“We Trample on Our Dusty Stars”: The Poetry of Russian Los Angeles

Russian-American Cultural Center is very pleased to present

Boris Dralyuk

Translations of five Russophone Angelenos and original poems from his forthcoming collection, My Hollywood.

“We Trample on Our Dusty Stars”: The Poetry of Russian Los Angeles

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88123496712?pwd=NXAzUjFtVUJUU2RUTlVRVWVtK2ZSQT09

Meeting ID: 881 2349 6712 | Passcode: 439786

View the video by Roman Khidekel via YouTube

Fleeing revolution, war, and persecution, successive waves of Russian émigrés landed on foreign shores throughout the 20th century. There they strove not only to survive but also to safeguard the culture they loved. They set up schools and clubs, opened cafés and restaurants, founded theaters and presses, and wrote and published poetry and prose in cash-strapped journals and newspapers. The capitals of exile — Shanghai and Harbin, Berlin and Paris, and, after the Second World War, New York — were home to a number of authors who left their mark on the Russophone literary tradition. Less well known are the Russian-speaking poets of another major center of immigration: Los Angeles. Boris Dralyuk will present his translations of the poems of five Russophone Angelenos — the composer and lyricist Vernon Duke (born Vladimir Dukelsky, 1903-1969), Vladimir Korvin-Piotrovsky (1891-1966), Vladislav Ellis (1913-1975), Richard Ter-Boghossian (1911-2005), and Peter Vegin (1939-2007) — as well as a few of his own poems about Russian Los Angeles, all of which will appear in his forthcoming collection, My Hollywood and Other Poems (Paul Dry Books, April 2022).

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Cojeco and Tianaderrah Foundation.