Posted on Jan 8, 2021
Andrey Bely – Russiapedia Literature Prominent Russians
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On January 8, 1934, Andrei Bely [Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev], Russian writer, died at the age of 53. From the article:
"One of the most outstanding figures of Russian symbolism, Andrey Bely was truly representative of his own epoch, embodying it in his life and art.
Andrey Bely was born Boris Bugayev in 1880 in Moscow into the noble intellectual family of a prominent mathematician and a social beauty. His father Nikolay Bugaev was a professor at the University of Moscow, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, and the founder of the Moscow School of Mathematics. Fully committed to mathematics, natural sciences, and positivism philosophy, Bely’s father wrote deep essays on geometry and analysis. On the contrary, Bely’s mother, Aleksandra Dmitrievna (born Egorova) had an irrational attraction to the arts, despising both her husband’s professional activity and ugly looks. Many of Bely’s biographers note that the incompatibility of his parents’ personalities had an unfortunate effect on the boy’s psyche. The tense atmosphere of his childhood partly inspired Bely’s autobiographical novels Kotik Letaev (1914) and Baptized Chinaman (1927).
As a child, Bely received an excellent home education followed by attending the well-regarded private Polivanov gymnasium in 1891-1899. His talents emerged early in his intensive philosophical and literary studies; as poet Zinaida Gippius observed, his erudition was startling. One of the most influential events in Bely’s life happened when he was fifteen: he was introduced to the family of Mikhail Solovyov, the younger brother of the famous philosopher and poet Vladimir Solovyov. It was in Mikhail’s house that Bely became engaged in various discussions on art and philosophy with diverse people – meetings the writer would later describe as ‘sessions of the Florence Academy’. Mikhail also suggested the pseudonym of Andrey Bely.
Это действительно Белый в детстве :))))
Andrey Bely in childhood
Despite his obvious interest in literary and cultural studies, Bely (most likely as a result of his father’s influence) graduated from the Moscow University in 1903 with a degree in natural sciences. The following year, he enrolled in the historical-philological faculty, only to give it up after a year, deciding to dedicate himself fully to writing. During these years, along with studying Charles Darwin’s works and positivism philosophy, Bely was attracted by theosophy and occultism, along with Vladimir Solovyev’s religious poetry and Nietzsche’s philosophy.
His writing career started with the publication of Second Symphony, the Dramatic in 1902. Deeply influenced by Vladimir Solovyov’s concept of ‘all-in-oneness’ and the image of Sophia as the female embodiment of Holy Wisdom, the ‘symphony’ was aimed at creating a synthesis of music and word by applying the structural laws of music to a literary composition and using a system of leitmotifs as well as a rhythmization of prose.
During 1901-1903, Bely became a part of the Moscow symbolists group including Bryusov and Balmont called the “Argonauts”. He was one of the main organizers of the literary club, preaching the principles of symbolism as religious creation and the equality of the ‘text of life’ with ‘text of art’. His collection of poems Gold in Azure (1904) was also published during this period, a body of work that would deeply explore Bely’s cyclical interpretation of time and include several poems based on the Greek myth that inspired the name of his literary circle, including “The Golden Fleece” and “The Argonauts”.
The revolutionary year of 1905 significantly affected Bely’s views, changing his philosophical orientation from Solovyev’s religious overtones to the social tendencies of the neo-Kantian world-view. He added several social themes to his poetry along with new rhythms and meters in an allusion to Nikolay Nekrasov’s earlier innovations in Russian poetry.
Любовь Менделеева
Lyubov Mendeleeva
A dramatic and unrequited love relationship with Aleksandr Blok’s wife Lyubov Mendeleeva resulted in Bely personifying her as the representation of Solovyev’s image of Sophia (or the ultimate divine wisdom in feminine form) as reflected in the poetry volume Urn (1909). Bely’s affection for his friend and fellow poet’s wife led to such long-running tensions between them that they challenged each other to duels several times over.
The following two years witnessed Bely working as a gifted essayist and tireless symbolism preacher. Three volumes of critical articles were published, including Symbolism (1910), Green Meadow (1910) and Arabesques (1911). One of the most considerable works of the period was his novel The Silver Dove (1910), a tale of a young poet leaving the city to join a religious group, later to be murdered by sectarians.
Bely started a relationship with Asya Turgeneva around this time, and between 1910 and 1912 they traveled together through Sicily, Tunis, Egypt, and Palestine.
Regarded as his major masterpiece, the novel Petersburg was published in 1913. As critics observe, the book employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. Set in the mystical and hysterical atmosphere of the turn-of-the-century imperial metropolis, the novel touches upon the topics of history and identity. As the plot unwinds in the revolutionary year of 1905, the book centers around a plan to assassinate a high government official. The bizarre irony of the novel is that the bomb is camouflaged, while the alleged assassin happens to be the official’s own son, the unfortunate Nikolay Apollonovich. Because of the sophisticated play on words hard to grasp at times, the novel has been compared by many critics to Ulysses by James Joyce.
Andrey Bely
Andrey Bely
Later, Bely was affected by Rudolph Steiner’s religious philosophy of anthroposophy and during his visit to Switzerland in 1914 he became the mystic’s personal friend. The same year he even participated in the construction of Steiner’s famous Anthroposophical Temple. Kotik Letaev, an autobiographical tale of early childhood full of anthroposophical mysticism was also written during these years.
During World War I Bely returned to Russia, leaving Asya Turgeneva in Switzerland. His attitude to the 1917 revolution was not negative, as he considered it a possible way of avoiding global catastrophe, but he never advocated it. In the post-revolutionary years, Bely lectured the young writers of “Proletcult” (a soviet, avant-garde ‘proletariat-cultural’ institution) on literature and philosophy. During this period he wrote his essay Revolution and Culture (1917) and the poem Christ Has Risen (1918).
In 1921, Bely returned to Europe, but not to his former life there. In 1922 he published Recollections of Blok.
Bely returned to Russia in 1923, where he married Klavdia Vasilyeva and worked on his trilogy of Moscow novels: The Moscow Eccentric (1926), Moscow Under Siege (1926) and Mask (1931).
Bely devoted his last years to writing memoirs (At the Border of Two Centuries, 1930; The Beginning of the Century, 1933; Between Two Revolutions, 1934) of significant importance both as literary criticism and historical documents. He also continued his literary studies and published Rhythm as dialectic in ‘The Bronze Horseman’ and The Mastery of Gogol (1934).
