A History of Russian Symbolism

267 Pages·1993·24.027 MB·English

by  Ronald E. Peterson

A HISTORY OF RUSSIAN SYMBOLISM
LINGUISTIC & LITERARY STUDIES IN EASTERN EUROPE (LLSEE)
The emphasis of this scholarly series is on recent developments in
Linguistic and Literary Research in Eastern Europe; it includes analyses,
translations and syntheses of current research as well as studies in
the history of linguistic and literary scholarship.
Founding Editor: John Odmark †
General Editor:
Philip A. Luelsdorff
Institut für Anglistik
Universität Regensburg
D-8400 Regensburg
Germany
Volume 29
Ronald E. Peterson
A History of Russian Symbolism
A HISTORY
OF
RUSSIAN SYMBOLISM
RONALD E. PETERSON
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
1993
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Peterson, Ronald E.
p. cm. -- (Linguistic & literary studies in Eastern Europe; ISSN 0165-7712; v. 29)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Symbolism (Literary movement)-Soviet Union. 2. Russian literature--19th cen­
tury-History and criticism. 3. Russian literature--20th century-History and criticism. I.
Title. II. Series.
PG3015.5.S9P4 1990
891.709' 15--dc20 90-23250
ISBN 90 272 1534 0 (alk. paper) CIP
© Copyright 1993 - John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O. Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam ■ The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • 821 Bethlehem Pike • Philadelphia, PA 19118 • USA
Contents
Foreword ix
Preface xi
1. Introduction 1
2. The Beginnings of Symbolism in Russia, 1892-1895
Merezhkovsky and Hippius 13
Sologub 18
Balmont 20
Bryusov and The Russian Symbolists 21
3. Individualism and Decadence, 1896-1898 27
The First Wave Continues 27
Decadence 33
4. Scorpio Rising: Modernism in Art and Literature, 1899-1903 35
Solovyov and Nietzsche 35
Anthologies at the Turn of the Century 37
The World of Art 38
Religious-Philosophical Meetings and Novyi Put' 40
Skorpion 42
Severnye Tsvety 43
Grif 46
Annensky 47
The Second Wave: Bely, Ivanov, Blok 49
The Symbolists in 1902-1903 54
October, 1903 58
5. Symbolism as a Unified Movement, 1904-April, 1906 63
Mir Iskusstva, Novyi Put', and Voprosy Zhizni 64
Vesy 66
Anthologies 69
Symbolist Verse in 1904 71
CONTENTS
Fiction in 1904-1905 78
The Petty Demon 79
War with Japan and Revolution in 1905 80
Intellectual Activity 82
Zolotoe Runo 85
Bryusov, Bely, and Nina Petrovskaya 86
Essays 88
April, 1906 90
Proliferation, Polemics, and Mystical Anarchism,
May, 1906-1908 97
Polemics and Mystical Anarchism 98
Pereval 102
Symbolist Verse in 1906-1907 104
Prose 106
1907 107
Drama 108
Anthologies 110
Factions 113
Younger Authors 115
Prose in 1907 118
The Fiery Angel 120
1908 122
Anthologies 123
The Merezhkovskys Return to Russia 124
Symbolist Verse and Prose 126
Years of Crisis and Transition: Art vs. World View, 1909-1910 133
Vesy and Apollon 133
Musaget and Other Circles 137
Collections, Essays 139
Verse 142
The Silver Dove 145
Sologub 146
The Gogol Anniversary 148
Deaths 149
The Polemic about Symbolism 150
CONTENTS vii
8. The Beginning of the Decline, 1911-1914 157
Acmeism 157
Futurism 160
Second Wave Revival 161
Summations 164
Comings and Goings 167
Prose 170
Petersburg 171
Poetry 177
Drama 180
"Dispute" 183
9. Symbolism in the Past Tense, War, and Revolution, 1915-1917 185
Formalism and Futurism 187
War 188
Prose 189
Kotik Letaev 189
Poetry 191
Drama 193
Revolution 194
10. Epilogue: The Symbolists' Fates and Their Influence 197
Zapiski Mechtateley 197
The Symbolists after the Revolution: 198
Bryusov, Blok, Bely 199
Sologub and Annensky 200
Balmont and Ivanov 201
Merezhkovsky and Hippius 202
Significant Others 204
Symbolism's Influence 205
Notes 211
A Select Bibliography 241
Index 247
Foreword
The appearance of Ronald E. Peterson's long-awaited History of Rus
sian Symbolism should elicit feelings of elation and sadness, for the volume
is the author's magnum opus, a book to which he devoted many years of
research and which he succeeded in completing shortly before his tragic and
untimely death in April of 1986. While friends, colleagues and scholars of
Symbolism will surely lament the author's passing, they will be heartened to
welcome this invaluable contribution to Russian letters.
A History of Russian Symbolism 1892-1917 represents the first com­
prehensive study of the multi-faceted turn-of-the-century Russian move­
ment. Broad in its approach, the volume encompasses a thorough look at
