Šalamov e l’Inferno: note per un’analisi di Rasskaz o Dante

Shalamov and Dante’s Inferno: Towards an Analysis of Rasskaz o Dante. The paper is focused on the presence of Dantean references in Varlam Shalamov’s works, presenting a case of reinterpretation of the Comedy in the poem The story of Dante [Rasskaz o Dante]. Based on the autobiographical incident of the breaking of the baptismal font in the San Giovanni baptistery in Florence (Inf. XIX, 16-21), the poem appears as an adaptation of Benvenuto da Imola’s fourteenth-century commentary, mentioned in two of the Russian translations of Dante’s poem. This reinterpretation suggests that Shalamov’s knowledge of the Comedy was far from superficial and makes it possible to identify the version he might have read before his arrest as the source for the poems he wrote while still in Kolyma.