Andrey Bely died on January 8, 1934. His apartment at Arbat, 55, in Moscow became a public museum in 2000. He is the namesake of one of the most significant awards in modern Russian literature."
"One of the most outstanding figures of Russian symbolism, Andrey Bely was truly representative of his own epoch, embodying it in his life and art.
Andrey Bely was born Boris Bugayev in 1880 in Moscow into the noble intellectual family of a prominent mathematician and a social beauty. His father Nikolay Bugaev was a professor at the University of Moscow, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences, and the founder of the Moscow School of Mathematics. Fully committed to mathematics, natural sciences, and positivism philosophy, Bely’s father wrote deep essays on geometry and analysis. On the contrary, Bely’s mother, Aleksandra Dmitrievna (born Egorova) had an irrational attraction to the arts, despising both her husband’s professional activity and ugly looks. Many of Bely’s biographers note that the incompatibility of his parents’ personalities had an unfortunate effect on the boy’s psyche. The tense atmosphere of his childhood partly inspired Bely’s autobiographical novels Kotik Letaev (1914) and Baptized Chinaman (1927).
As a child, Bely received an excellent home education followed by attending the well-regarded private Polivanov gymnasium in 1891-1899. His talents emerged early in his intensive philosophical and literary studies; as poet Zinaida Gippius observed, his erudition was startling. One of the most influential events in Bely’s life happened when he was fifteen: he was introduced to the family of Mikhail Solovyov, the younger brother of the famous philosopher and poet Vladimir Solovyov. It was in Mikhail’s house that Bely became engaged in various discussions on art and philosophy with diverse people – meetings the writer would later describe as ‘sessions of the Florence Academy’. Mikhail also suggested the pseudonym of Andrey Bely.
Это действительно Белый в детстве :))))
Andrey Bely in childhood
Despite his obvious interest in literary and cultural studies, Bely (most likely as a result of his father’s influence) graduated from the Moscow University in 1903 with a degree in natural sciences. The following year, he enrolled in the historical-philological faculty, only to give it up after a year, deciding to dedicate himself fully to writing. During these years, along with studying Charles Darwin’s works and positivism philosophy, Bely was attracted by theosophy and occultism, along with Vladimir Solovyev’s religious poetry and Nietzsche’s philosophy.
His writing career started with the publication of Second Symphony, the Dramatic in 1902. Deeply influenced by Vladimir Solovyov’s concept of ‘all-in-oneness’ and the image of Sophia as the female embodiment of Holy Wisdom, the ‘symphony’ was aimed at creating a synthesis of music and word by applying the structural laws of music to a literary composition and using a system of leitmotifs as well as a rhythmization of prose.
During 1901-1903, Bely became a part of the Moscow symbolists group including Bryusov and Balmont called the “Argonauts”. He was one of the main organizers of the literary club, preaching the principles of symbolism as religious creation and the equality of the ‘text of life’ with ‘text of art’. His collection of poems Gold in Azure (1904) was also published during this period, a body of work that would deeply explore Bely’s cyclical interpretation of time and include several poems based on the Greek myth that inspired the name of his literary circle, including “The Golden Fleece” and “The Argonauts”.
The revolutionary year of 1905 significantly affected Bely’s views, changing his philosophical orientation from Solovyev’s religious overtones to the social tendencies of the neo-Kantian world-view. He added several social themes to his poetry along with new rhythms and meters in an allusion to Nikolay Nekrasov’s earlier innovations in Russian poetry.
Любовь Менделеева
Lyubov Mendeleeva
A dramatic and unrequited love relationship with Aleksandr Blok’s wife Lyubov Mendeleeva resulted in Bely personifying her as the representation of Solovyev’s image of Sophia (or the ultimate divine wisdom in feminine form) as reflected in the poetry volume Urn (1909). Bely’s affection for his friend and fellow poet’s wife led to such long-running tensions between them that they challenged each other to duels several times over.
The following two years witnessed Bely working as a gifted essayist and tireless symbolism preacher. Three volumes of critical articles were published, including Symbolism (1910), Green Meadow (1910) and Arabesques (1911). One of the most considerable works of the period was his novel The Silver Dove (1910), a tale of a young poet leaving the city to join a religious group, later to be murdered by sectarians.
Bely started a relationship with Asya Turgeneva around this time, and between 1910 and 1912 they traveled together through Sicily, Tunis, Egypt, and Palestine.
Regarded as his major masterpiece, the novel Petersburg was published in 1913. As critics observe, the book employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. Set in the mystical and hysterical atmosphere of the turn-of-the-century imperial metropolis, the novel touches upon the topics of history and identity. As the plot unwinds in the revolutionary year of 1905, the book centers around a plan to assassinate a high government official. The bizarre irony of the novel is that the bomb is camouflaged, while the alleged assassin happens to be the official’s own son, the unfortunate Nikolay Apollonovich. Because of the sophisticated play on words hard to grasp at times, the novel has been compared by many critics to Ulysses by James Joyce.
Andrey Bely
Andrey Bely
Later, Bely was affected by Rudolph Steiner’s religious philosophy of anthroposophy and during his visit to Switzerland in 1914 he became the mystic’s personal friend. The same year he even participated in the construction of Steiner’s famous Anthroposophical Temple. Kotik Letaev, an autobiographical tale of early childhood full of anthroposophical mysticism was also written during these years.
During World War I Bely returned to Russia, leaving Asya Turgeneva in Switzerland. His attitude to the 1917 revolution was not negative, as he considered it a possible way of avoiding global catastrophe, but he never advocated it. In the post-revolutionary years, Bely lectured the young writers of “Proletcult” (a soviet, avant-garde ‘proletariat-cultural’ institution) on literature and philosophy. During this period he wrote his essay Revolution and Culture (1917) and the poem Christ Has Risen (1918).
In 1921, Bely returned to Europe, but not to his former life there. In 1922 he published Recollections of Blok.
Bely returned to Russia in 1923, where he married Klavdia Vasilyeva and worked on his trilogy of Moscow novels: The Moscow Eccentric (1926), Moscow Under Siege (1926) and Mask (1931).
Bely devoted his last years to writing memoirs (At the Border of Two Centuries, 1930; The Beginning of the Century, 1933; Between Two Revolutions, 1934) of significant importance both as literary criticism and historical documents. He also continued his literary studies and published Rhythm as dialectic in ‘The Bronze Horseman’ and The Mastery of Gogol (1934).
