Floral images in the poetry of Tatiana Nikolaeva: semantic and stylistic analysis

This study offers a semantic-stylistic analysis of floral imagery in the poetry of Tatiana Nikolayeva (1956-2021), a poet from Novokuznetsk, thereby contributing to the understudied field of regional literature. The analysis is based on her collection “Where are you, descendant of the first?..: the drama of love,” which features poems written over several decades, from the late 1970s onward. This chronological span allows for identifying the systemic features of the poet’s mature individual style. The examination of twenty-five poems containing plant imagery reveals three primary functions: a descriptive function as a landscape detail (12 poems), a psychological function reflecting the heroine’s inner state and emotions, particularly in love contexts (8 poems), and a personification function expressing the kinship or fusion of humanity and nature (5 poems). The plant world constitutes a central element of Nikolaeva’s poetic universe, interwoven with core themes and motifs. These include: the dialogue between humans and nature (evident in the sustained correlation of a person with a tree); specific chronotopes (home vs. forest/field, city vs. nature); themes of love-including its destructive and sacrificial aspects - and death, alongside motifs of grief, acceptance, and memory; the image of one’s native land and the connection to it; and finally, motifs of loneliness, existential self-search, and the theme of creativity itself.

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