“Life and creative path Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky. ​Dmitry Merezhkovsky: the structure of consciousness of a philosophizing poet on the threshold of the twentieth century Merezhkovsky analysis

Directions in creativity

In 1892, a collection of poems by Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky was published in St. Petersburg

"Symbols", which gave its name to the emerging movement of Russian poetry. In the same

year in Merezhkovsky’s lecture “On the causes of decline and new trends in

modern Russian literature" symbolism received the first theoretical

justification. Rejecting positivism and naturalism in literature, the author believed

that it will be renewed by “mystical content”, the language of symbols and impressionism as

"expansion of artistic impressionability." Since that time Merezhkovsky

was recognized as one of the theorists and teachers of Russian symbolists.

Merezhkovsky began writing poetry at the age of 13. In his Autobiography he mentions

how his father, the clerk in the court office, brought

fifteen-year-old high school student to Dostoevsky, who found student poems

Merezhkovsky as bad and weak: “To write well, you have to suffer,

suffer!" Then Merezhkovsky met Nadson and through him entered

literary environment, met with Pleshcheev, Goncharov, Maykov, Polonsky.

He always spoke about N. Mikhailovsky and G. Uspensky as his teachers.

began to be published in Otechestvennye zapiski. In 1888 he married a beginner

then the poetess 3. Gippius. Merezhkovsky's experience dates back to that time.

religious revolution, which gave a new direction to his creativity and literary

social activities.

Bryusov associated the beginnings of Russian society with the name of Merezhkovsky.

1900s movement, the essence of which “was a call to religious

revival and preaching of neo-Christianity" capable of uniting

evangelical ideal with a life-long “pagan” beginning, establishing

"equivalence" of spirit and flesh. Merezhkovsky developed theoretical concepts in

book of articles "Eternal Companions" (1897), two-volume essay "Leo Tolstoy and

Dostoevsky" (1901-1902), as well as in historical novels and plays (trilogy

"Christ and Antichrist", "Alexander I", "Paul I", etc.). Together with 3. Gippius

Merezhkovsky was the initiator and active participant of the Religious and Philosophical

meetings in St. Petersburg (1901-1903 and 1907-1917), the magazine " New way" (1903-

1904). According to him, the events of 1905 were decisive for him,

when he unsuccessfully tried to enlist the support of the official church in the fight

against the Black Hundred pogroms, and then against the treason of the tsarist government

Orthodoxy with the old order in Russia, I also realized that to a new understanding

Christianity cannot be approached otherwise than by denying both principles together."

("Autobiography"). He spent 1905-1907 in Paris, later performing at

primarily as a prose writer, publicist and critic. October revolution Not

accepted, since 1920 in exile. Moving away from literary prose, wrote

historical and religious essays.

Merezhkovsky the poet entirely belongs to the generation of “senior symbolists”,

who started with declarative imitations of Nadson and actively used clichés

populist poetry, and then experienced a certain creative crisis,

ending with a renewal of poetic motifs and means. Consciousness

hopeless loneliness of man in the world, fatal duality and powerlessness

personality, preaching beauty that “saves the world” - developing these common to

Merezhkovsky was unable to overcome the “senior symbolists” motives in his poems

rationality and declarativeness. Having published "New Poems. 1891-" in 1896

1895", appeared as a poet less and less. In 1911, for his last "Collection

poems. 1883-1910" (St. Petersburg) he selected those to which he himself "attached importance" - 49

lyrical plays and 14 "legends and poems".

The first poem in the collection "Response" (1881). In 1884 - 1888 student

Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. First book

"Poems" in 1888. Stage collection of poems "Symbols" (1892).

The prose trilogy "Christ and Antichrist" brought European fame

(“The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate”, 1896; “The Resurrection of the Gods. Leonardo da Vinci”,

1901; "Antichrist. Peter and Alexey", 1905).

