Symbolism in Russian poetry of the early 20th century Automatic translate

Symbolism was the first and most significant modernist movement in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, also known as the Silver Age of Russian literature. This movement fundamentally changed the essence of Russian poetry, creating new methods of artistic expression, perception of reality, and philosophical understanding of existence. Russian symbolists developed a holistic aesthetic system aimed at penetrating beyond the material world and comprehending the hidden essence of phenomena through symbols, hints, and the musicality of verse.

Historical context and origin

Symbolism emerged in France in the 1860s and 70s in the works of such poets as Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé. Russian symbolism emerged somewhat later, in the early 1890s, and existed as an independent literary movement until about 1910.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, European civilization was in a state of deep crisis in the social and spiritual spheres. During this period, positivism with its reliance on exact sciences, factography and rational conclusions was questioned. Interest in the irrational, mysterious and mystical principles increased.

The philosophical concepts of that time created favorable conditions for the development of symbolism. Sigmund Freud revealed the role of the subconscious in the human psyche, Friedrich Nietzsche emphasized the secondary nature of reason in relation to will and instincts, and Henri Bergson insisted that true knowledge is carried out not by reason, but by intuition.

French literature became the birthplace of a new movement for obvious reasons. The traditional values ​​of French culture – clarity, precision, transparency – now seemed insufficient to express the complexity of existence. Symbolism attracted the younger generation because it violated the usual norms.

The French symbolists were indifferent to the usual literary career, many of their texts were not published for a long time. For them, the poet was a magician, a mediator between the mystery and those who are able to sense this mystery.

Philosophical foundations of Russian symbolism

The theoretical principles of symbolism were reflected in the works of many authors, including K. Balmont, Vyach. Ivanov and especially D. Merezhkovsky. In his book “On the Causes of Decline and New Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature” (1893), Merezhkovsky identified three key elements of the new trend: mystical content, symbols and the expansion of artistic impressionability.

Russian symbolists opposed the traditional idea of ​​cognition of the world in art with the idea of ​​its construction in the creative process. For them, the creative act appeared as a subconscious-intuitive contemplation of secret meanings, accessible only to the artist-creator.

The Symbolists believed that it was impossible to rationally convey the contemplated "secrets". According to Vyach. Ivanov, poetry is "the secret writing of the unspeakable". The poet was required not only to have super-rational sensitivity, but also a subtle mastery of the art of hinting. The value of poetic speech lay in the "understatement", the "concealment of meaning".

The mystical perception of the world became the basis of symbolist creativity. Merezhkovsky interpreted the phenomenon of the symbol through the prism of mysticism. For him, the symbol was a means of a different vision of the world and an expansion of the possibilities of artistic imagination.

The Symbolists viewed the world as having a dual nature. Behind the visible reality, in their opinion, there was another, ideal reality. They saw the poet’s task as penetrating beyond the visible world to comprehend its hidden essence.

Elder Symbolists

In the history of Russian symbolism, it is customary to distinguish two generations of poets. The first generation – the “senior symbolists” – is represented by such bright figures as Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont, Fyodor Sologub, Zinaida Gippius and others.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1866-1941) – poet, prose writer, translator, literary critic, religious philosopher, one of the founders of Russian symbolism. His book “On the Causes of Decline and New Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature” became the theoretical basis for symbolism in Russia.

Merezhkovsky sought to show the world the "true face" of the Son of Man. Symbolism played a significant role in his philosophy throughout his creative career, although it underwent changes. The thinker argued with realists, interpreting the category of symbol as a means of expanding the possibilities of artistic imagination.

Valery Bryusov

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873-1924) is the founder of Russian symbolism, a poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, and literary scholar. Thanks to his efforts and enormous work, having overcome ridicule and misunderstanding on the part of his contemporaries, symbolism established itself as the most important literary movement of the Silver Age.

While still a student, in 1894-1895, Bryusov published three small collections of poems by Russian symbolists, which he wrote almost entirely himself under various pseudonyms. Critics perceived these collections as literary curiosities.

Bryusov actively disseminated the ideas of symbolism among the educated public. He headed the publishing house "Scorpion", organized the almanac "Northern Flowers", and was the initiator and editor of the magazine "Libra" - the main mouthpiece of Russian symbolism.

Konstantin Balmont

Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont (1867-1942) – symbolist poet, translator, essayist. For Balmont, symbolism represented a “more refined way of expressing feelings and thoughts.” In his works, he conveyed a rich gamut of changing feelings, moods, and the “rainbow play” of the world’s colors.

