Massimo Maurizio (1976) is professor of Russian language and literature at the University of Turin. His researches mainly focus on Russian dissent from the Stalin period onwards and on contemporary literature. He is the author of numerous articles and essays, and, among others, of the monographs Bespredmetnaia iunost’ Andreia Egunova: tekst i kontekst (Moskva 2008) and Prossima fermata Cremlino: Percorsi reali e immaginari per la Mosca letteraria (Acireale-Roma 2011) and Evgenij Kropivnickije altri esperimenti di sopravvivenza letteraria (Bari 2018). His work as a translator mainly deals on Russian poetry of the 20th century, with particular attention to the last three decades. He edited and translated three poetic anthologies of Russian contemporary poetry. The more recent works are ***/*****. Voci russe contro la guerra (in collaboration with M. Caramitti, Torino 2022) and Natalia Kliuchareva’s Diario della fine del mondo (Bari 2023).
The anthology of poets from Kazakhstan aims to present twelve Russian-speaking writers, in order to provide a vision – partial, as with any anthology – of the lively cultural environment of the country, in a decolonial perspective, in spite of the idea that Russian-speaking poetry is mainly that produced in Russia. In many of the former Soviet republics there is instead an extremely interesting cultural ferment, which mixes local characteristics with an openness to world cultures. The anthology collects poems of Selina Taysengirova, Amangel’dy Rakhmetov, Ramil’ Niyazov, Oral Arukenova, Kanat Omar, Ravil’ Autkaliev, Zair Asim, Pavel Bannikov, Mariya Vil’koviskaya, Kseniya Rogozhnikova, Yury Serebryansky and Aleksey Shvabauer.