Distinctive features of creativity

Merezhkovsky is least interesting as a poet. His verse is elegant, but the imagery and

there is little animation in him, and, in general, his poetry does not warm the reader. He

often falls into stiltedness and pomposity. According to the content of his poetry

At first, Merezhkovsky was closest to Nadson. Without being

a "civil" poet in the strict sense of the word, he willingly developed such

motives such as the supreme importance of love for one's neighbor ("Sakya-Muni"), glorified

willingness to suffer for beliefs (“Habakkuk”), etc. For one of the works

first period of Merezhkovsky's activity - the poem "Vera" - fell the most

his great success as a poet; living pictures of the spiritual life of youth at the beginning

The 1880s ends with a call to work for the good of society.

Motives of symbolism and Nietzscheanism in creativity

The Merezhkovskys were surprisingly consistent in their rejection of communism and Bolshevism. Z. Gippius has lines that extremely accurately convey their feeling of what happened:

Vomit of war - October fun!

From this stinking wine

How disgusting your hangover was

O poor, oh sinful country!

To please what devil, what dog,

What a nightmarish dream,

The people, going mad, killed their freedom,

And he didn’t even kill him - he caught him with a whip?

Devils and dogs laugh at the slave dump,

The guns laugh, mouths open...

And soon you will be driven into the old stable with a stick,

People who do not respect sacred things!

Gippius has many bitter nostalgic lines about her homeland and her fate as an emigrant, but perhaps these are some of the most expressive, in the poem “Departure”:

Until death... Who would have thought?

(Sleigh at the entrance. Evening. Snow.)

No one knew. But I had to think

What is this - exactly? Forever? Forever?

criticism of Bolshevism, the speech ended with fiery lines from Gippius about Russia (completely incompatible with Hitler’s plans for the Slavic genocide):

She will not die - know this!

She will not die, Russia,

They will sprout - believe me!

Its fields are golden!

And we will not die - believe me.

But what is our salvation to us?

Russia will be saved - know this!

And her Sunday is coming! .

The dark crown of oblivion is sweet to me,
Among the jubilant fools
I'm walking outcast, homeless
And poorer than the last poor.

But the soul does not want reconciliation
And he doesn’t know what fear is;
There is great contempt for people in it,
And love, love in my eyes:

I love crazy freedom!
Above temples, prisons and palaces
My spirit rushes to the distant sunrise,
To the kingdom of wind, sun and eagles!

And below, meanwhile, like a dark ghost,
Among the jubilant fools,
I'm walking outcast, homeless
And poorer than the last poor.

Children of night

Fixing our eyes
To the fading east,
Children of sorrow, children of the night,
We are waiting to see if our prophet will come.
We sense the unknown
And, with hope in our hearts,
Dying, we grieve
About uncreated worlds.
Our speeches are bold,
But condemned to death
Too early forerunners
Too slow spring.
Buried Sunday
And in the midst of deep darkness
Rooster crows at night,
The cold of the morning is us.
We are steps above the abyss,
Children of darkness, we are waiting for the sun:
We will see the light - and, like shadows,
We will die in its rays.

And in the poetry of D. Merezhkovsky, human life turns into a tragedy, where everything is hopeless and irreversible, the “dark angel of loneliness” (“Dark Angel”) is everywhere. A whole series of poems about loneliness complement each other (“Dark Angel”, “Loneliness”, “Loneliness in Love”, “Blue Sky” and others). It’s hard for the lyrical hero among people:

... Friends are closer to the heart -

Stars, sky, cold blue distance,
And the forests and the desert are silent sadness...
(“And I want, but I am not able to love people”)

Loneliness is not only the result of alienation, the bitter human fate, the fate imposed by the “unknown forces of nature” is the pride of the initiate that has risen above the earth (“Morituri”, “Children of the Night”). Voluntary departure from life for D. Merezhkovsky is desired and predetermined (“Children of the Night”), the poet’s sadness is “great and voiceless” (“Confession”). He does not seek consolation, because in this state he finds inexplicable sweetness and joy, as in death (“Steel”, “Autumn Leaves”).

