was devoid of expectation and hope. In issue no. 9 of 1986, considerable space was given to Khlebnikov, with a focus on his influence and reception in the contemporary world, in a written questionnaire entitled Velimir Khlebnikov segodnia (Velimir Khlebnikov today) which took inspiration from a similar piece on the symbolist poet, Blok, by Stratanovskii and Butyrin in the third issue of “Dialog” in February 1981.
Evgenii Pazukhin’s long essay on the religious poetry, typical of Mironov, Okhapkin, Stratanovskii and Shvarts from Saint Petersburg stoked controversy and debate on Leningrad poetry and was indicative of the magazine’s increasingly provocative Slavophile slant. During the late 1980s, religious, philosophical and national questions became more prominent, which resulted in Stratanovskii distancing himself from the editorial staff as early as the eleventh issue in 1987.
In contrast to the journal’s initial purposes, previously declared in “Dialog”, in which Butyrin and Stratanovskii’s affirmed they would give voice to liberal thought and discuss the national question through open debate (cf. Butyrin, Stratanovskii 2017: 266-288), the Obvodnyi kanal became increasingly dominated by Butyrin’s conservative opinions. This was not the first controversy triggered by the aesthetic and ideological orientation of the magazine; as is clear from the events surrounding the journal “Transponans” in 1983  (cf. Parisi 2013: 165-167). Despite the magazine’s ideological intransience, the editor-in-chief is to be credited with a liberal selection and collection of texts and authors.
During the 1980s, Butyrin directed the literary criticism section of Klub-81, and published long articles, under the pen name K. Mamontov.  Worthy of note among these, are an essay dedicated to Stratanovskii’s poetry in the first issue of 1981 and the essay Posle Vysotskogo (After Vysotskii), dedicated to the poet-songwriter who died in 1980 in the second issue in 1982. The editor-in-chief also came up with the idea of publishing a supplement to the magazine entitled Most, dedicated to translations of literary works, criticism, culture, theology, and philosophy. Six issues of this supplement were published between 1987 and 1991. Butyrin collaborated with G. Benevich, A. Zhidkov and N. Il’in (Mal’chevskii) on the translations. With the ideological crisis at the end of the 1980s, religious and national issues became more prominent, issues that Butyrin saw as essential for the rebirth of Russian identity. Debates on these issues continued in the magazine until the winter of 1991, when the eighteenth issue was published. Despite the end of the Soviet Union and censorship, materials were also collected for a new issue in 1993, which circulated only among a small number of readers. Original copies of the journal are stored at the Memorial in St. Petersburg and at Forschungsstelle Osteuropa – FSO Centre for Research on Eastern Europe at the University of Bremen.

Marco Sabbatini
[30th June 2021]

Translation by Cecilia Martino

Bibliography

• Butyrin K., U istokov Obvodnogo kanala, in V. Dolinin, B. Ivanov (eds.), Samizdat (Po materialam konferentsii “30 let nezavisimoi pechati. 1950-80 gody”. Sankt-Peterburg, 25-27 aprelia 1992 g.), Nits Memorial, Sankt-Peterburg 1993: 124-129.
• Butyrin V., Stratanovskii S. (eds.), Pamiati Kirilla Butyrina, Juolukka, Sankt-Peterburg 2017.
• Dolinin V., Ivanov B., Ostanin B., Severjuchin D. (eds.), Samizdat Leningrada. 1950-e – 1980-e. Literaturnaia ėntsiklopediia, Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, Moskva 2003.
• Komaromi A. (ed.), Project for the Study of Dissidence and Samizdat, University of Toronto, https://samizdatcollections.library.utoronto.ca/islandora/object/samizdat%3Aobvodnyikanal, online (last accessed: 30/06/2021).
• Parisi V., Il lettore eccedente. Edizioni periodiche del samizdat sovietico. 1956-1991, Il Mulino, Bologna 2013.
• Sabbatini M., Interv’iu s Sergeem Stratanovskim (Sankt Peterburg 10 marta 2003), in A. d’Amelia (ed.), Pietroburgo capitale della cultura russa, Collana di Europa Orientalis, Salerno 2004: 247-251.
• Sabbatini M., “Quel che si metteva in rima”: cultura e poesia underground a Leningrado, Collana di Europa Orientalis, Salerno 2008.
• Sabbatini M., Leningrado underground. Testi, poetiche, samizdat, WriteUp, Roma 2020.
• Sabbatini M., Obvodnyi kanal v mifopoėtike Sergeia Stratanovskogo 1970-1980-ch gg., in J. Jaccard, V. Friedli, J. Herlt (eds.), Vtoraia kul’tura. Neofitsial’naia poėziia Leningrada v 1970-1980-e gody, Materialy mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii (Genève, 1-3/03/2012), Rostok, Sankt-Peterburg 2013: 267-308.