Andrey Bely died on January 8, 1934. His apartment at Arbat, 55, in Moscow became a public museum in 2000. He is the namesake of one of the most significant awards in modern Russian literature."
Andrey Bely – Russiapedia Literature Prominent Russians
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Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on January 8, 1934, Russian writer who was of the most outstanding figures of Russian symbolism, Andrei Bely [Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev] died at the age of 53.
Carnival, Apocalypse, and Revolution in Bely's Petersburg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRK6caIaaqE
Images:
1. 1912 Andrei Bely and Asia (Anna) Turgenieva
2. Andrey Bely painting
3. Lyubov Mendeleeva
[[https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Andrei_Bely]}
Andrei Bely (Russian: Андре́й Бе́лый) was the pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (October 26, 1880 – January 8, 1934), a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. Bely, together with Alexander Blok, was a key figure in the Russian Symbolist movement, often referred to as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.
But it is as a prose writer and critic that he made his real mark. His novel Petersburg has often been compared with James Joyce's Ulysses for its innovative style and playful use of language. It was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the twentieth century.
As a critic Bely was a forerunner of Russian Formalism, eschewing interest in the political and social dimension of art. However, he was no proponent of "Art for art's sake." Rather he saw in art the missing dimension for translating essential spiritual truths into the human vernacular.
Biography
Boris Bugaev was born into a prominent intellectual family. His father, Nikolai Bugaev, was a leading
mathematician who is regarded as a founder of the Moscow school of mathematics. His mother was not only highly intelligent but also a famous society beauty, and the focus of considerable gossip.
Nikolai Bugaev was well known for his influential philosophical essays, in which he decried geometry and probability and trumpeted the virtues of hard analysis. Despite—or because of—his father's mathematical tastes, Boris Bugaev was fascinated by probability and particularly by entropy, a notion to which he frequently refers in works such as Kotik Letaev.
Young Boris was a polymath, who engaged in a wide range of studies. He engaged in natural science studies at the University of Moscow, taking up science, philology and philosophy during his tenure there from 1899 to 1906. Bely was also interested in romantic music and religion. During this period he became affiliated with the Religious-Philosophical Society of Saint Petersburg. The group grew up around Dmitri Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Gippius, leading figures in both the rise of Russian mysticism and the development of Russian symbolism. The group represented a Russian appropriation of neo-Kantianism though the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The group was also part of the Russian reception of Friedrich Nietzsche.
"With the publication his his first prose work, he took the pen name Andrey Bely ("Andrew White") to avoid embarrassing his father, who was the dean of the faculty of science at Moscow. A positivist, he supported strongly the doctrine that all true knowledge was scientific."[1]
Work
Russian Symbolism
Bely's creative works notably influenced—and were influenced by—several literary schools, especially symbolism. They feature a striking mysticism and a sort of moody musicality. He strove, not entirely successfully, to forge a unity of prose, poetry, and music in much of his literature, as evidenced by the title of one of his early works, Symphonies in Prose. His first collection, Gold in Azure (1904)owes much to the poetry of Konstantin Balmont. Ashes (1909), ike the stories of Anton Chekhov addresses the squalor of life in the Russian countryside at the time. His poem, "Christ Has Risen," like Alexander Blok's, "The Twelve," forces Christian messianic imagery onto the Russian Revolution. Like many artists, he saw the revolution as originally hopeful.
Bely viewed symbolism as more than an artistic movement, but as the ability to transcend the phenomenal limitations of human cognition and to perceive the Noumenal realm. (See Kantianism.) True art, for Bely, provides the symbol or language to express the inexpressible, the absolute "...whether one calls it the noumenal (with Kant), 'pure contemplation of the world will' (with Schopenhauer), or 'a manifestation of the spirit of music' (with Nietzsche)..."[2]
Prose
Bely's contribution to the development of Russian prose superceded his poetic work. His groundbreaking novel, Peterburg, was the most significant work of modern Russian prose in the early twentieth century. His style of literary construction is musical. "Bely's prose is built on the principle of a 'symphonic' view of verbal art, where the musical aspect of languages provides the deepest level of meaning.[3]
Petersburg
Petersburg or St. Petersburg, Russian: Петербург (1913, revised 1922) is the title of Bely's masterpiece, a Symbolist work that foreshadows Joyce's Modernist ambitions. It is generally considered to be his masterpiece. The book is vivid and memorable, and employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. The novel is set in the somewhat hysterical atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Petersburg and the Russian Revolution of 1905. It is populated by a collection of characters that owe much to Fyodor Dostoevsky's treatment of the city—drunkards and madmen.
To the extent that the book can be said to possess a plot, this can be summarized as the story of the hapless Nikolai Apollonovich, a never-do-well who is caught up in revolutionary politics and assigned the task of assassinating a certain government official—his own father. Nikolai is pursued through the impenetrable Petersburg mists by the ringing hooves of the famous bronze statue of Peter the Great.
The novel is based in Saint Petersburg and follows a young revolutionary, Nikolai Apollonovich, who has been ordered to assassinate his own father, a high Tsarist official, by planting a time bomb in his study. There are many similarities with Joyce's Ulysses: the linguistic rhythms and wordplay, the Symbolist and subtle political concerns which structure the themes of the novel, the setting of the action in a capital city that is itself a character, the use of humor, and the fact that the main plot of the novel spans approximately 24 hours. The differences are also notable: the English translation of Bely remains more accessible, his work is based on complex rhythm of patterns, and, according to scholarly opinion, does not use such a wide variety of innovations.
Release details
For various reasons the novel never received much attention and was not translated into English until 1959 by John Cournos, over 45 years after it was written, after Joyce was already established as an important writer.
There have been three major translations of the novel into English:
St. Petersburg or Saint Petersburg, translated by John Cournos (1959)
Petersburg, translated and annotated by John E. Malmstad and Robert A. Maguire (1978) (paperback: ISBN [login to see] )
Petersburg, translated by David McDuff (1995)
Legacy
In his later years Bely was influenced by Rudolph Steiner’s anthroposophy[4] and became a personal friend of Steiner's.
Bely has been credited with foretelling in this novel, which some have called semi-autobiographical, the Russian Revolution, the rise of totalitarianism, political terrorism, and even chaos theory.
