Poesia russa e rivoluzione: osservazioni su tre prodotti dell’editoria italiana

This short paper deals with three Italian anthologies focusing on the connection between Russian poetry and the Russian Revolution: Poe- sia russa della rivoluzione (1923, edited by Ettore Lo Gatto), Poesia russa della rivoluzione (1923, ed. by Bruno Carnevali), and 1917: i poeti che fecero la Rivoluzione (2017, ed. by Davide Brullo). Judging by the titles of the volumes, the common reader is led to assume that he will find a direct link between the lives of the poets, whose works are included in these anthologies, and the political circumstances connected to the February and October Revolution of 1917 (or, at least, to the 1905 one). In fact, after reading through the anthologies’ selections (especially, the ones assembled by Carnevali and Brullo), the reader realizes that the poems included in the collection are not always strictly connected to politics, both for mere chronological rea- sons (some texts were written before 1905) and because of the person- al attitudes of the editors towards the authors. As a result, the concept of “revolution” itself gets progressively broadened and even diluted, and, at the same time, more and more room is left to the tastes and preferences of the editors.