And the sky seems so empty and pale,
So empty and pale...
No one will take pity on the poor heart,
Over my poor heart.
Alas, I am dying in insane sadness,
I'm dying…
Z. Gippius.

Undoubtedly, this is not just the result of the tossing of a broken soul or a “childish” heart, but also serious philosophical questions that occupied not only D. Merezhkovsky. And so I came across Khomyakov’s poem “The Worker,” which I read for the first time and which shocked me with its answer. (...)"

In D. Merezhkovsky we read:

An unbearable insult
My whole life seems to me sometimes.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I want to forgive her, but I know
I will not forgive the ugliness of life.
("Boredom")

And if where I am,
How the Lord will punish me here -
It will be death like my life,
And death will not tell me anything new.
(“So life as a nothingness is terrible”)

Man and the world are cursed, abandoned by God, alone, life is meaningless:

Deception is freedom, and love, and pity.
In the soul there is an aimless trace of life -
One severe fatigue.
("Fatigue")

Everything is a deception; and things that, in essence, contain a high meaning, giving value and awareness human life- love, death, faith - misperceived and interpreted, turn into destructive, insidious mirages that remain with their creators.

The phenomenon of silence requires special mention. Following F. Tyutchev, who wrote the famous “Silentium” in 1830, D. Merezhkovsky writes his “Silence”. The theme of loneliness becomes especially acute when the poet tries to express the powerlessness of words in love:

How often do I want to express my love,
But I can’t say anything.
("Silence")

“And silence embraces everything sacred,” - in this thought of D. Merezhkovsky one can hear the echo of the incomprehensible - not the primitive, pre-speech period, but the fleeting spirit of that which comes when all the words end:

And both understood long ago
How speech is powerless and dead.
("Loneliness in Love")

Silence helps the poet feel God and hear such “unmanifested” sounds as “the conversation of the stars,” “the whisper of an angel,” “the call and delirium” of the “universal soul.” One can hear in the lyrics the “trumpet voice” (in the poem of the same name) before the Last Judgment, and the “evening ringing of bells”, and the “noisy, unchanging Laughter of countless waves” on the Black Sea, etc. However, that same “Other” remains outside the dialogue, making the approach to integral being illusory.

D. Merezhkovsky’s perception of the seasons is fully consistent with the author’s “deadly” philosophy. The poet interprets the end of winter, spring, the arrival of autumn, even the passing day as a reminder of death. Her charm reigns everywhere. This kind of gloomy mystery was given by nature as an example of humility and peace:

She, the divine mentor,
Learn, people, to die.
(“This is death, but without a painful struggle”)

According to D. Merezhkovsky, the passing day or moment brought a person much or little, even if they are insignificant in the human sense, still nature gives its best gift - death - to every phenomenon, rewarding it with brilliant beauty. Everything cries out: remember death! These are the “funeral songs” of the wind, the oxymoron “the sad brightness of the last flowers”, “sick and dark ice, Tired, melted snow”, “calm Shadows, Clouds, Thoughts”. Death reigns in the natural world, according to D. Merezhkovsky. This thought is terrible in itself, but in relation to the circle of existence it is not complete. God is always life, but death is only a painful departure from Him. D. Merezhkovsky does not seem to reach the moment where death, having passed through itself, turns into life, the eternal and unchanging existence of God the Creator. Pessimism, hopelessness, loss of meaning in life - this is a consequence of the author’s approach to understanding the world.

