Unknown Siberian Poems by Vasily Yan

The first publication of poems by the Soviet writer-historian, 1st degree Stalin Prize laureate
Vasily Yan (Yanchevetsky), composed in 1920–1923, when he lived and worked in Siberia.
Source – handwritten miscellany “Poems of Wanderings”, recently discovered in the
Yanchevetskys’ family archive. The publication is accompanied by detailed biographical
comments. In the civil war, V. Yanchevetsky took part on the side of the whites as one of the main propagandists of the Kolchak army – the head of the Informative Department of
the Special Chancellery of the Supreme Commander’s Staff, editor of the front newspaper
“Vperyod”. After the collapse of the white movement, V. Yanchevetsky had to hide his past,
changing occupations and places of residence (Achinsk, Uyuk, Minusinsk). The Siberian po-
etic cycle, created at this time, makes it possible to understand not only the mood of the
author in the last years of the turning point in Russian history, but also literary searches, and
the atmosphere of the time in general. The main themes are homeland, revolution, freedom,
atheism, building a new life, preserving the personality in the face of political upheavals. Obviously, the influence on the poetic style of the author of such trends as symbolism and futurism, which he was interested in. In Omsk V. Yanchevetsky closely communicated with the
writer, poet and avant-garde artist Anton Sorokin, attended his literary evenings at home.
Probably, as a result, some of the Siberian poems were written in free verse, to which
V. Yanchevetsky had never used before.