The reception of the American poet Walt Whitman has been a global phenomenon. It is central to the history of modern poetry, but it goes beyond literary stakes: Whitman’s proclaimed heirs often saw him as a prophet of a new world. This book focuses on the Russian and Soviet uses of the poet, showing how they contributed to his transformation into a revolutionary and communist icon, especially in the US and in Latin America. It illuminates circuitous routes of translations and interpretations between the Soviet Union, Europe and the Americas. It covers a vast linguistic scope, including Yiddish and various languages of the Russian and Soviet empires.

Table of Contents:
List of illustrations Permissions Note on transliteration, names and translations Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction Chapter 1. Whitman as a primitive (1880s–1910s) 1. A neo-wanderer 2. “Striking up for a New World” The Adamic Whitman The Greek Whitman 3. The barbarian  The Germanic Whitman Against “Latin” sclerosis 4. Westward: another direction for the quest of the primitive in Russia 5. Appropriation and separation Transatlantic barbarians: Whitman and Verhaeren Volte-faces Chapter 2. The Futurist poet (1910s–1920s) 1. The poetry of modern chaos Poet of the metropolis A rebel against hierarchy 2. A precursor of Futurism  A “propeller” of Western avant-gardes Korney Chukovsky’s “first real Futurist” 3. Whitman and (post-) Russian Futurist poetry  Velimir Khlebnikov: from circumspection to kinship Vladimir Mayakovsky: from anxiety of influence to anxiety of impotence Post-imperial Whitman (the Baltic states and Ukraine) Chapter 3. Whitman the prophet (1880s–1930s) 1. The prophet of the body “I believe in the flesh and the appetites”: the anti-Victorian Whitman The passion of the body (Konstantin Balmont) Yiddish poets and the female body 2. The poet as “kosmos” The prophet’s heart as a cosmos (Morris Rosenfeld) Cosmic consciousness (Richard Maurice Bucke) A “chronic mystical perception” (William James) From the Milky Way to Russian iconostasis (Balmont and Grigoriev) 3. The seer and the guide New American and British churches The Russian prorok The prophet of the Promised Land Chapter 4. From democrat to socialist (1880s–1919) Foreword: the impact of the British editions 1. “The institution of the dear love of comrades” Whitman and British ethical socialism The transatlantic socialist fellowship Continental European Whitmanites 2. The Russian democrat Selected poems, from Whitman and not from Whitman The poetry of “struggle” versus the poetry of “future democracy” 3. War and peace “An example of war poetry” Whitman the wound-dresser Love and reconciliation Chapter 5. The extraordinary adventures of Walt Whitman in the land of the Bolsheviks (1918–1936) 1. A wide circulation  The 1920s: (re)-translating, (re)-publishing Whitman in Russian The anthology of the revolution: highly selected poems Korenizing Whitman The 1930s: becoming a classic  2. Whitmanian agitprop Celebrating the revolution with Whitman in 1918 The Proletkult shows: “the first experiments of poetic theatre” The Whitman club: “to kiss, to work and to die Whitman’s way” Whitman and Soviet film: from kino-eye to montage Chapter 6. Between the wars: a transatlantic fellow traveler (1919–1938) 1. In Europe: the relative decline of the socialist Whitman The 1919 celebrations Foiled European revolutions  In the press: the Comintern of translators Turning “Salut au Monde!” into a parody 2. In the US: Proletarian Whitman Turning more partisan Whitman for the workers “Towards Proletarian Art”: Whitman among leftist intellectuals In Yiddish: “Salut au Monde!” as a marching hymn Whitman and the Great Depression 3. Supplementing Whitman’s America “The other America” Black Whitman, Red Whitman Coda: Three American intermedial “Salut au Monde!” Chapter 7. Pioneers and Pionery: political transfers (1886–1944) 1. Preamble: the British marches of the “Pioneers” 2. Russian and Soviet Pionery Fake Pioneers Avant-garde Pionery From “frontline fighters” to pionery 3. In the US: “O New Pioneers” Pionern: a velt fun marsh un arbet The pioneers during the Great Depression Chapter 8. Anti-fascist Whitman (1936–1945) 1. “Against war and fascism” “Spain 1873–1874,” Spain 1936–1939 León Felipe: from “Song of Myself” to “Salut au Monde!” 2. World War II: The Whitman pact A “wartime Whitman” in the US Looking for Whitman on the White Sea The honor of poets (the French Resistance) 1945: Singing the spring Chapter 9. “Salut au Monde!” across the Iron Curtain (1946–1956) 1. “Salut au Monde!” a French comeback 2. Saludo al mundo: from Neruda to Mir Pablo Neruda’s Let the Rail Splitter Awake  Rendering unto Whitman what belongs to Whitman Pedro Mir’s Countersong to Walt Whitman 3. The centennial of Leaves of Grass in 1955  New Soviet translations, critics and responses The World Peace Council and the 1955 celebrations Yevtushenko and Neruda: watermelons and strawberries Chapter 10. Back from the USSR (1955–1980s) 1. A Soviet classic 2. Pablo Neruda as Whitmanian go-between  Nerudean repercussions A final companion 3. Whitman and the counterculture Walter Lowenfels: American and Soviet dialogs Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Goodbye, comrade? Allen Ginsberg: Hello again, camerado! 4. From transatlantic to transmediterranean: new paths Coda Appendix Bibliography Index of Walt Whitman's Poems and Works Index of Names