Bely was one of the major influences on the theater of Vsevolod Meyerhold.
His fame rests primarily on the novel Petersburg, a philosophical and spiritual work influenced by James Joyce, featuring a highly unorthodox narrative style, fleeting allusions and distinctive rhythmic experimentation. Because of its complexity, the novel is generally regarded as the most complex in Russian literature. Vladimir Nabokov placed it second in his list of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, after Joyce's Ulysses. Other works of mention include the highly-influential theoretical tract entitled Symbolism (1910), which was instrumental in redefining the goals of the Symbolist movement, and the novel Kotik Letaev (1922), which traces the first glimpses of consciousness in a new-born baby.
The far-reaching influence of his literary voice on Russian writers (and even musicians) has frequently been compared to the impact of James Joyce in the English-speaking world. The novelty of his sonic effects has also been compared to the innovative music of Charles Ives.
Bibliography
1902 Second Symphony, the Dramatic
1904 The Northern, or First—Heroic
1904 Gold in Azure (poetry)
1905 The Return—Third
1908 Goblet of Blizzards—Fourth
1909 Ash
1909 Urn (poetry)
1910 Symbolism (criticism/theory)
1910 Green Meadow (criticism)
1910 The Silver Dove (novel)
1911 Arabeques (criticism)
1914 Kotik Letaev (novel based on his childhood)
1916 Petersburg (Revised edition published, 1922)
1917 Revolution and Culture
1918 Christ Has Risen (poem)
1922 Recollections of Blok
1922 ["Glossolalia" (A Poem about Sound)][5]
1922 The First Encounter (poem)
1926 The Moscow Eccentric (1st of trilogy of novels)
1926 Moscow Under Siege (2nd of trilogy of novels)
1927 The Baptized Chinaman (Translated into English as ["The Christened Chinaman"][6])
1931 Masks (3rd of trilogy of novels)
1930 At the Border of Two Centuries (1st memoir of trilogy)
1933 The Beginning of the Century (2nd memoir of trilogy)
1934 Between Two Revolutions (3rd memoir of trilogy)
1934 Rhythm as Dialectic in The Bronze Horseman (criticism)
1934 The Mastery of Gogol (criticism)
Notes
Andrey Bely (1880-1934) Retrieved February 19, 2009.
Viktor Terras, 1994, A History of Russian Literature, (Yale University Press. ISBN [login to see] ), 401.
Terras, 482.
Bely, Andrei. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07 Retrieved February 19, 2009.
Andrei Bely, Andrei Bely. Retrieved February 24, 2009.
The Christened Chinaman, Andrei Bely, community.middlebury.edu Retrieved February 19, 2009.
References
Brown, Edward, J., Russian Literture Since the Revolution, Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN [login to see]
(Andrey Bely 1880-1934), Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
Terras, Viktor. A History of Russian Literature, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. ISBN [login to see]
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Carnival, Apocalypse, and Revolution in Bely's Petersburg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRK6caIaaqE
Images:
1. 1912 Andrei Bely and Asia (Anna) Turgenieva
2. Andrey Bely painting
3. Lyubov Mendeleeva
[[https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Andrei_Bely]}
Andrei Bely (Russian: Андре́й Бе́лый) was the pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (October 26, 1880 – January 8, 1934), a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. Bely, together with Alexander Blok, was a key figure in the Russian Symbolist movement, often referred to as the Silver Age of Russian Poetry.
But it is as a prose writer and critic that he made his real mark. His novel Petersburg has often been compared with James Joyce's Ulysses for its innovative style and playful use of language. It was regarded by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the four greatest novels of the twentieth century.
As a critic Bely was a forerunner of Russian Formalism, eschewing interest in the political and social dimension of art. However, he was no proponent of "Art for art's sake." Rather he saw in art the missing dimension for translating essential spiritual truths into the human vernacular.
Biography
Boris Bugaev was born into a prominent intellectual family. His father, Nikolai Bugaev, was a leading
mathematician who is regarded as a founder of the Moscow school of mathematics. His mother was not only highly intelligent but also a famous society beauty, and the focus of considerable gossip.
Nikolai Bugaev was well known for his influential philosophical essays, in which he decried geometry and probability and trumpeted the virtues of hard analysis. Despite—or because of—his father's mathematical tastes, Boris Bugaev was fascinated by probability and particularly by entropy, a notion to which he frequently refers in works such as Kotik Letaev.
Young Boris was a polymath, who engaged in a wide range of studies. He engaged in natural science studies at the University of Moscow, taking up science, philology and philosophy during his tenure there from 1899 to 1906. Bely was also interested in romantic music and religion. During this period he became affiliated with the Religious-Philosophical Society of Saint Petersburg. The group grew up around Dmitri Merezhkovsky and his wife Zinaida Gippius, leading figures in both the rise of Russian mysticism and the development of Russian symbolism. The group represented a Russian appropriation of neo-Kantianism though the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The group was also part of the Russian reception of Friedrich Nietzsche.
"With the publication his his first prose work, he took the pen name Andrey Bely ("Andrew White") to avoid embarrassing his father, who was the dean of the faculty of science at Moscow. A positivist, he supported strongly the doctrine that all true knowledge was scientific."[1]
Work
Russian Symbolism
Bely's creative works notably influenced—and were influenced by—several literary schools, especially symbolism. They feature a striking mysticism and a sort of moody musicality. He strove, not entirely successfully, to forge a unity of prose, poetry, and music in much of his literature, as evidenced by the title of one of his early works, Symphonies in Prose. His first collection, Gold in Azure (1904)owes much to the poetry of Konstantin Balmont. Ashes (1909), ike the stories of Anton Chekhov addresses the squalor of life in the Russian countryside at the time. His poem, "Christ Has Risen," like Alexander Blok's, "The Twelve," forces Christian messianic imagery onto the Russian Revolution. Like many artists, he saw the revolution as originally hopeful.
Bely viewed symbolism as more than an artistic movement, but as the ability to transcend the phenomenal limitations of human cognition and to perceive the Noumenal realm. (See Kantianism.) True art, for Bely, provides the symbol or language to express the inexpressible, the absolute "...whether one calls it the noumenal (with Kant), 'pure contemplation of the world will' (with Schopenhauer), or 'a manifestation of the spirit of music' (with Nietzsche)..."[2]
Prose
Bely's contribution to the development of Russian prose superceded his poetic work. His groundbreaking novel, Peterburg, was the most significant work of modern Russian prose in the early twentieth century. His style of literary construction is musical. "Bely's prose is built on the principle of a 'symphonic' view of verbal art, where the musical aspect of languages provides the deepest level of meaning.[3]
Petersburg
Petersburg or St. Petersburg, Russian: Петербург (1913, revised 1922) is the title of Bely's masterpiece, a Symbolist work that foreshadows Joyce's Modernist ambitions. It is generally considered to be his masterpiece. The book is vivid and memorable, and employs a striking prose method in which sounds often evoke colors. The novel is set in the somewhat hysterical atmosphere of turn-of-the-century Petersburg and the Russian Revolution of 1905. It is populated by a collection of characters that owe much to Fyodor Dostoevsky's treatment of the city—drunkards and madmen.
To the extent that the book can be said to possess a plot, this can be summarized as the story of the hapless Nikolai Apollonovich, a never-do-well who is caught up in revolutionary politics and assigned the task of assassinating a certain government official—his own father. Nikolai is pursued through the impenetrable Petersburg mists by the ringing hooves of the famous bronze statue of Peter the Great.
The novel is based in Saint Petersburg and follows a young revolutionary, Nikolai Apollonovich, who has been ordered to assassinate his own father, a high Tsarist official, by planting a time bomb in his study. There are many similarities with Joyce's Ulysses: the linguistic rhythms and wordplay, the Symbolist and subtle political concerns which structure the themes of the novel, the setting of the action in a capital city that is itself a character, the use of humor, and the fact that the main plot of the novel spans approximately 24 hours. The differences are also notable: the English translation of Bely remains more accessible, his work is based on complex rhythm of patterns, and, according to scholarly opinion, does not use such a wide variety of innovations.
Release details
For various reasons the novel never received much attention and was not translated into English until 1959 by John Cournos, over 45 years after it was written, after Joyce was already established as an important writer.
There have been three major translations of the novel into English:
St. Petersburg or Saint Petersburg, translated by John Cournos (1959)
Petersburg, translated and annotated by John E. Malmstad and Robert A. Maguire (1978) (paperback: ISBN [login to see] )
Petersburg, translated by David McDuff (1995)
Legacy
In his later years Bely was influenced by Rudolph Steiner’s anthroposophy[4] and became a personal friend of Steiner's.
Bely has been credited with foretelling in this novel, which some have called semi-autobiographical, the Russian Revolution, the rise of totalitarianism, political terrorism, and even chaos theory.
Bely was one of the major influences on the theater of Vsevolod Meyerhold.
His fame rests primarily on the novel Petersburg, a philosophical and spiritual work influenced by James Joyce, featuring a highly unorthodox narrative style, fleeting allusions and distinctive rhythmic experimentation. Because of its complexity, the novel is generally regarded as the most complex in Russian literature. Vladimir Nabokov placed it second in his list of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, after Joyce's Ulysses. Other works of mention include the highly-influential theoretical tract entitled Symbolism (1910), which was instrumental in redefining the goals of the Symbolist movement, and the novel Kotik Letaev (1922), which traces the first glimpses of consciousness in a new-born baby.
The far-reaching influence of his literary voice on Russian writers (and even musicians) has frequently been compared to the impact of James Joyce in the English-speaking world. The novelty of his sonic effects has also been compared to the innovative music of Charles Ives.
Bibliography
1902 Second Symphony, the Dramatic
1904 The Northern, or First—Heroic
1904 Gold in Azure (poetry)
1905 The Return—Third
1908 Goblet of Blizzards—Fourth
1909 Ash
1909 Urn (poetry)
1910 Symbolism (criticism/theory)
1910 Green Meadow (criticism)
1910 The Silver Dove (novel)
1911 Arabeques (criticism)
1914 Kotik Letaev (novel based on his childhood)
1916 Petersburg (Revised edition published, 1922)
1917 Revolution and Culture
1918 Christ Has Risen (poem)
1922 Recollections of Blok
1922 ["Glossolalia" (A Poem about Sound)][5]
1922 The First Encounter (poem)
1926 The Moscow Eccentric (1st of trilogy of novels)
1926 Moscow Under Siege (2nd of trilogy of novels)
1927 The Baptized Chinaman (Translated into English as ["The Christened Chinaman"][6])
1931 Masks (3rd of trilogy of novels)
1930 At the Border of Two Centuries (1st memoir of trilogy)
1933 The Beginning of the Century (2nd memoir of trilogy)
1934 Between Two Revolutions (3rd memoir of trilogy)
1934 Rhythm as Dialectic in The Bronze Horseman (criticism)
1934 The Mastery of Gogol (criticism)
Notes
Andrey Bely (1880-1934) Retrieved February 19, 2009.
Viktor Terras, 1994, A History of Russian Literature, (Yale University Press. ISBN [login to see] ), 401.
Terras, 482.
Bely, Andrei. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07 Retrieved February 19, 2009.
Andrei Bely, Andrei Bely. Retrieved February 24, 2009.
The Christened Chinaman, Andrei Bely, community.middlebury.edu Retrieved February 19, 2009.
References
Brown, Edward, J., Russian Literture Since the Revolution, Harvard University Press, 1982. ISBN [login to see]
(Andrey Bely 1880-1934), Kuusankosken kaupunginkirjasto. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
Terras, Viktor. A History of Russian Literature, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. ISBN [login to see]
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Музей - мемориальная квартира Андрея Белого
Передача "Музеи России". Эфир 18.05.2014. Первый образовательный канал. Телекомпания СГУ ТВ. Столетие назад в одном из Арбатских домов появился на свет Бор...
