ABSTRACT
This chapter considers post-Soviet Russian haiku, focusing on the ways in which the Japanese imaginary used by modernist Russian poets is essential for understanding post-Soviet haiku. Russia’s reception of haiku is positioned in a cultural context that accounts for the mythologizing of Japan alongside Russia’s political history and economic ties to Japan. Evoking the ways in which haiku remains open to redefinition, the analysis shows how post-Soviet haiku is both indebted to modernism and to the classical literary tradition in Japan.
