It is obviously impossible to discuss poetry without considering language. Translation is a wonderful tool that allows us to communicate across cultures and get an impression of the ideas people were trying to express both "long ago" and "far far away."
Reading poetry in translation is a wonderful way to introduce yourself to another culture. But you are still reading someone else's interpretation of what the original author was trying to say.
If you are captivated by the poetry of a language other than your own, you will eventually be drawn to the original versions of those lines. It is possible to read those originals on the WWW, but the advent of this technology has presented a new challenge in the quest of breaking down the language barrier. Luckily, innovative people are working on universal character sets, such as Unicode, which will eliminate the need to download software for specific languages. HTML 4.0 is based in Unicode. Slowly, it will take over, and the Web will be truly universal.
There are many many many Russian web sites on the World Wide Web. In comparison, Russian literature web sites in languages other than Russian are few and far between. As this site is an English language Introduction to the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, it contains links to relevant sites in English. If you want to surf Russian sites, there are a few steps you will have to take first:
There are specific sites to help you make Netscape handle Russian, if that is the browser you use:
Some Slavic programs in Canada:
Slavic studies are widespread in the United States. Here is an alphabetical listing of links to a few Slavic Studies departments at American Universities:
