| Russian symbolism |
|
Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It represented the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art, and was mostly known for its contributions to Russian poetry. Primary influences on the movement were the irrationalistic and mystical poetry and philosophy of Fyodor Tyutchev and Vladimir Solovyov, the novels of Dostoevsky, the operas of Richard Wagner, the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, French symbolist and decadent poets (such as Stephane Mallarme, Paul Verlaine and Charles Baudelaire), and the dramas of Henrik Ibsen.The movement was inaugurated by Nikolai Minsky's article The Ancient Debate (1884) and Dmitry Merezhkovsky's book On the Causes of the Decline and on the New Trends in Contemporary Russian Literature (1892). Both writers promoted extreme individualism and deified the act of creation. Merezhkovsky was known for his poetry as well as a series of novels on god-men, among whom he counted Christ, Joan of Arc, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci, Napoleon, and (later) Hitler. His wife, Zinaida Gippius, also a major poet in the early days of the symbolist movement, opened a salon in St Petersburg, which came to be known as the "headquarters of Russian decadence." By the mid-1890s, Russian symbolism was still mainly a set of theories and had few notable practitioners. Alexander Dobrolyubov published a book of verse in 1895, just before renouncing lay poetry in favour of wanderings from one monastery to another. Another talented author, Ivan Konevskoy, died at the age of 24. It was not until the new talent of Valery Bryusov emerged that symbolist poetry became a major movement in Russian literature. In order to represent symbolism as a movement of formidable following, Bryusov adopted numerous pen-names and published three volumes of his own verse, entitled Russian Symbolists. An Anthology (1894-95). Bryusov's mystification proved successful - several young poets were attracted to symbolism as the latest fashion in Russian letters. In addition to Bryusov, the most popular poets were Konstantin Bal'mont, who believed in first inspiration and sometimes intentionally left his verse unrevised, and the pessimistic Fyodor Sologub, who referred to himself as the bard of death.
http://www.amazines.com |