A talk by Erika Stragapede, a second-year PhD student in the Doctoral Program in Languages, Literature, and Arts at the University of Bari "Aldo Moro" (Italy). Her research project investigates literature produced by authors belonging to minorities in the Russian Arctic, with a particular focus on ecological themes. She is currently undertaking a research period at UiT as a PSIF/RSCPR research group affiliate.
Within the literature of the Forest Nenets people of Western Siberia, the voice of poet Yuri Vella (1948–2013) deserves particular attention and careful listening. A reindeer herder and environmental activist, Vella draws nourishment for his writing from the concrete experience of life in the taiga, transforming it into an instrument of resistance and memory through which he denounces the transformations inflicted upon his land and his community by Russian colonizers. This presentation aims to explore in particular the ecological dimension that permeates his verses and to identify, through the analysis of selected texts, the elements and registers which make it possible to recognize Yuri Vella as the voice of an ecopoet.