the rise and fall of Russian Symbolism. Charting its rise with figures such as
Merezhkovsky, Hippius, Balmont, Bryusov and Sologub, Ronald Peterson
provides a historico-philosophical and cultural background to Symbolism's
heyday with the leading writers, Blok, Bely and Ivanov. These literary fig­
ures collectively forged a new way of perceiving the world, indeed "chang­
ing the face," to borrow Peterson's words, of Russian culture. Peterson
illustrates the pivotal impact of journals, including Severnye Tsvety, Mir
Iskusstva, Novyi Put, Zolotoe Runo, Vesy, Apollon, to name a few, without
which Russia's richest period of cultural exchange would have been impos­
sible. Indeed, the success and failure of Symbolism often coincided with the
successes and failures of such journals.
Few periods have been more misunderstood than Symbolism. Its expo­
nents were too diverse in temperament, not to mention style, to constitute
a cohesive group. Russian Symbolism owes its first stirrings as a movement
to Valery Bryusov, who sought methodically to head the "new school," by
raising Baudelaire's "correspondences" to aesthetic heights, while members
of the so-called "second wave" turned to Goethe and Nietzsche, likening
their art to theurgy. And yet on one point the Symbolists all agreed, namely
that the task of Symbolism was "to create a new poetic language, to work
out a new the means of peotry," citing Bryusov himself.
X FOREWORD
Just as Symbolism was much more than "just literature," so this vol­
ume is much more than "just history." Ronald Peterson's breadth of knowl­
edge spans such diverse subjects as comparative philosophy, the plastic arts
and literary criticism. Although he focuses on the Symbolists' contributions
in poetry, prose and drama, the author illuminates his study with side
glances of what was occurring politically and socially, eschewing cliches and
yet meticulous about detail. At the same time, he provides indispensable
biographical material, underlining the inextricable bond between life and
art. Ultimately, Ronald Peterson's A History of Russian Symbolism will
prove to be as important a contribution as Georgette Donchin's The Influ
ence of French Symbolism on Russian Poetry and James West's Russian
Symbolism.
Olga Muller Cooke
Texas A & M University
Preface
This book attempts to fill a long-standing need in literary and scholarly
criticism, a history of Symbolism in Russia. The era of Russian Symbolism,
1892-1917, broadly defined, has been called the Silver Age of Russian cul­
ture, and even the Second Golden Age. Symbolist authors are among the
greatest Russian authors of this century, and their activities helped to foster
one of the most significant advances in cultural life (in poetry, prose, music,
theater, and painting) that has ever been seen there.
Much has been written about Symbolism in Russia, but it is difficult to
formulate universally acceptable and accurate generalizations about this lit­
erary and artistic movement that appeared on the scene in the early 1890s
and flourished in the first two decades of this century. There has been a ten­
dency in the USSR to de-emphasize scholarship on this topic because the
Symbolists' views are generally antithetical to the official dogma of Socialist
Realism. When works published there do address Symbolism, the discus­
sion tends, especially in the official histories of Russian literature, to denig­
rate the Symbolists and favor the more "acceptable" realist authors. In the
West, scholars recognize the importance of the movement, but have treated
it in terms of individual authors, or from a limited perspective, or the
studies are simply too superficial.
This book is designed to serve as an introduction to Symbolism in Rus­
sia, as a movement, an artistic method, and a world view. This is no simple
task, because there are many differing views of Symbolism, and in fact the
Symbolists themselves very often disagreed about the essence of Sym­
bolism. Symbols, of course, have been used for centuries to unite the exter­
nal sign with the thing it signifies, to "throw together" these two concepts,
as the Greek etymology indicates. As generally interpreted by the prac­
titioners, a symbol connotes a sign that needs to be deciphered and there­
fore invites the participation of a reader or a viewer to penetrate the mys­
tery. Though the Symbolists' views of the correspondence between what is