Yan Satunovsky’s Jewish Poems: Contexts, Poetics and the Sapgir/Driz Connection

The essay analyzes the pervasiveness and centrality of Jewishness in Yan Satunovsky’s oeuvre beyond clear themes and reactions to antisemitism. It examines Satunovsky’s poems from the 1960s and 70s and their contexts as emblematic of his approach to Jewishness and reflective of his overall poetics. The essay’s second part is devoted to uncovering Satunovsky’s relationship with Genrikh Sapgir (1928–1999) and Ovsei Driz (1908–1971) as a missing link and a pivotal aspect of these poets’ creative biographies and the connection between Soviet Yiddish poetry and Russian underground verse which refashions our understanding of Jewish creativity during the late Soviet period.