Russian poet of the acmeist school, and a literary critic, translator and memoirist. He also lectured on Russian literature at universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Adamovich graduated from the Historical Philological Faculty of the University of St. Petersburg. Reviewing Adamovich’s first book of poetry, Oblaka (Clouds) (1916), Nikolay Gumilev noted the influence of Anna Akhmatova and Innokenty Annensky. After the Revolution Adamovich joined the Acmeists, published a second collection, Chistilishche (Purgatory) (1922). Soon afterward he emigrated to Paris where he became a legislator of literary fashion in emigre circles, teaching the Petersburgian style of slight coolness devoid of the dress of bright metaphors. In this way he was mistakenly cruel in his judgments of the temperamental, explosive Marina Tsvetayeva. In a poem dedicated to her memory just before his death, Adamovich expressed his bitter regret.
He wrote two brilliant books of essays: Odinochestvo i svoboda (Solitude and Freedom) (1955) and Kommentarii (Comments) (1967). During fifty years of emigration Adamovich wrote only about one hundred poems. While not masterpieces, they have the subtle power of grace and finesse. A perceptive critic severe in his judgments, he surprisingly held in high esteem the young Russian poets who in the early 1960s began to shake the gray fortress of bureaucracy and break through the Iron Curtain. In 1987, after an interruption of sixty-five years, his poetry and essays were again published in the USSR.