Balmont perceived art as a “powerful force, striving to guess the combinations of thoughts, colors, sounds” to express the hidden beginnings of being, the diversity of the world. Balmont is recognized as a master of expressive assonance and effective alliteration.

Fyodor Sologub

Fyodor Kuzmich Sologub (real name – Teternikov, 1863-1927) – symbolist poet, prose writer, playwright, publicist, translator. His poetry is often characterized by decadent, declining moods. Sologub was often reproached for aestheticism, isolation, detachment from real life and worship of the sweet legend of art.

Zinaida Gippius

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (1869-1945) – poetess, writer, literary critic, one of the prominent representatives of Russian symbolism. Together with her husband D. Merezhkovsky, she became the ideologist of early symbolism. Gippius was distinguished by a sharp analytical mind, her poetry is filled with religious and philosophical reflections.

Young Symbolists

The second generation – the "young symbolists" or "younger symbolists" – began their activities in 1901-1904. They included Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov and others. They considered themselves followers of the religious and philosophical ideas of Vladimir Solovyov.

According to Solovyov, the world is on the verge of destruction, humanity is in crisis. The philosopher spoke of the existence of two worlds: the World of Time and the World of Eternity. The first is the world of Evil, the second is the world of Good. In the real world - "humanity’s nightmare" - harmony and love as the most harmonious feeling are suppressed, and the Antichrist wins.

Solovyov believed that the salvation of humanity is possible through Divine beauty, Eternal femininity, the Soul of the world. Divine beauty was understood by him as harmony, "perfect unity" between the spiritual and the material, the external and the internal.

In Solovyov’s poetry, the word “love” always has a special, mystical meaning: “Love is the divine principle in man; its embodiment on earth we call Femininity; its unearthly ideal is Eternal Femininity.”

Alexander Blok

Alexander Alexandrovich Blok (1880-1921) is one of the greatest poets of the Silver Age. Symbolism reached its highest peak in his works. Blok developed Solovyov’s ideas about Eternal Femininity, the Soul of the World, creating the image of the Beautiful Lady in his early lyrics.

The theme of the disproportion between the Eternal Universe and the instantaneousness of human existence is present in many of Blok’s poems. The poet wrote: “Worlds fly. Years fly. The empty Universe looks at us with the darkness of its eyes… And listening to the ever-buzzing ringing, – Are we not going crazy in the motley change of invented reasons, spaces, times…”

Andrey Bely

Andrei Bely (real name – Boris Nikolaevich Bugayev, 1880-1934) – poet, prose writer, theorist of symbolism. His book “Symbolism” became an important theoretical work of this direction. Bely considered a symbol as a unity, “a connection of something with something”.

At the center of Bely’s theoretical works are mirror definitions of the concept of "symbol" as unity: "Unity is a symbol", "symbol is unity". In his article "Emblematics of meaning" he characterizes the theory of symbolism as "the metaphysics of unity".

Bely realized that the definition of a symbol as a “unity” is so broad that it allows one to call any person a “symbolizer” or to declare any creative work “symbolism”: “Symbolism is a method of expressing experiences in images. In this sense, all art is explicitly or implicitly symbolic.”

Vyacheslav Ivanov

Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (1866-1949) – symbolist poet, philosopher, translator, one of the ideological inspirers of the young symbolists. Ivanov believed that the task of poetry is to be a “secret writing of the ineffable”, to convey the hidden, mystical meaning of existence with the help of symbols.

"The Tower" was the name of Ivanov’s apartment on Tavricheskaya Street in St. Petersburg, where poets, artists, musicians, and philosophers gathered on Wednesdays to discuss art and culture. These gatherings became a significant cultural phenomenon of the early 20th century.

Features of symbolist poetics

The symbol was the main means of expression in the poetics of the symbolists. Unlike allegory, which has an unambiguous interpretation, the symbol is polysemantic and opens up endless possibilities for interpretation.

The Symbolists gave the poetic word an unprecedented mobility and polysemy, taught Russian poetry to discover additional shades and facets of meaning in the word. They enriched Russian poetic culture with many discoveries.

Music occupied an important place in the aesthetics and poetic practice of the Symbolists. This concept was used by them in two aspects - general ideological and technical. In the philosophical sense, music was presented as a universal metaphysical energy, the basis of all creativity.