Museum - Memorial Apartment of Andrei Bely
A century ago, in one of the houses Arbat was born Boris Bugaev, later changed its name to well-known pseudonym of Andrei Bely. This poet has played in culture of the Silver Age strange, but invaluable. Today in the apartment of his childhood is a museum - Memorial Apartment of Andrei Bely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK3dMt6-ySY&t=1016s
Images:
1. Andrey Bely
2. Andrey Bely in childhood
3. Leon Bakst Portrait of Andrei Bely
4. Photo of Andrei Bely.
[[https:// http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/gl/notes/ni.htm]}
Andrei Bely. Andrei Bely, the pen name of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, was born in 1880, the lone and lonely child of a mismatched marriage between his mathematician father, Professor Nikolai Vasilievich Bugaev, and the beautiful and musically talented Aleksandra Dmitrievna, nee Yegorova. Boris Bugaev grew up in the Arbat district of Moscow. Intelligent and quick-witted, he was constantly drawn between the two poles represented by his father and mother. The duality of their relationship was to be reproduced in his personality and make itself felt throughout his artistic career and adult life. Surrounded mostly by relatives and adult friends of the family in his early years (his father was already over forty at his birth), he kept himself the center of attention only by acting the part of a child. Consequently, he grew old and yet never grew up. Already in school he displayed his independence and individuality by skipping classes for several weeks and going instead to the library, where he simply devoured books. This particular incident in his life, this "transgression," was to have constituted the central event in the "Transgression of Nikolai Letaev." In subsequent editions the heading for the first chapter, The Christened Chinaman, became the title of the entire novel, when the work never progressed to this autobiographical moment.
Boris enrolled at Moscow University in 1899 in a course of studies in the natural sciences. After graduating in 1903, he enrolled for a second degree in philosophy which he never completed. Failure to pursue things to their conclusion is another characteristic trait of Bely, but his inability to finish his second degree is at least understandable. In 1902 he had already published his first major work, Symphony (The Second, Dramatic One), in which he tried to capture in prose the magic of music. In this first decade of the century Andrei Bely (the pseudonym he had chosen to avoid embarrassment for and confusion with his father's name) became a widely published poet, prosaist, critic and essayist. For a while he was the most prolific and polemical theorist of the Symbolist movement in Russia. At the same time he was acquiring an encyclopedic, albeit at times superficial, knowledge of almost everything under the sun, but especially of philosophy and aesthetics. He read so many works, was influenced by so many figures and traditions, that it is difficult to believe any attempts to separate neatly and divide precisely these influences into periods, as Bely and his biographers often do. Vladimir Solovyov, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant, Blavatsky, Besant, Steiner, all fascinated this impressionable young man at least temporarily. If there is any progression, it can be seen only in the broadest terms as one passing through Orthodoxy to Rationalism and finding its synthesis in mysticism. In the end Bely apparently found the answers to his questions in the rational religion of Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy.
By 1910 at the age of thirty Bely had insured for himself a place in the history of Russian letters. Four prose symphonies, a major novel (The Silver Dove, 1909), three major collections of poetry, over two hundred articles, essays and reviews and his monumental work Symbolism were all being read and discussed. Eventually Symbolism would lay the groundwork for the Russian Formalist movement, initiate a school of statistical critical analysis later carried on in the Soviet Union and the United States, and indirectly by its influence on Formalism, have an effect on the later New Critics and Structuralists. Yet Bely went abroad at the peak of his career, and by the time he returned the Symbolist concerns, persons and movement had been replaced in the public's mind. The brash challenges of the younger Symbolists seemed mild and conventional compared to a new generation of screamers and shouters, such as Mayakovsky.
If Bely's popularity declined in the second decade of the century, at least his talent did not suffer. In the teens he wrote and published the novel upon which much of his reputation rests: Petersburg (1914). This most important event of his literary life was matched by the single most important influence for the rest of his life: his meeting with and acceptance of Rudolf Steiner. Ten years after the death of his father, Bely finally found a new father figure, a spiritual advisor, one who could show the way and lead him through this earthly existence. The story of Rudolf Steiner and Andrei Bely, if and when it ever becomes fully known, will certainly clarify much about Bely and his art. Bely settled with Asya Turgeneva, his companion and later his wife, in Dornach to work on the construction of the Goetheanum. In 1916 he returned to motherland Russia ravaged by war and soon to be racked by revolution. Bely like Blok eagerly accepted the Revolution as the long anticipated and awaited Apocalypse. In the next few years he participated fully in trying to build the new society. Bely lent his hand to the training of cadres of writers for the Proletkult. There had always been something of the frustrated teacher in Bely, reflected in the various introductions, prefaces, forewords to his works, or the several hundreds of pages of footnotes and commentary to Symbolism. Meanwhile he continued work on various manuscripts which would eventually see the light. It was primarily a period of prose: Petersburg, Kotik Letaev, Notes of an Eccentric and a series of critical works.
Bely continued to write prolifically in the 1920's in spite of his complaints that publishers were ignoring him. In the first years of the decade he turned his attention to his father in the poem "The First Encounter" and the novel, The Christened Chinaman. Having apparently resolved for himself the image of his father, Bely was hit by a severe loss with the death of Aleksandr Blok, symbolist poet, friend, spiritual brother. In November of 1921 Bely, unable to cope with the physical hardships of life in Russia, departed for Berlin. Here he was disappointed by Asya, who had disowned him for a new lover, and he felt betrayed by Rudolf Steiner's restrained and reserved attitude toward him. In spite of these disappointments or perhaps because of them, Bely provided an almost nonstop stream of works for Berlin publishers. In a two year period he published nine original works and several reprints of older works, including a rewritten version of Petersburg. Bely left Berlin and returned to Russia in October of 1923. In the next ten years he would produce two major novels, three volumes of memoirs and two major critical studies. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in January, 1934.
FYI Sgt John H. SGM Bill FrazerCSM (Join to see)SSG Jeffrey LeakeSSG Paul HeadleeSGM Major StroupeCPL Michael PeckSSG Jeff Furgerson]Sgt (Join to see)PO1 Steve Ditto SPC Michael Terrell CPL Douglas ChryslerSP5 Geoffrey Vannerson LTC John Shaw MSgt Paul Connors SPC Matthew Lamb GySgt John Hudson SPC(P) (Join to see) SSG Robert WebsterSFC Bernard Walko
A century ago, in one of the houses Arbat was born Boris Bugaev, later changed its name to well-known pseudonym of Andrei Bely. This poet has played in culture of the Silver Age strange, but invaluable. Today in the apartment of his childhood is a museum - Memorial Apartment of Andrei Bely
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK3dMt6-ySY&t=1016s
Images:
1. Andrey Bely
2. Andrey Bely in childhood
3. Leon Bakst Portrait of Andrei Bely
4. Photo of Andrei Bely.
[[https:// http://community.middlebury.edu/~beyer/gl/notes/ni.htm]}
Andrei Bely. Andrei Bely, the pen name of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev, was born in 1880, the lone and lonely child of a mismatched marriage between his mathematician father, Professor Nikolai Vasilievich Bugaev, and the beautiful and musically talented Aleksandra Dmitrievna, nee Yegorova. Boris Bugaev grew up in the Arbat district of Moscow. Intelligent and quick-witted, he was constantly drawn between the two poles represented by his father and mother. The duality of their relationship was to be reproduced in his personality and make itself felt throughout his artistic career and adult life. Surrounded mostly by relatives and adult friends of the family in his early years (his father was already over forty at his birth), he kept himself the center of attention only by acting the part of a child. Consequently, he grew old and yet never grew up. Already in school he displayed his independence and individuality by skipping classes for several weeks and going instead to the library, where he simply devoured books. This particular incident in his life, this "transgression," was to have constituted the central event in the "Transgression of Nikolai Letaev." In subsequent editions the heading for the first chapter, The Christened Chinaman, became the title of the entire novel, when the work never progressed to this autobiographical moment.
