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The Russian Symbolist Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

D. S. von Mohrenschildt
D. S. von Mohrenschildt*
Affiliation:
New York, N. Y.
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Extract

In Russia, as elsewhere in Europe, the Symbolist movement started as a reaction against the positivism and utilitarianism of the preceding epoch. The eighties and the early nineties were periods of pervading rationalistic thought. Dostoevski and Turgenev were dead. Tolstoi had withdrawn from literature to expound his dogmatic, rationalistic Christianity. The poetry of the so-called civic poets had sunk to the lowest possible level. It was the “autumnal” period of Russian literature.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1938 , pp. 1193 - 1209
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1938

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References

Note 1 in page 1193 Vladimir Soloviev, “Mily drug al ty ne videsh . . . , ” Stikhotvoreniia (Moscow, 1915), p. 111.

Note 2 in page 1193 Valeri Briusov, Ko vsem, kto ishchet, Preface to a poem “Lestvitsa” by A. L. Miropolksi (Moscow: Scorpion, 1902), pp. 7–12.

Note 3 in page 1194 Id., Dnevniki (Moscow, 1927), p. 13.

Note 4 in page 1194 Ibid., Russkie simvolisty (Moscow, 1894, 1st issue), Preface of this editor.

Note 5 in page 1195 Valeri Briusov, Ognenny Angel (Moscow: Scorpion, 1908).

Note 6 in page 1195 Cf. Valeri Briusov v avtobiograficheskikh zapisiakh, ed. by N. Ashukin (Moscow, 1929), ch. xii, pp. 376–400.

Note 7 in page 1196 Konstantin Balmont, “Budem kak Solntse vsegda molodoe . . .,” Polnoe Sobranie Slikhov (Moscow: Scorpion, 1908), p. 4.

Note 8 in page 1196 Ibid., “Khochu byt derzkim . . ., ” p. 120.

Note 9 in page 1196 Cf. Konstantin Balmont, “Mysli o tvorchestve,” Sovremennyia Zapiski (1920), i, 51–64; iv, 285–296.

Note 10 in page 1196 Cf. Philéas Lebesgue, “Un grand poète slave,” Revue Bleue, xv (1931), 460–465.

Note 11 in page 1196 S. A. Vengerov, Russkaya literatura XX veka (Moscow, 1915), ii, pt. I, 18.

Note 12 in page 1197 Melki Bes (St. Petersburg, 1907).

Note 13 in page 1197 V. S. Khodasevich, “Sologub,” Sovremennyia Zapiski, xxxiv (1928), 359.

Note 14 in page 1197 For Sologub's definition of Symbolism see Zavety (St. Petersburg, 1914) ii, 71–84.

Note 15 in page 1197 Cf. Khodasevich, op. cit., pp. 361–362.

Note 16 in page 1198 Cf. S. A. Vengerov, op. cit., i, pt. III, pp. 265–288.

Note 17 in page 1199 The Society published a review, Novy Put, to which many of the Symbolists contributed.

Note 18 in page 1200 Arthur Rimbaud, Lettre à Demeny, 15 mai 1871, Lettres de la vie littéraire (Paris, 1931), p. 65.

Note 19 in page 1200 Vesy, ii (1909), 63.

Note 20 in page 1201 Ibid., iv (1905), 11–28.

Note 21 in page 1201 Ibid., x (1909), 168; cf. also ibid., vii, 55–74.

Note 22 in page 1201 Neznakomka.

Note 23 in page 1202 Cf. the lyric play, Balaganchik.

Note 24 in page 1202 Apollon, viii (1910), 21 ff.; the poem Artist was written in 1913.

Note 25 in page 1202 Pisma k rodnym (Leningrad, 1927), letter dated November 27, 1907, p. 182.

Note 26 in page 1202 M. A. Beketova, Aleksandr Blok (Petersburg, 1922), p. 256.

Note 27 in page 1203 Quoted by C. M. Bowra, “The Position of Alexander Blok,” Criterion, xi (1932), 436–437.

Note 28 in page 1204 Dovolno: ne zhdi, ne nadeisia . . .

Note 29 in page 1204 Cf., for example, “Simvolism kak miroponimanie,” Mir Iskuslva, iv (1904), 173–196; “O. Teurghi,” Novy Put, ix (1903), 100–123; “Simvolism,” Vesy, xii (1908), 36–41.

Note 30 in page 1206 Cf. Bely's introduction to the first issue of the review Epopeia, 1922. 31Nachalo veka (Moscow, 1933).

Note 32 in page 1206 Cf. F. Stepun, “Viacheslav Ivanov,” Sovremennyia Zapiski, lxii (1936), 229–246.

Note 33 in page 1207 Viacheslav Ivanov, “Rimskie Sonety,” Sovremennyia Zapiski, lxii (1936), 178–183.

Note 34 in page 1208 Cf. Viacheslav Ivanov, “Zavety Simvolisma,” Apollon, viii (1910), 5–20 and Vesy, xii (1909), 183–191.