Burning brushwood. Chekanov E.

The verses of Evgeny Chekanov reflected the history of Russia, the past and real, the entire tragic twentieth century in all its unpredictability and diversity. Thinking about the past, the poet is not afraid to peer into the future. His poems are sometimes light, sometimes ironic, bitter, but always sincere, deep and very lyrical. Before us is not just a book, the creator of which seeks to revive the genre of the author’s commentary to the poems that almost disappeared in Russian literature (Evgeny Chekanov is starting from the “explanations for the composition of Derzhavin relatively dark places in them...”). By definition, critic Irina Kalus, the reader is offered something fundamentally different-"a special alloy of poetry and memoir-philosophical commentary." This is a frank (and sometimes biased) testimony of a contemporary, valuable with its honesty, straightforwardness, historical instinct and insight, a son of a sense of homeland. Comments are written in the blood of hearts, freshly fresh, but from the standpoint of a wise person who has seen a lot (and rethought). The historical, literary and biographical context, with which Evgeny Chekanov saturated his new book, organically complements poetic lines, creating an integral model of the author's worldview.