Boris enrolled at Moscow University in 1899 in a course of studies in the natural sciences. After graduating in 1903, he enrolled for a second degree in philosophy which he never completed. Failure to pursue things to their conclusion is another characteristic trait of Bely, but his inability to finish his second degree is at least understandable. In 1902 he had already published his first major work, Symphony (The Second, Dramatic One), in which he tried to capture in prose the magic of music. In this first decade of the century Andrei Bely (the pseudonym he had chosen to avoid embarrassment for and confusion with his father's name) became a widely published poet, prosaist, critic and essayist. For a while he was the most prolific and polemical theorist of the Symbolist movement in Russia. At the same time he was acquiring an encyclopedic, albeit at times superficial, knowledge of almost everything under the sun, but especially of philosophy and aesthetics. He read so many works, was influenced by so many figures and traditions, that it is difficult to believe any attempts to separate neatly and divide precisely these influences into periods, as Bely and his biographers often do. Vladimir Solovyov, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kant, Blavatsky, Besant, Steiner, all fascinated this impressionable young man at least temporarily. If there is any progression, it can be seen only in the broadest terms as one passing through Orthodoxy to Rationalism and finding its synthesis in mysticism. In the end Bely apparently found the answers to his questions in the rational religion of Rudolf Steiner, Anthroposophy.
By 1910 at the age of thirty Bely had insured for himself a place in the history of Russian letters. Four prose symphonies, a major novel (The Silver Dove, 1909), three major collections of poetry, over two hundred articles, essays and reviews and his monumental work Symbolism were all being read and discussed. Eventually Symbolism would lay the groundwork for the Russian Formalist movement, initiate a school of statistical critical analysis later carried on in the Soviet Union and the United States, and indirectly by its influence on Formalism, have an effect on the later New Critics and Structuralists. Yet Bely went abroad at the peak of his career, and by the time he returned the Symbolist concerns, persons and movement had been replaced in the public's mind. The brash challenges of the younger Symbolists seemed mild and conventional compared to a new generation of screamers and shouters, such as Mayakovsky.
If Bely's popularity declined in the second decade of the century, at least his talent did not suffer. In the teens he wrote and published the novel upon which much of his reputation rests: Petersburg (1914). This most important event of his literary life was matched by the single most important influence for the rest of his life: his meeting with and acceptance of Rudolf Steiner. Ten years after the death of his father, Bely finally found a new father figure, a spiritual advisor, one who could show the way and lead him through this earthly existence. The story of Rudolf Steiner and Andrei Bely, if and when it ever becomes fully known, will certainly clarify much about Bely and his art. Bely settled with Asya Turgeneva, his companion and later his wife, in Dornach to work on the construction of the Goetheanum. In 1916 he returned to motherland Russia ravaged by war and soon to be racked by revolution. Bely like Blok eagerly accepted the Revolution as the long anticipated and awaited Apocalypse. In the next few years he participated fully in trying to build the new society. Bely lent his hand to the training of cadres of writers for the Proletkult. There had always been something of the frustrated teacher in Bely, reflected in the various introductions, prefaces, forewords to his works, or the several hundreds of pages of footnotes and commentary to Symbolism. Meanwhile he continued work on various manuscripts which would eventually see the light. It was primarily a period of prose: Petersburg, Kotik Letaev, Notes of an Eccentric and a series of critical works.
Bely continued to write prolifically in the 1920's in spite of his complaints that publishers were ignoring him. In the first years of the decade he turned his attention to his father in the poem "The First Encounter" and the novel, The Christened Chinaman. Having apparently resolved for himself the image of his father, Bely was hit by a severe loss with the death of Aleksandr Blok, symbolist poet, friend, spiritual brother. In November of 1921 Bely, unable to cope with the physical hardships of life in Russia, departed for Berlin. Here he was disappointed by Asya, who had disowned him for a new lover, and he felt betrayed by Rudolf Steiner's restrained and reserved attitude toward him. In spite of these disappointments or perhaps because of them, Bely provided an almost nonstop stream of works for Berlin publishers. In a two year period he published nine original works and several reprints of older works, including a rewritten version of Petersburg. Bely left Berlin and returned to Russia in October of 1923. In the next ten years he would produce two major novels, three volumes of memoirs and two major critical studies. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage in January, 1934.
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Image:
1. Russian Author and Poet Andrei Bely with Symbolist Authors, 1907
2. Museum apartment of Andrei Bely State A.S. Pushkin Museum Town.
3. Andrei Bely's photographs inside the Andrei Bely Museum
4. Andrei Bely 1933.
Background from {[https://www.enotes.com/topics/andrey-bely]}
Andrey Bely
Andrey Bely 1880–1934
(Also transliterated as Andrei and Andrej; also Belyj, Belyi, Biely, and Beluy; pseudonym of Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev, also transliterated as Bugaev) Russian poet, novelist, short story writer, autobiographer, essayist, and critic.