It is not difficult to conclude that the symbolist (and, more broadly, modernist) denial of integral being, God as an organizing creative and omnipresent principle, which has become a trend, leads to the destruction of the “I” - the basis of man. Such a deformation of integrity gives rise to failures and suffering, and aggression against God and existence turns into aggression against oneself, since it is impossible to kill oneself and remain alive - the “Other” is always present in our consciousness. And the existence of the “I” can be realized through love and creativity, through overcoming the disunity of loneliness, gaining the integrity of being, as has always happened and is happening in the best examples of Russian literature, for in the feeling of love eternity and infinity are revealed to us, trampling on death, and only a step towards conscious , self-expressing being returns a person to himself, only the transformation of loneliness into creativity makes it love. EXISTENCE, LONELINESS AND DEATH AS LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL PHENOMENA IN THE POETRY OF D. MEREZHKOVSKY AND A. BLOK

D. Merezhkovsky's poem "Double Abyss" talks about mirroring, and therefore the equivalence of life and death. Both are “familiar abysses,” they are “similar and equal,” but it is not clear, and it does not matter, where the viewer is and where the reflection is. Life and death are two mirrors, between which a person is placed, confused in the many times repeated faces of the looking glass:
Both death and life are native abysses:
They are similar and equal
Strange and kind to each other,
One is reflected in the other.
One deepens the other,
Like a mirror, and man unites them, separates them
By my own will forever.
Both evil and good are the secret of the tomb.
And the secret of life - two paths -
Both lead to the same goal,
And it doesn’t matter where to go...
There is something about death and the experience of "mortality" that not only reflects life, but also complements it. Its inevitability brings a feeling of solidity and stability, unknown in everyday life, where everything is transient and unstable. She identifies, distinguishes from the crowd, peels out from the rough crust of communal entities something individual, special, “her own.” Only on the threshold of Eternity can one say “I” and not “we”, understand what “I” is, feel all the greatness of one’s opposition to the world.
And also here:
Dmitry Merezhkovsky exhibits duality in his consciousness. He turns into a person who connects incompatible things, which is especially clearly seen in the poem “Double Abyss,” which says that “both evil and good (...) are two paths, Both lead to a single goal, And still , where to go". This is nothing more than spiritual blindness, a consequence of an insane impulse towards freedom.

D.S. Merezhkovsky (1866-1941) was the first to theoretically substantiate the emergence of symbolism as a new literary movement, giving a lecture in 1892 “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature.” D.S. Merezhkovsky is a complex figure in literature " silver age" His poetry is inseparable from the religious and philosophical quest that he pursued throughout his life, finding God and a new religion. The influence of the philosopher B.C. Solovyov, writer F.M. Dostoevsky determined the themes of D. Merezhkovsky’s poetry: fatal loneliness and duality of personality, admiration for true beauty and “neo-Christianity,” affirmation of the unity of body and spirit. In 1892 D.S. Merezhkovsky published a collection of poems “Symbols”, in which his own poetic style is already felt, in contrast to the first collection “Poems”, published in 1888. The poetry collection “Symbols” is distinguished by a variety of topics: focus on the traditions of ancient culture and the creativity of A.S. Pushkin, the tragedy of everyday life, passion for urban themes. In this collection, D. Merezhkovsky anticipated future changes in Russia by several years. The collection “Symbols” is a premonition of future changes:

The third collection, “New Poems” (1896), is more dynamic in content. Now the poet not only outlines individual themes, but experiences a constant feeling of anxiety of lonely prophets, destroyed sages:

We are endlessly alone, the priests will abandon the Gods...

Fourth collection poetic works D. Merezhkovsky’s “Collected Poems” was published in 1909. In it, old poems begin to sound in a new way, being in a different poetic environment. The symbolist poet again turns to God, since only he can give deliverance from despondency and hopelessness. All poetic works in the collection are permeated with: the desire for faith: Material from the site

We don’t dare, we don’t want, And we don’t believe, and we don’t know, And we don’t love anything. God, give us deliverance... Give us wings, give us wings, Wings of Your spirit! ("Prayer for Wings")

Without accepting the Bolshevik regime, D.S. Merezhkovsky left Russia in 1919 with his wife Z. N. Gippius, spending the second half of his life in exile in France.

