Among globally connected literary traditions, Chinese-Russian relations form one of the most distinctive tandems. The end of the 20th century marked a turning point for both of these cultural domains: the PRC emerged as a major exporter, sparking a surge of interest for learning Chinese within Russia. This trend, in turn, has led to unprecedented rise in translations of Sinophone literature. However, at the same time, the advent of internet-based technologies disrupted centralized control of the governing authorities over the circulation of literary works. Against this backdrop, the proposed paper focuses on the subfield of poetry – a genre whose nation-building function now warrants re-evaluation.

Building on distant reading techniques and a personal corpus, this paper analyses Russophone publications of contemporary Chinese poetry from 2001 to 2025. Datasets collected by Anzhelika Shumilova, Yulia Dreyzis and the moderators of the website chinese-poetry.ru will be manually integrated with the presenter’s own observations. Supplementary information will be gathered from such prominent translators as Natalia Azarova, Dmitry Kuzmin, Kirill Korchagin, among several others. The preliminary selection includes eleven anthologies, eight poetry collections and twenty-two journals – both print and digital (at the moment of submission, the sample remains in development and is expected to be finished by the end of this year).

The first stage of analysis involves multiple means of visualization – scatter plots, pie charts and network maps – addressing poets’ age and gender ratios, as well as the number of poems published. Particular attention will be given to correlations between translators and the other parameters of the dataset. The quantitative calculations will be supported by detailed structural and thematic analysis of the material in terms of paratextual elements (design, forewords, annotations etc.). Where relevant, comparisons with the earlier Soviet period will be drawn. Ultimately, the paper seeks to highlight what kind of authors and poems constitute the image of “poetic China” in the Russian-speaking reading circles. The additional task is to evaluate how this translated canon aligns with (or diverges from) to its domestic counterpart. By detecting gaps and biases in selection and representation, the study aims to assess whether “exported” poetry still reflects the cultural policy of the PRC, and what other forces are now shaping the field.

The main work hypothesis posits a rather nuanced markup of the translation landscape. While the large-scale projects sponsored by official authorities tend to offer a generalized and largely nativized portrayal of Chinese poetry, independent initiatives provide more fragmented perspectives, targeting either sinologists or professional writing community. In the same vein, the role of Chinese state-affiliated experts in canon formation appears to dimmish significantly over time. Thus, translators’ strategies could tentatively be categorized into three broad vectors: traditional, modernist (or experimental) and colloquial (or marginal) – echoing the existing macro-groups within Mainland China. Male poets born between 1950 and 1970 are expected to constitute the core of the sample; yet, journal entries will likely balance the gender and generational paradigm. From this vantage point, the presumable dominance of PRC authors outlines a trajectory toward further diversification of the discourse to include other Sinophone regions, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and even the United States.