Σας παρουσιάζουμε την ЕкатеринаДудинова/Ekaterina Dudinova
Επιμέλεια συνέντευξης: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
Dudinova Ekaterina Alekseevna, was born in 1994 in the resort town of Anapa, Krasnodar Krai. Graduated with honors from the State Medical University named after Adm. F.F. Ushakov in the direction of Bachelor of Economics and Master of Vocational Training. Since early childhood, she wrote congratulations to her family and fairy tales in poetry. She has been seriously engaged in poetry since 2020, after moving to St. Petersburg. Having won a series of competitions of the creative association “Blue Bridge”, she won the publication of her own book. The collection “I look at the sky in my free time” was released in May 2022.
What inspired and inspires you to write now? To whom or what were the first works dedicated? I have been writing since childhood. My very first work was a fairy tale about raindrops that decided not to turn into puddles like the others. And then I started writing poetry. Basically, they were greetings for family members for the holidays. Sometimes I wrote about the nature of my hometown of Anapa, Krasnodar Krai. In 2020, I fulfilled my cherished dream and moved to St. Petersburg. At that time, I almost gave up writing. However, the first months, the hardest after moving, I found salvation in poetry. Poetry helped me to experience and express the whole range of emotions boiling inside. Then for the first time I began to write about myself, about love, about life, thereby healing my soul. Later, I found out that there are places in St. Petersburg where you can perform with your creativity. So I found my poetic family, people close in spirit, whom I love very much and cherish them endlessly.
And inspiration always comes suddenly, whether it’s a passing tram on a rainy summer day or a passerby with snowflakes on his curls. And sometimes you just want to express endless love for your family, and the words themselves add up to lines of verse.
Do you have a favorite author? Why him/her? I can’t say that there is any one favorite author. Through the years, a black-bound volume with a collection of Bulgakov’s works travels with me. I really love the book “The Master and Margarita”, I know some fragments by heart. When I was a teenager, I adored Dumas’ books, and in the 11th grade I read a collection of works by poets of the Silver Age to the holes. Of the poets, Akhmatova is closest to me. Her exact lines, filled sometimes with inexpressible tenderness, then with immeasurable suffering, strike at the very heart. I am reading the most diverse prose now: Hugo, Marquez, dystopias by different authors.
What creative activities, besides poetry, characterize you and make you recognizable in St. Petersburg? Now it is poetry that allows me to share my experiences and thoughts with people. I also like to draw, and perhaps I will look for myself in this path. But at the moment, poetry has completely captured me.
What is the peculiarity of your performances and what makes you stand out from other poets of St. Petersburg? I can’t answer this question with certainty, the audience knows better. But I always try to be sincere with my listeners, and people feel it. Often, after performances, people come up to me and say that my poetry is in tune with their experiences and resonates in their hearts. And for me, this is the highest rating.
How do you manage to combine work and poetry? Is there enough time for everything? I work as a contract manager at a St. Petersburg school in the city center. And this place does not interfere, but, on the contrary, helps in my work. The special atmosphere, the historic building and, most importantly, the incredible people I work with contribute to my inspiration. Of course, there are hard working days, I stay up late. But work has become a reliable help, the basis of stability in everyday life. And thanks to such a reliable rear, I can afford to create and not be afraid for tomorrow.
How do you see the future of your creativity and world literature in general? Literature and art in general cannot exist in a vacuum. In our information age, we are part of a single whole, no matter what borders are drawn on maps. Therefore, I hope that very interesting creative experiments are waiting for us, taking into account absolutely polar cultural characteristics of different peoples. As for my creativity, at the moment, thanks to the victory in the competitions of the creative association “Blue Bridge” and their endless support, in May 2022, my collection of poems “I look at the sky in my free time” saw the light. Both the earliest works and more serious works are collected there. The book is dedicated to my family, St. Petersburg, thoughts about life and love. Over time, the style of my poems changes for the better, as I gain experience and imbue myself with the poetic atmosphere of the city. Therefore, there are plans for a second book, the material for which is already being written.
What would you like to wish your readers and fellow writers/poets in the coming 2023? I want to wish readers to find those works that will help heal and be filled with new ones, writers and poets – to love this world and continue to sing it through their own experiences, thereby beautifying this planet. And I want to wish everyone to wait for their happiness and not stop believing that it will come, no matter how confusing the labyrinths of Fate are.
