Pushkinian Echoes in the Works of Altai Poet Vladimir Bashunov

The article describes the poetic oeuvre of Vladimir Bashunov (1946–2005) and the way it echoes the so-called Pushkin’s myth. The Altai poet projected Alexander Pushkin’s life on his own poetry and essays. The intertextual approach with biographical, structural-semiotic, and mythopoetic methods made it possible to explain how Pushkin’s biography and poetry turned into an inexhaustible source of allusions for Bashunov’s poems. In his Essay on Pushkin, Bashunov created a literary image of the great poet with such core poetic symbols as Garden, Door, Path, Shore, and Meadow. The leading motives included a feast at the edge of the abyss, a fair moment frozen in time, the creativity of solitude, love of autumn, a talent wasted, etc. The Orphic myth of the poetas-sacrifice killed at the peak of his fame is supplemented by the psychological traits that make the much-revered figure of Pushkin human and dear to Bashunov. He wished he had met Pushkin and compensated for this impossible wish by noticing Pushkinian echo in the nature of the Altai mountains. This creative effort incorporated the Asian highlands into the national myth created by Alexander Pushkin.