Drevin and Slutsky: The Context of One Poem

The study presents one of the analytical fragments of the Armenian text of Russian poetry. The corpus of “Armenian” texts includes the poem “The Builder of Paradise, the painter Drevin” by Boris Slutsky, which is outwardly unrelated to Armenia. The purpose of the article is to analyze the semantics of the poem’s context, in particular, its indirect connection with Armenia. The author solves a number of problems: characterizing the artistic work of Alexander Drevin and the role of Armenia in it, including writing an essay about the tragic biography of the artist; designation of Armenia’s place on the scale of values in the poetry of Boris Slutsky; characteristics of the Soviet image of paradise and its embodiment in art and literature. Using historical, cultural and biographical methods, the study reveals the Armenian subtext in the “non-Armenian” poem “The Builder of Paradise, the painter Drevin” based on the poems of Boris Slutsky and the archival file on charges of counter-revolutionary activities against Alexander Drevin (GA RF).