Sergej Harlamov
- Slovenia -
Sergej Harlamov (1989, Slovenia) is a poet, sociologist, and literary comparativist. As the winner of the Slovene Literary Festival for Young Authors Urška, he released his debut collection Jedci (Eaters) in 2011. In 2019, his second poetry collection Mnogoboj mitologij (Melee of Mythologies) appeared that was nominated for the Jenko Award and the Slovene Literary Critics Association Award. In 2022 he was shortlisted for Velenjica Award for 10 years of outstanding poetic work by Lirikonfest, and released his third poetry collection Hypomnemata ali Obnovimo osnove pisanja (Hypomnemata or Let Us Relearn the Basics of Writing) that was nominated for Veronika and Jenko Award. His interdisciplinary BA thesis Michel Houellebecq and the Archaeology of the Present won him the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Arts’ Prešeren Award.
Sergej Harlamov (1989, Slovenia) is a poet, sociologist, and literary comparativist. As the winner of the Slovene Literary Festival for Young Authors Urška, he released his debut collection Jedci (Eaters) in 2011. In 2019, his second poetry collection Mnogoboj mitologij (Melee of Mythologies) appeared that was nominated for the Jenko Award and the Slovene Literary Critics Association Award. In 2022 he was shortlisted for the Velenjica Award for 10 years of outstanding poetic work by Lirikonfest, and released his third poetry collection Hypomnemata ali Obnovimo osnove pisanja (Hypomnemata or Let Us Relearn the Basics of Writing) that was nominated for the Veronika and Jenko Awards. His interdisciplinary BA dissertation Michel Houellebecq and the Archaeology of the Present won him the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Arts Prešeren Award.
After becoming the winner at the Urška Literary Festival for Young Authors, Sergej Harlamov released his first poetry collection Jedci (Eaters) in 2011. The book overflows with metaphors and symbolism; the author himself categorized it as belonging to dark modernism.
Subsequently, the poet became more laconic in his expression and moved away from certain themes that were present in Eaters. In an interview with Nadina Štefančič in 2019, the poet elucidated the notion of change in his second book of poetry, Melee of Mythologies that appeared eight years after his debut work, stating that in comparison to his first collection, the second embraces “an absence of the natural world.” Moreover, one could argue that the poet began acknowledging Stéphane Mallarmé’s concept of prominence, later quoted by the German poet Gottfried Benn, thatpoetry is made not of ideas but of words.
Accordingly, Melee of Mythologies is first of all poetry about poetry, rejecting any intimist moments. A salient characteristic becomes economy of language, reducing it to short verses and the most necessary words and/or letters. The book employs an interdisciplinary approach, interweaving the poems with terminology used in fields such as economics, sociology, and philosophy, and by the same token, it is dedicated to Plato and J. G. Ballard. In his review of the collection, Peter Semolič notes that it is “distinctively contemporary and exciting” due to features such as “absence, directness and also ambiguity.”
Furthermore, the critic Miša Gams finds a parallel between the collection Melee of Mythologies and the poet’s third collection Hypomnemata or Let Us Relearn the Basics of Writing; in effect, she implies that the poet again “plays with the meaning of words and their literalness […] attempting to eliminate the burden of interpretation and diminish the possibility of searching for meaning.” The poet is consistent in his continued fracturing of the language and its meanings in his most recent book of poems.
Moreover, in Hypomnemata, Harlamov re-evaluates the act of writing poetry in a deconstructionist and precise manner, while simultaneously questioning the purpose of this undertaking. Nevertheless, there is still a certain loyalty to poetic devices: the poet retains sound-like qualities such as alliteration and produces strong rhythmic effects. His poetry strikes us with word play and pushes us into the mechanics of language, which is at times fast and nimble, and at other times slower. Each element of it reveals a different perspective that the poet invents in his language landscape. The critic Silvija Žnidar agrees that Harlamov's manner is “mechanical, almost apathetic, cynical, concise,” and is therefore, “an exception in the main current of the (Slovene) lyric.” What is more, the poems never turn into a dull model but rather show a dynamic and evasive poetic reality.
One can argue that Harlamov’s poetry is conceptual, even concrete poetry written in the best way possible. According to the national radio station Radio Ars, which covers the arts and culture, he is one of the most important Slovenian authors of the younger generation.
Poetry
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TO YOU, TO WHOM THIS POEM WILL NEVER BE ADDRESSABLE / TEBI, KI TI TA PESEM NIKOLI NE BO NASLOVLJIVA
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Between Stigma and Syntagma / Med stigmo in sintagmo
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WHY I HAVE NEVER LEARNED TO MAKE A PAPER PLANE / ZAKAJ SE NIKOLI NISEM NAUČIL NAREDITI PAPIRNATEGA AVIONA
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Police Report on a Drowning Accident / Policijsko poročilo o najdbi utopljenca
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(MISSED) FAMOUS WORDS OF YURI ALEKSEYEVICH GAGARIN or AN ANECDOTE FROM A LIFE THAT NEVER WAS / (ZAMUJENE) SLAVNE BESEDE JURIJA ALEKSEJEVIČA GAGARINA ali ANEKDOTA IZ ŽIVLJENJA KOT GA NI BILO
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MELEE OF MYTHOLOGIES / MNOGOBOJ MITOLOGIJ
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THE PEN’S AIM / O NAPERJENOSTI PERESA
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INTERPELLATION or THE ANSWERING MACHINE / NA/GOVOR ali THE ANSWERING MACHINE
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ECONOMICAL POETRY / EKONOMIČNA POEZIJA
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HUMANOID BALLADS (DAWN OF THE HUMANOIDS) / ČLOVEČNJAŠKE BALADE (SVIT ČLOVEČNJAKOV)
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CONFESSIONS OF A VENTRILOQUIST/POSTCARDS FROM NOWHERE-AT-HOME / IZPOVEDI VENTRILOKVISTA/RAZGLEDNICE IZ NIGDIRDOMA
