Sorrento Photographs: Khodasevich's Memory Speaks

The Russian poet Vladislav Khodasevich (1886-1939), who spent the last seventeen years of his life in Western Europe, wrote a total of five books of verse: the first two, Molodost (Youth, 1908) and Shchastlivyi domik (The Happy Little House, 1914), are largely derivative and, by the poet's own admission, immature; the last three, Putem zerna (Grain's Way, 1920), Tiashelaia lira (The Heavy Lyre, 1922), and Evropeiskaia noch’ (European Night, 1927), form the limited body of his mature work. It is on the basis of the last three collections that Khodasevich's modest reputation has been established. It is ironic that the relative obscurity of Khodasevich's best work bears witness to the vagaries of exile about which he often wrote. Indeed, in 1922, the year Khodasevich left Russia, Valéry published Charmes, Proust died while polishing his novel, Eliot founded the journal Criterion and printed The Waste Land in its pages, and Joyce's Ulysses was released in a small Parisian edition.