Gennadiy Aigi is one of the most important and original Russian-language poets of the last decades of the twentieth century. A native of the Chuvash Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, Aigi came to be hailed as the national poet of his native republic on the banks of the Volga River. His poetry is an absorbing and prolonged meditation on the most fundamental questions of human existence. From 1962 onward his reputation grew steadily in Eastern and Western Europe, where his work was published and extensively translated.
The National Library of the Chuvash Republic holds the largest and most complete collection “Aigiana”of G. Aigi’s publications and materials about his life and work.
“Aigiana” acquired a new book of poems written by G. Aigi and published in Estonia, the poems being in Estonian and Russian languages:
Айги Г. «Чащи в лесу» / Г. Айги ; пер., коммент., послесл. Катрин Вели. – [Б. м.] : Ninniku; Фонд эстонского языка ; изд. при поддержке Культурного Фонда Эстонии, 2017. – 389 c. – (Библиотека Ninniku, кн. 14).
(Aigi G. “The thicket in the forest” / G. Aigi; transl. by. Catherine Velie ; with the support of the Estonian Cultural Foundation, 2017. – 389 p.)
This is the first book of G. Aigi published in Estonian: it includes 126 poems written in 1956-2003. The voluminous publication, illustrated with graphical works by Maris Kaskmann, supplied with comments and brief information about the author was presented to the library by its longtime friends. Galina Kuborskaya-Aigi had received the book from the Estonian publishers and gave it to Oleg Ulangin specially for the Hall of G. Aigi. We are very grateful to them for this!
We invite all the readers to the Hall of G. Aigi, where everyone can get acquainted with the collection as well as with the new book.
Written by Tatyana Nikolayeva,
Head of Centre of Rare Books and Conservation
External links:
About Gennadiy Aigi in Wikipedia
Gennadiy Aigi in Wave Books
Gennadiy Aigi’s Obituary in Guardian