In a technical sense, music for the Symbolists is the verbal texture of a verse, saturated with sound and rhythmic combinations. Symbolist poems were often constructed as a bewitching flow of verbal-musical consonances and echoes.

Particular attention was paid to phonetics: K. Balmont, V. Bryusov, I. Annensky, A. Blok, and A. Bely were masters of expressive assonance and effective alliteration. The Symbolists actively experimented with the form of verse, developed new methods of rhyme, introduced free verse into poetry, and enriched the metric repertoire of Russian poetry with non-traditional meters.

Impressionists and Decadents

"The elder symbolists" are often called impressionists and decadents. The impressionists had not yet created a system of symbols; they sought to convey the subtlest shades of moods, impressions, to intuitively and emotionally comprehend the beautiful and mysterious.

The poetry of Innokenty Annensky, Konstantin Fofanov, Konstantin Romanov, and Konstantin Balmont is impressionistic. Decadent moods gave a special flavor to many poems by F. Sologub and other poets of the first wave of symbolism.

Themes and motifs of symbolist poetry

The subject matter of symbolist poetry is extremely diverse. Symbolists addressed the eternal themes of life and death, love and beauty, the search for the meaning of existence. But they interpreted them through the prism of their philosophy, through symbols and images.

The older symbolists often turned to themes of loneliness, disappointment, decline, decadence. The younger symbolists sought ways to transform the world through Beauty, Love, Art. They believed in the possibility of a miraculous transformation of the world.

Russian symbolists rethought the role of personality not only in creativity, but also in reality and life in general. Interest in the personality of a poet, writer, person led them to a kind of "expansion" of personality.

Key works of Russian symbolists

The creativity of the symbolists is extensive and diverse. Let’s consider some iconic works that reflect the aesthetics and philosophy of this movement.

Poetry by Valery Bryusov

Valery Bryusov’s collections "Tertia Vigilia" (1900), "Urbi et Orbi" (1903), "Stephanos" (1906) became classics of Russian symbolism. In them, the poet addresses the themes of history, culture, and urban civilization. Bryusov views history as a cyclical process of the rise and fall of civilizations. He addresses antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, finding parallels with modern times.

The works of Alexander Blok

Blok’s poetry is usually divided into three periods, each marked by its own system of images and motifs. The first period (1898-1904) is associated with the cycle "Poems about the Beautiful Lady", which embodies the image of Eternal Femininity.

The second period (1904-1908) is characterized by disappointment in previous ideals, an appeal to the theme of the city, the emergence of motifs of masks, doubles, and the snowy element.

The third period (1908-1921) was marked by an interest in Russia, its fate and history, which was reflected in the poems “Retribution” and “The Twelve”.

Poetry of Andrey Bely

Andrei Bely creates a complex system of images and symbols in his collections "Gold in Azure" (1904), "Ashes" (1909), "Urna" (1909). He actively experiments with the form of verse, rhythm, and sound painting. In his poetry, philosophical ideas find artistic embodiment.

Symbolism and other forms of art

Symbolism was not limited to literature, it manifested itself in other forms of art: painting, music, theater. There were close connections and mutual influence between representatives of different forms of art.

Symbolism in painting

Symbolist artists such as Mikhail Vrubel, Viktor Borisov-Musatov, and Nikolai Roerich created visual images that were in tune with poetic symbols. Their works are distinguished by mysticism, enigma, and the desire to convey the inexpressible.

Symbolism in music

Music was considered the highest form of art, capable of directly expressing the inexpressible in words. Composers Alexander Scriabin, Nikolai Medtner, Sergei Rachmaninov embodied ideas close to symbolism in their works.

Symbolism in the Theatre

The Symbolists dreamed of a new theatre that would become a synthesis of all arts and a platform for the spiritual transformation of the audience. Vyach. Ivanov developed the concept of a cathedral theatre that was to unite actors and spectators in a mystical performance.

Publications and associations of symbolists

To disseminate their ideas, the Symbolists created their own publications and associations.

Publishing house "Scorpio"

The publishing house "Scorpion", founded in 1900 by S. A. Polyakov with the active participation of V. Bryusov, became the center of Russian symbolism. It published works by both Russian and foreign symbolists.

Magazine "Libra"

The magazine "Vesy" (1904-1909), edited by Bryusov, was the main printed organ of the symbolists. It published not only works of art, but also critical articles, manifestos, and reviews of the cultural life of Russia and Europe.

