Valery Bryusov

The Review article discusses four new scholarly volumes focused on various problematic issues related to Russian Modernism. The essay debates major points of methodology and research topicality with respect to Russian Symbolism and the Avant-Garde.
- Martha M.F. Kelly, Unorthodox Beauty. Russian Modernism and Its New
Religious Aesthetic. Evanston, 2016.
- Jonathan Stone, The Institutions of Russian Modernism. Conceptualizing, Publishing, and Reading Symbolism. Evanston, 2017.
- Katherine Lahti, The Russian Revival of the Dithyramb. A Modernist Use of Antiquity. Evanston, 2018.
- Reframing Russian Modernism. Edited by Irina Shevelenko. Madison, 2018.

It took Prokofiev seven years to compose The Fiery Angel, an opera based on a novel by Brioussov. Between January 1920 and June 1927, the composer’s mind was completely focused on this new work. Despite many failed attempts, Prokofiev only heard extracts from the second act in a concert version given on 14 June 1928 (the opera was staged in Paris in November 1954, one year after Prokofiev’s death). As soon as April 1928, Prokofiev decided to draw a symphonic suite basically conceived as a paraphrase, but which quickly turned into a four-movement symphony; this is how the Third Symphony was born. Another project linked to The Fiery Angel failed. In 1923, without any prospect to stage the first version of the opera, Prokofiev decided to draw a vocal suite and thus to change the morphology of the opera in order to make it more appropriate for the concert.
Absent from the official catalogue of the composer’s works, this unfinished suite has never been the subject of any research until now, and it is at best briefly mentioned in the musicological writings devoted to Prokofiev. Exiled in the United Sates, why did he show any interest in Brioussov’s novel? How did he conceive his suite? What cuts did he have to make in the libretto? What problems did he face? These questions deserve to be answered.

This book is devoted to the poorly studied early poetry of Vladislav Khodasevich (1886–1939), one of the most remarkable poets of the Russian “Silver Age”.
The research focuses primarily on early collections of Khodasevich, Molodost’ (Youth, 1908), Schastlivyj domik (The Happy Little House, 1914), and selection of poems from another book, Vetv’ (Branch, 1917). The mentioned texts are regarded as consequent stages of the poet’s development.
We took into consideration several aspects of the development of Khodasevich’s poetry. The first question of our interest was which texts of the poets of older generation (V. Bryusov, A. Blok, A. Bely) were adopted and revised by Khodasevich in his early verses.
Second, the present thesis analyses Russian poetry of the 19th century in Khodasevich’s treatment. In Molodost’ the references to Pushkin’s epoch were rather conventional and emanated from the influence of Bryusov, who had the reputation of the follower of Pushkin’s tradition. However, over time the presence of Pushkin’s epoch in Khodasevich’s writings was becoming more significant. In the verses written between 1916 and 1917 a new kind of reference to the 19th century literature becomes visible. The poet’s development consisted in gradual disengaging from the influence of Bryusov and other symbolist poets, and in overcoming them through employing the traditions of the 19th century.
The third important theme of the study is Khodasevich’s own evolution. In our opinion, the poet, being under the influence of the “younger” symbolists, had adopted their model of evolution as well. For example, the first stage of Khodasevich’s development, i.e. his “thesis”, corresponds to the “antithesis” of Block and Bely. The following stage of his evolution is in contrast to the first one, similarly to how it happened among the “younger” symbolists.
Having undertaken the analysis of the poems written between 1915 and 1917, when aesthetic themes were replaced with social and ethical problems, helped us reach the conclusion that the third stage of Khodasevich’s evolution (the “synthesis”) corresponds to the “synthesis” of Blok.

В статье анализируется кубофутуристический манифест Б.К. Лившица "Освобождение слова" (1913), который можно назвать одной из немногих попыток теоретического осмысления футуристической поэтики. Логика статьи Лившица при этом находится в прямой зависимости от идей В.Я. Брюсова и символизма в целом, и разбор "Освобождения слова" позволяет прочертить еще одну линию преемственности футуризма по отношению к символизму. В статье также рассматривается, как манифест Лившица мог отразиться в "Утре акмеизма" Мандельштама.