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Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky is a prominent representative of symbolism in Russian culture. This trend has many talented followers in the future. Many admirers of Merezhkovsky's work call him the prophet of his time and prescribe to him the ability to guess further events. In fact, the poet was an intelligent, educated person who knew how to sense the surrounding atmosphere and predict where the wind of change would blow from.

An analysis of the poem “Children of the Night” by Merezhkovsky shows how accurately the author felt future changes in society. In the work, Dmitry Sergeevich described events that would happen two decades later, because the poem was written in 1895, and the revolution occurred in 1917. At the time of writing the poem, no one had any idea about the imminent revolution, but the poet already understood that the people needed a shake-up . He grasped the general mood of the crowd, realized that people had lost all the pure and bright feelings that could protect them from worldly vanity and dirt.

An analysis of the poem “Children of the Night” by Merezhkovsky indicates that the author did not know absolutely exactly about the future of his people. He understood that people were tired of crawling on their knees, seeing no further prospects for a better life. Dmitry Sergeevich calls his generation “children of the night” because they wander in the dark in search of a way out and wait for the “prophet”. Only even the poet had no idea that a ruthless and treacherous messiah would come to power. Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote poetry with the understanding that society is on the threshold of the twentieth century, and it is so mired in dirt and sins that it needs a strong shake-up.

The writer does not realize that very little time will pass, and people will kill each other for their beliefs, and the revolution will claim tens of thousands of lives. An analysis of the poem “Children of the Night” by Merezhkovsky makes it possible to understand that the author excludes the divine origin of man and hints at the need for purification. At the same time, the poet suggests that light can be destructive for people. Dmitry Sergeevich also considers himself one of the “children of the night” and understands that he will not be able to avoid their fate. The author does not know how exactly the people will be cleansed of their sins.

When Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote “Children of the Night,” he did not know that very little time would pass and he himself would suffer from the long-awaited shake-up. The poet is firmly convinced that every person needs to ascend his own Golgotha ​​in order to cleanse himself of dirt and begin new life or die. An analysis of the poem “Children of the Night” by Merezhkovsky shows that the author wanted a revolution because he dreamed of a better life for his people.

In reality, everything turned out to be much more prosaic. In 1919, Dmitry Sergeevich had to leave St. Petersburg forever, where “The Beast” settled. Until his death, the poet lived in Paris and believed that he fully deserved such a fate. Until the end of his days, Merezhkovsky reproached himself for his indecision and for the fact that at the right moment he did not try to snatch his country out of the revolutionary abyss, although he foresaw future battles between light and dark forces.

“His idea is such a huge idea that one can say in advance that he will not bear it, just as thousands of other writers cannot bear it, he will burn, but he will leave us the same great thought as a legacy. How many lonely years did Merezhkovsky wait for readers who would not reinterpret him in their own way, but would suffer from the same disease as him! Now they just started listening to him. Thank God, it’s long overdue!”

Alexander Blok, “Merezhkovsky. Eternal Companions", 1906

“Thus, through the intense elimination of modernity, Merezhkovsky revealed his Egypt - “Endless antiquity and endless newness.” This is Merezhkovsky’s always path: to grow roots from the present through the present - into the past. All his work is a slow germination into the deep and fertile layers of History: Russia of Alexander, Paul, Peter; Italy Leonardo; Age of Apostate; now - Aegean culture, and then - Egypt, Babylon. For him, knowledge of the past is real communication in spirit and a ladder of initiations.”

N. M. Bakhtin, “Merezhkovsky and History”, 1926

Merezhkovsky Dmitry Sergeevich was born on August 14, 1866 in St. Petersburg. His father served as a minor palace official. Dmitry Merezhkovsky began writing poetry at the age of 13. Two years later, as a high school student, he visited F. M. Dostoevsky with his father. The great writer found the poems weak and told the aspiring author that in order to write well, one must suffer. At the same time, Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky met Nadson. At first, he imitated him in his poems and it was through him that he first entered the literary environment.