Almanac "Northern Flowers"

The almanac “Northern Flowers” ​​(1901-1911) was also published by “Scorpion” and served as a platform for the publication of works by the Symbolists.

"The Tower" by Vyacheslav Ivanov

"The Tower" - the famous apartment of Vyach. Ivanov in St. Petersburg, became the place of the famous "Wednesdays" - gatherings of poets, artists, musicians, philosophers to discuss issues of art and culture. These meetings contributed to the exchange of ideas and the formation of new aesthetic concepts.

International connections of Russian symbolism

Russian symbolism was closely connected with European symbolism and, more broadly, with European culture as a whole. Many Russian symbolists were well acquainted with foreign literature, philosophy, and art.

Translation activities

The Symbolists were very involved in translations. Bryusov translated French poets (Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé), Belgian (Verhaeren), and also the American Edgar Poe. Balmont translated Shelley, Whitman, and Spanish poets.

This translation work expanded the cultural horizons of the Russian reader and enriched Russian poetry with new images, themes, and techniques.

Travel and cultural contacts

Many symbolists traveled around Europe and became acquainted with European culture. Merezhkovsky and Gippius lived in France, Italy, and Spain. Bryusov visited Europe many times and met with French symbolists.

These contacts contributed to the mutual enrichment of Russian and European cultures. Russian symbolism, which arose under the influence of French, quickly acquired its own face and original features. It was distinguished by greater philosophicality, religiosity, and a tendency toward mysticism.

Unlike the French symbolists, Russian poets not only sought a new artistic language, but also sought to create a holistic worldview, a new philosophy of culture. Symbolism for them was not just a literary movement, but a way of life and seeing the world.

Symbolism and Historical Events

Symbolists could not remain aloof from the historical events taking place in Russia and the world.

Revolution of 1905

The 1905 revolution provoked various reactions among the Symbolists. Some, like Bryusov, maintained a certain distance from the revolutionary events, while others, like Blok, perceived the revolution as a spontaneous renewal of the world.

First World War

Many symbolists greeted the outbreak of World War I in 1914 with patriotic enthusiasm. However, as the war dragged on and the number of victims grew, their attitude changed towards a tragic perception of what was happening.

October Revolution of 1917

The October Revolution became a turning point in the history of not only Russia, but also Russian symbolism. Some symbolists emigrated, others remained in Soviet Russia, trying to find their place in the new social reality.

Critique of Symbolism and its Completion

Despite its significant contribution to the development of Russian poetry, symbolism was criticized by other literary movements and trends. It was accused of being too vague, out of touch with real life, and indulging in formal experiments to the detriment of content.

By 1910, a crisis of symbolism had begun. Within the movement itself, disagreements and contradictions arose. Some poets who had started out as symbolists moved away from this movement and began to seek new paths in art.

Thus, the currents that replaced symbolism or existed in parallel with it arose: acmeism and futurism. However, even after its collapse as a holistic literary movement, symbolism continued to influence Russian poetry.

The Legacy of Symbolism in Russian Culture

Although symbolism ceased to exist as a coherent literary movement by the 1920s, its legacy lived on in Russian culture in the 20th century. Symbolist poetics influenced many poets who did not belong to this movement.

The philosophical and aesthetic ideas of the Symbolists became an important part of the Russian cultural tradition. Symbolism enriched Russian poetry with new themes, images, and techniques. It expanded the expressive possibilities of poetic language, opened new horizons for artistic exploration of reality and the human soul.

Symbolism tried to create a new philosophy of culture, tried to develop a new universal worldview after going through a period of revaluation of values. In its own way, it raised the question of the social role of the artist, and began to develop forms of art, the experience of which could unite people.

Despite the outward manifestations of elitism and formalism, symbolism filled work with artistic form with new content and, no less importantly, made art more personal and individualistic.

Symbolism was not a homogeneous movement. It is possible to distinguish various sub-currents and evolutionary phases. The “older symbolists” often gravitated toward impressionism and decadence, the “younger” ones toward neo-mysticism and theurgy (magical action that transforms the world).

Many stylistic and figurative discoveries of the symbolists entered the active arsenal of Russian poetry and continue to inspire poets and writers to this day. The idea of ​​duality, the polysemy of the poetic word, the musicality of verse, complex metaphors - all this legacy of symbolism became the property of Russian literature of the 20th century and continues to influence its development.