В статье впервые дан обзор пяти инскриптов В.Я. Брюсова из фондов Государственной публичной исторической библиотеки. Четыре автографа (А.М. Добролюбову, И.А. Бунину, С.П. Бартеневу, В.С. Терьяну) ранее не публиковались. Представленные надписи содержательны и нетипичны для обыкновенно сдержанного В.Я. Брюсова: они уточняют детали биографии поэта, дают представление о его взаимоотношениях с адресатами инскриптов и др. В целом выявленные автографы являются ценным источником для реконструкции отдельных фрагментов истории русской литературы начала ХХ в.

The article provides an overview of five inscriptions of V.Ya. Bryusov from the State Public Library for History collection. Four autographs (addressed to A.M. Dobrolyubov, I.A. Bunin, S.P. Bartenev, V.S. Teryan) were not published before. The inscriptions are informative and not typical for V.Ya. Bryusov, they clarify the details of the poet’s biography, give an idea of his relationships with the addressees, etc. In general, the autographs are a valuable source for the reconstruction of certain fragments of the history of Russian literature of the early 20th century.

В публикациях последнего десятилетия, посвященных биографии Валерия Брюсова, указывается на необходимость продолжить разыскания, чтобы вы-яснить судьбу героини 14-го сонета «Рокового ряда» М.В. Вульфарт. Ее поэтический образ также постоянно присутствует в любовной лирике Брюсова 1914–1915 гг., того периода, когда поэт и его подруга были особенно близки. История взаимоотношений Брюсова и М.В. Вульфарт уже исследована, прежде всего, по материалам его архива, но до сих пор не получалось проследить ее судьбу после расставания с Брюсовым. Сде-лать это удалось при работе над данной статьей, за счет использования впервые вво-димых в оборот источников из других архивов (в России и ЮАР), генеалогических баз данных, а также интервью с родственниками Вульфарт. Установлено, что Вульфарт эмигрировала в Южную Африку в 1920-е гг., но не оставляла надежды вернуться в Рос-сию и встретиться с вдовой Брюсова. Выявлены причины не раз отмеченной исследова-телями «интонации нервической навязчивости», которая задавала эмоциональный фон отношений Брюсова и Вульфарт. Изложены основные события жизни героини 14-го со-нета, а также уточнены и дополнены сведения относительно ее взаимоотношений с по-этом, содержащиеся в ранее опубликованных статьях о ней.

Valery Bryusov’s “Unnamed” Muse. A South African Epilogue

In the past ten years, biographers of Valery Bryusov pointed out that it was necessary to continue research into the life of M.V. Wulffahrt, to whom Bryusov dedicated the fourteenth sonnet of his Fatal Set. Her image permeated Bryusov’s love poems in 1914–1915, the period when he was particularly close with her. The histo-ry of their relationship was thoroughly researched by analysing their correspondence preserved in the Russian State Library. However, until now, scholars were unable to extend her biography past the end of her love affair with Bryusov. The task has been accomplished by using sources from other archives in Russia and South Africa, which are being introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time, as well as genealogi-cal databases and interviews with Wulffahrt’s family members. It has been established that Wulffahrt immigrated to South Africa in the 1920s but did not give up the hope of returning to her native country and meeting Bryusov’s widow. The article explains the reason for the ‘anxious obsessiveness’ of Wulffahrt’s attitude towards Bryusov, which has been repeatedly noted by scholars, and sets the emotional background of the rela-tionship between the poet and his last muse. The most important events in Wulffahrt’s life are identified and described, and several aspects of her relationship with Bryusov as well as her presence in his work that were mentioned in the literature on this sub-ject are clarified.

В  статье рассматривается переписка В. Брюсова с  главным редактором «Аполлона» С. Маковским, секретарем Е. Зноско-Боровским и постоянным участником, а  затем и  куратором литературного отдела Н. Гумилевым. Восстанавливается история взаимодействия редакции и одного из главных мэтров русского символизма.

Геноцид армянского народа, ставший одним из наиболее драматических событий в ходе Первой мировой войны, оказал весьма заметное влияние на развитие русской литературы начала XX в., что проявилось в творчестве одного из крупнейших ее представителей — В.Я. Брюсова. Писателя интересовали главным образом сюжеты, связанные с древней историей Армении, что нашло отражение как в его поэтических произведениях, так и в обобщающем научном труде, посвященном армянской истории ("Летопись исторических судеб армянского народа").