In 1888, Merezhkovsky’s first collection was published, simply titled “Poems.” The poet here acts as a student of Nadson. However, as Vyacheslav Bryusov notes, Dmitry Merezhkovsky was immediately able to take on an independent tone, starting to talk about joy and strength, unlike other poets who considered themselves students of Nadson, who “whined” about their weakness and timelessness. Studying at universities, passion for the philosophy of positivism Dmitry since 1884 Dmitry Sergeevich studied at St. Petersburg and Moscow universities, at the faculties of history and philology. At this time, Merezhkovsky became interested in the philosophy of positivism, and also became close to such employees of the Northern Messenger as Uspensky, Korolenko, Garshin, thanks to which he began to understand the problems facing society from a populist position. This hobby, however, was short-lived. Acquaintance with the poetry of V. Solovyov and European symbolists significantly changed the poet’s worldview. Dmitry Sergeevich abandons “extreme materialism” and switched to symbolism.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky, as contemporaries noted, was a very reserved person who was reluctant to let other people into his world. The year 1889 became even more significant for him. It was then that Merezhkovsky got married. His chosen one is the poetess Zinaida Gippius. The poet lived with her for 52 years and never left her for a day. His wife described this creative and spiritual union in an unfinished book called “Dmitry Merezhkovsky.” Zinaida was the “generator” of ideas, and Dmitry formalized and developed them in his work. Travels, translations and the rationale for symbolism In the late 1880s and into the 1890s, they traveled extensively around different countries Europe. Dmitry Sergeevich translated ancient tragedies from Latin and Greek, and also acted as a critic, published in such publications as “Trud”, “Russian Review”, “Northern Messenger”.

Merezhkovsky gave a lecture in 1892 in which he gave the first justification for symbolism. The poet argued that impressionism, symbolic language and “mystical content” could expand the “artistic impressionability” of Russian literature. The collection "Symbols" appeared shortly before this performance. He gave a name to a new direction in poetry. "New Poems".

In 1896, the third collection, “New Poems,” was published. Since 1899, Merezhkovsky’s worldview has changed. He begins to be interested in issues of Christianity related to the conciliar church.

In the article “Merezhkovsky,” Adamovich recalled that when the conversation with Dmitry was lively, he sooner or later switched to one topic - the meaning and meaning of the Gospel.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky's wife in the fall of 1901 proposed the idea of ​​​​creating a special society of people of philosophy and religion to discuss issues of culture and church. This is how religious and philosophical meetings, famous at the beginning of the last century, appeared. Their main theme was the assertion that only on a religious basis can the revival of Russia take place. Until 1903, these meetings were held with the permission of the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, Pobedonostsev. Clergymen also took part in them. Although Christianity of the “Third Testament” was not accepted, the desire to create a new religious society at a turning point in the development of our country was understandable and close to contemporaries.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky, whose biography interests us, worked a lot on historical prose. He created, for example, the trilogy “Christ and Antichrist”, the main idea of ​​which was the struggle between two principles - Christian and pagan, as well as a call for a new Christianity, in which “heaven is earthly” and “earth is heavenly”. In 1896, the work “Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate” appeared - the first novel of the trilogy. The second part was published in 1901 (“The Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci”). The final novel, entitled Antichrist.

Peter and Alexey" was born in 1905.

The fourth collection, “Collected Poems,” was published in 1909. There were few new poems in it, so this book was rather an anthology. However, a certain selection of works made by Merezhkovsky gave the collection modernity and novelty. It included only works that responded to the author’s changed views. Old poems took on new meaning. Merezhkovsky was sharply isolated among contemporary poets. He stood out because he expressed general sentiments in his work, while Blok, Andrei Bely, Balmont, even touching on “topical” social topics, spoke primarily about themselves, about their own attitude towards them. And Dmitry Sergeevich, even in the most intimate confessions, expressed a universal feeling, hope or suffering.

