Cultural identity B.Yu. Poplavsky: between symbolism and surrealism

This article is devoted to the problem of cultural identification of B.Yu. Poplavsky. The need to create and solve this scientific problem is due to the fact that the community has not yet formed a unified view of his work, which is distinguished by its eclecticism. One of the most controversial issues related to the study of B.Yu. Poplavsky is the following remaining question: the relevance of classifying the poet as a surrealist. The purpose of the article is to define and substantiate the cultural identity of B.Yu. Poplavsky, taking into account different points of view on the problem posed - from the poet’s contemporaries to the present day. Using the method of comparative analysis, the author of the article examines the aesthetic attitudes of B.Yu. Poplavsky, relying on the poet’s diaries and his critical articles, where he sets out his views on creativity, as well as on the memories of his contemporaries about him and his views. Implementation of aesthetic goals of B.Yu. Poplavsky is demonstrated on the material of the poetry collection “Automatic Poems”, which is difficult to analyze and has not been studied from such a perspective and volume before. Considering this collection as a complex aesthetic whole, the author of the study comes to the conclusion that B.Yu. Poplavsky, thanks to the refusal to detail the lyrical plot and the lyrical hero, achieves the effect of derealization that the surrealists strived for, while the Christian content of the images reveals the poet as a successor of the Russian symbolists.