There was a historical moment when many considered Eremenko the best poet in Russia, and some - almost the only one. For those who managed to love him then, this moment not only fades away, but also lasts. And now - a new book by a poet who has not written new poems for ten years reaches the reader.
It would be cultural madness to review the poems of Alexander Eremenko now. One can evaluate the book publishing campaign - well, it is amazing. Pushkin was worthy of such a book in his lifetime, Berezovsky could have ordered it (if he had written something). However, the amount of creative effort invested in each (!) page of the book by its creators, primarily the artist Alexander Shaburov, can hardly be translated into a monetary equivalent.
OPUS MAGNUM expresses the attitude of its creators to the author. If anyone does not understand - love. Everything is unexpected and joyful in the plot of this book: the transitions from biography to history, and the signs of many fleeting eras, and the relationship between the text and the visual series. The book tries on a classic tailcoat for a living poet - as if fooling around, but it doesn't pinch or hang. And - either we are confused, or the compilers rummaged in the bins - it seems that not all the poems are familiar. It is also important that all the creators of the book: Shaburov, Kuritsyn, Lipovetsky, Kasimov, like Eremenko himself, came (in different directions) from the same Sverdlovsk.