Bely is recognized as the most original and influential writer of the Russian Symbolist movement. His work typifies the traits of Symbolism, particularly its subjective themes and esoteric philosophical ideas. Although his work was virtually unknown outside of Russia during his lifetime, Bely's poetry has received widespread attention and acclaim in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Biographical Information
Bely was born in Moscow. He studied science, mathematics, and philosophy at Moscow University, while at the same time pursuing a passionate interest in music, aesthetics, and mysticism. In 1902 he published his first work, Vtoraia simfoniia: Dramaticheskaia, described by Bely as a poetic symphony. This and other pieces by Bely were influenced by the works of the mystic poet-philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, especially his theories of symbolism. Bely's prose poem is a mystic vision of Sofia, Solovyov's all-embracing divine feminine principle which rules all creation, and which can either be identified as nature or personified as Sofia, Divine Wisdom. In Solovyov's philosophy, the tangible world is only a shadow of the real, spiritual world, and it is Sofia who reveals the ultimate reality to the poet. Solovyov believed that Christ's incarnation demonstrated that man can become divine, and so the duality of the spiritual and material can and will be reconciled but only after catastrophe and apocalypse. Bely developed and expanded Solovyov's ideas, along with the ideas of other philosophers, and thereby synthesized and created the theoretical basis for Russian Symbolism. From 1905 to 1909 Bely and Valery Bryusov coedited the Symbolist periodical Vesy. Bely championed the ideas of Symbolism until 1912, when he traveled to Europe and became acquainted with the anthroposophical doctrines of Rudolf Steiner, a quasi-religious philosophy which sought the spiritual renewal of man through love and spiritual knowledge. Bely returned to Russia in 1916 but became disillusioned with the social and political changes brought on by the revolution the following year. He emigrated to Germany in 1921 yet returned to Russia in 1923, remaining until his death in 1934.
Major Works
Among Bely's earliest writings were his "Symphonies," prose poems in which he attempted to achieve effects of rhythm and structure analogous to those in music. Zoloto v lazuri (Gold in Azure), published in 1904, also displays innovative rhythmic technique, while in subject and tone it reflects the poet's melancholy and loneliness. Urna (The Urn) documents the poet's search for spiritual peace. Critics agree that Bely's autobiographical Pervoe svidanie (The First Encounter) is his finest achievement. In this book-length poem, published in 1921, Bely uses diverse narrative and structural techniques to recount his friendship with Solovyov in turn-of-the-century Moscow.
Critical Reception
Throughout his life most critics belittled Bely's significance, maintaining that his poetry is too vague and subjective and that his technical subtleties, in the end, become tiresome and irritating. It was only after his death that Bely's work gained widespread attention from critics, particularly for the depth of his imagination and the importance of his stylistic innovations. Commentators now view Bely not only as the most representative writer of the Russian Symbolist movement, but also as a profound influence on the course of Russian literature in the twentieth-century.
FYI LTC John Shaw SPC Diana D. LTC Hillary Luton
1SG Steven ImermanSSG Pete FishGySgt Gary CordeiroPO1 H Gene LawrenceSPC Chris Bayner-CwikSgt Jim BelanusSGM Bill FrazerMSG Tom EarleySSgt Marian MitchellSGT Michael HearnPO2 Frederick DunnSP5 Dennis LobergerCPO John BjorgeSGT Randell RoseSSG Jimmy CernichSGT Denny EspinosaMSG Fred Bucci
1. Russian Author and Poet Andrei Bely with Symbolist Authors, 1907
2. Museum apartment of Andrei Bely State A.S. Pushkin Museum Town.
3. Andrei Bely's photographs inside the Andrei Bely Museum
4. Andrei Bely 1933.
Background from {[https://www.enotes.com/topics/andrey-bely]}
Andrey Bely
Andrey Bely 1880–1934
(Also transliterated as Andrei and Andrej; also Belyj, Belyi, Biely, and Beluy; pseudonym of Boris Nikolayevich Bugayev, also transliterated as Bugaev) Russian poet, novelist, short story writer, autobiographer, essayist, and critic.
Bely is recognized as the most original and influential writer of the Russian Symbolist movement. His work typifies the traits of Symbolism, particularly its subjective themes and esoteric philosophical ideas. Although his work was virtually unknown outside of Russia during his lifetime, Bely's poetry has received widespread attention and acclaim in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Biographical Information
Bely was born in Moscow. He studied science, mathematics, and philosophy at Moscow University, while at the same time pursuing a passionate interest in music, aesthetics, and mysticism. In 1902 he published his first work, Vtoraia simfoniia: Dramaticheskaia, described by Bely as a poetic symphony. This and other pieces by Bely were influenced by the works of the mystic poet-philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, especially his theories of symbolism. Bely's prose poem is a mystic vision of Sofia, Solovyov's all-embracing divine feminine principle which rules all creation, and which can either be identified as nature or personified as Sofia, Divine Wisdom. In Solovyov's philosophy, the tangible world is only a shadow of the real, spiritual world, and it is Sofia who reveals the ultimate reality to the poet. Solovyov believed that Christ's incarnation demonstrated that man can become divine, and so the duality of the spiritual and material can and will be reconciled but only after catastrophe and apocalypse. Bely developed and expanded Solovyov's ideas, along with the ideas of other philosophers, and thereby synthesized and created the theoretical basis for Russian Symbolism. From 1905 to 1909 Bely and Valery Bryusov coedited the Symbolist periodical Vesy. Bely championed the ideas of Symbolism until 1912, when he traveled to Europe and became acquainted with the anthroposophical doctrines of Rudolf Steiner, a quasi-religious philosophy which sought the spiritual renewal of man through love and spiritual knowledge. Bely returned to Russia in 1916 but became disillusioned with the social and political changes brought on by the revolution the following year. He emigrated to Germany in 1921 yet returned to Russia in 1923, remaining until his death in 1934.
Major Works
Among Bely's earliest writings were his "Symphonies," prose poems in which he attempted to achieve effects of rhythm and structure analogous to those in music. Zoloto v lazuri (Gold in Azure), published in 1904, also displays innovative rhythmic technique, while in subject and tone it reflects the poet's melancholy and loneliness. Urna (The Urn) documents the poet's search for spiritual peace. Critics agree that Bely's autobiographical Pervoe svidanie (The First Encounter) is his finest achievement. In this book-length poem, published in 1921, Bely uses diverse narrative and structural techniques to recount his friendship with Solovyov in turn-of-the-century Moscow.
Critical Reception
Throughout his life most critics belittled Bely's significance, maintaining that his poetry is too vague and subjective and that his technical subtleties, in the end, become tiresome and irritating. It was only after his death that Bely's work gained widespread attention from critics, particularly for the depth of his imagination and the importance of his stylistic innovations. Commentators now view Bely not only as the most representative writer of the Russian Symbolist movement, but also as a profound influence on the course of Russian literature in the twentieth-century.
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