Between Modernism and the Underground During the Thaw

This chapter discusses some of the figures responsible for redeveloping the cultural heritage of Russian modernism and the avant-garde and shaping its reception in the post-Stalinist period. Because Stalinism had sought to consign the modernist experience to oblivion, deeming it too complex and problematic, and to substitute its own cultural dogmas, their work proved crucial for defining the modes of poetic development in underground culture from the mid-1950s onwards. The main figures discussed are Anna Akhmatova, Vasilisk Gnedov, Evgeny Kropivnitsky, Igor Bakhterev, Pavel Zal’tsman, and Ian Satunovsky.

SIBERIAN STEPPE IN MODERN AESTHETIC PRACTICES (KONSTANTIN BALMONT – MARINA TSVETAEVA)

Statement of the problem. The problems of the article are addressed to the methods of cultural development of the vast Siberian steppes in Russian modernism, to the methods of overcoming cultural entropy. The purpose of the article is to describe the parameters of the “steppe” texts by M. Tsvetaeva and K. Balmont, to identify their cultural genealogy. Review of scientific literature on the problem is associated with solving specific problems: identifying ways of authorizing the Siberian text in the poetics of a particular author (works by A. Smith, E. Korkina, and V. Marosha). Research results. The article is devoted to the Siberian texts by K. Balmont and M. Tsvetaeva. In the collection of works by Balmont entitled “Blue Horseshoe. Poems about Siberia”, the perception of the Siberian steppes is built around the concepts of “distance”, “width”, and “freedom”, characteristic of Balmont’s poetry, in principle. In Tsvetaeva’s poem “Siberia”, the steppe theme appears twice: in the exposition of the poem, and also in the second part (the image of the Barabinsk steppe). The sources of Tsvetaeva’s steppe imagery can be considered her individual perception Blok’s “Scythianism”, her direct empirical experience of experiencing the Crimean steppes, as well as her keen interest in the Eurasian theory at the time of writing the poem. Conclusions. Spatial entropy does not become an obstacle for an artist of the modernist formation in the cultural development of space. Each poet creates his own image of the Siberian steppes, based on the available poetic tools, synthesizing creative methods.

S.D. KRZYZHANOVSKY’S MYTHOLOGICAL VISION IN THE CONTEXT OF RUSSIAN MODERNISM

Chronologically, S.D. Krzyzhanovsky’s work coincides with the time of the heyday of Russian modernism. The cultural and aesthetic heritage of the “Silver Age” had a significant influence on the formation of the writer’s artistic views. Krzyzhanovsky is in many ways a follower of the traditions of the Symbolists poets. From them, he borrows the idea of myth making. In his works, the author of “Tales for Prodigies” reinterprets traditional mythological subjects and images. The Ancient Greek myths, the Bible, fairy tales of “A Thousand and One Night” and other literary sources can be identi-fied as intertextual pretexts. By using them, he creates his own individual mythology. And for more than twenty years, the main scientific work related to the study of Krzyzhanovsky’s prose is the work of V. Toporov “Minus”-Space of Sigismund Krzyzhanovsky. The Toporov’s article explains the occur-rence of the “minus”-space in the artistic world of the writer. This problem has always remained out-side the scope of scientific research, both in Russian and foreign literature. Addressing this problem is explained by the need to reach a new conceptual level of research, implying the presence of other scientific perspectives and directions.

O.E. Mandelstam’s Works in the Context of Russian Modernist Philosophy and Artistic Practice

The article proposes a philosophical interpretation of the poetic heritage of O.E. Mandelstam. The approach to characterizing the artistic experience of the Russian poet, through the prism of the philosophy of creativity and the philosophy of culture, seems to be significant and productive. This position is substantiated by the fact that in modern scientific literature there are still few works in which Mandelstam’s poetry would be elucidated within the framework of the philosophy of Russian culture and the ontology of creativity. In the article, Mandelstam’s creative phenomenon is shown in connection with the aesthetic program of artistic modernism. The philosophical foundations of Russian modernism are rooted in theissue of the spiritual self-awareness of Russian culture. Since Russian modernism reflects the transformation of artistic and spiritual culture that took place in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the author tries to highlight and analyze the leading philosophical and aesthetic principles of Symbolism and Acmeism, discussed by poets of the Russian Silver Age. Special attention is given to Mandelstam’s theoretical works. The cultural-philosophical analysis makes it possible to trace the internal relationships between aesthetic attitudes and the artistic imagination of Russian Symbolists and Acmeists, to determine the specifics of the aesthetic self-awareness of Russian culture, its practices in selecting ideas, symbols, images of national and world artistic culture in the early 20th century. The author describes the logic of the continuity of the artistic ideas of Russian and world literature in the aesthetic concept of Mandelstam. In order to demonstrate the close connection of the philosophical and aesthetic ideas of classical culture with postclassics, the research brings together literary, philosophical and memoir sources in the context of the heritage of Mandelstam and the poets of his circle.

From Lyubov Gurevich's Memoirs about the Journal “Severny Vestnik”. Part Two

The journal “Sevemy Vestnik”, around which relatively young Petersburg writers — A. Volynsky, N. Minsky, D. Merezhkovsky and Z. Gippius, F. Sologub — were grouped in the last years of the 19th century, was of exceptional importance for the early stage of Russian Symbolism. The article continues the previously begun publication of new materials from the archive of the publisher (since 1891) of the “Severny Vestnik”, Lyubov Gurevich. Two documents from the funds of the RGALI and the Manuscript Division of the IRL RAS — “Lovely Memories” and a note on the reorganization of the journal (1897–1898) — are presented. They are a kind of factual basis and addition to her article “Symbolism of the 1890s and the journal 'Severny Vestnik'” (presented in the first part of the publication: Literaturnyi fakt, no. 1 (19), 2021). Gurevich tells about the financial, organizational and censorship difficulties of keeping the journal and about complicated relationships in the circle of its authors and editors. The appendix contains Gurevich’s letter dated 1891 to her father where she admits that she is attracted by journalism and literary work “more than anything else”, and asks for financial help to buy out the collapsing journal and become the publisher of “Severny Vestnik” herself. Documents introduced into scientific circulation allow expanding the range of sources for studying the history of journalism and early Russian modernism.

Graphic “Diaries” by Victor Zamirailo in the context of poetics of the symbolist artist`s work

The paper aims to analyze the creative “laboratory” of a talented symbolist artist Viktor Dmitrievich Zamirailo, whose art is associated with the development of original features of Russian modernism. Due to the tragic circumstances caused by Soviet ideology, as well as the irrational nature of poetics of the master’s work, Zamirailo’s legacy is poorly studied, but extremely rich in literary and philosophical associations, at the turn of the 20th century. His imaginative world, full of chivalry dreaminess, allows revealing internal (spiritual) sources of the formation of an idealistic system of symbolist thinking, which found its original reflection in the works of such aesthetically close to Zamirailo contemporaries as M. A. Vrubel, A. N. Benoit et al. The paper focuses on the albums with sketches by the master from the collection of the State Russian Museum, unique in their creative potential, for the first time analyzed by the author. Albums allow us to comprehend the individual logic of the Zamirailo iconographic system, as well as to understand the general laws of the fantasy of imaginative illusions of symbolist artists.