The Merezhkovskys moved to Paris in March 1906 and lived here until mid-1908. In 1907, in collaboration with Filosofov and Gippius, Merezhkovsky published the book “Le Tsar et la Revolution”. He also began creating the trilogy “The Kingdom of the Beast” based on materials from the history of Russia at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. After the release of the first part of this trilogy (1908), Dmitry Sergeevich was subjected to prosecution. In 1913, its second part (“Alexander I”) appeared. The last novel, “December 14,” was published in 1918.

"Sick Russia" is a book that appeared in 1910. It included historical and religious articles that were published in 1908 and 1909 in the newspaper Rech. Wolf's book partnership published a 17-volume collection of his works between 1911 and 1913, and Sytin published a four-volume edition in 1914. Merezhkovsky's prose was translated into many languages ​​and was very popular in Europe. In Russia, the works of Dmitry Sergeevich were subjected to strict censorship - the writer spoke out against the official church and autocracy.

D. V. Filosofov, D. S. Merezhkovsky, Z. N. Gippius, V. A. Zlobin. Exodus from Soviet Russia. Late 1919 - early 1920

The Merezhkovskys still lived in Russia in 1917. The poet saw the country on the eve of the revolution in the image of a “coming boor.” A little later, having lived in Soviet Russia for two years, he became firmly established in his opinion that Bolshevism is a moral disease that is a consequence of the cultural crisis in Europe. The Merezhkovskys hoped that this regime would be overthrown, however, upon learning of the defeat of Denikin in the south and Kolchak in Siberia, they decided to leave Petrograd. At the end of 1919, Dmitry Sergeevich achieved the right to give his lectures in units of the Red Army. In January 1920, he and his wife moved to territory that was occupied by Poland. The poet gave lectures in Minsk for Russian emigrants. The Merezhkovskys are moving to Warsaw in February. Here they are actively involved in political activities. When Poland signed a peace treaty with Russia, and the couple were convinced that the “Russian cause” in this country was over, they left for Paris. The Merezhkovskys settled in an apartment that had belonged to them since pre-revolutionary times. Here they established old connections and established new acquaintances with Russian emigrants. Emigration, the founding of the Green Lamp Dmitry Merezhkovsky was inclined to view emigration as a kind of messianism. He considered himself the spiritual “guide” of the intelligentsia who found themselves abroad. The Merezhkovskys organized the religious, philosophical and literary society "Green Lamp" in 1927. G. Ivanov became its president. The "Green Lamp" played a significant role in the intellectual life of the first wave of emigration, and also united the best representatives of the foreign Russian intelligentsia. When did the second one begin? World War, the society stopped meeting (1939).

The Merezhkovskys founded the New Course back in 1927, a magazine that lasted only a year. They also participated in the first congress of emigrant writers from Russia, held in September 1928 in Belgrade (it was organized by the Yugoslav government). Merezhkovsky in 1931 was among the contenders for Nobel Prize, however, Bunin received it.

The Merezhkovskys were not liked among Russians. The hostility was largely caused by their support for Hitler, whose regime seemed more acceptable to them than Stalin's. At the end of 1930, Merezhkovsky became interested in fascism and even met with one of its leaders, Mussolini. He saw in Hitler the deliverer of Russia from communism, which he considered a “moral disease.” After Germany attacked the USSR, Dmitry Sergeevich spoke on German radio. He gave a speech, “Bolshevism and Humanity,” in which he compared Hitler to Joan of Arc. Merezhkovsky said that this leader could save humanity from communist evil. After this speech, everyone turned their backs on the spouses.

10 days before the occupation of Paris by the Germans, in June 1940, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky moved to Biarritz, located in the south of France. On December 9, 1941, Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky died in Paris.

Each of the 4 collections of poemsMerezhkovskovskyvery characteristic. “Poems” (1888) is a book in which Dmitry Merezhkovsky also appears as Nadson’s student. Noteworthy quotes from her include the following: “Do not despise the crowd! Do not brand their sorrows and needs with merciless and angry mockery.” These are lines from one of the most characteristic poems in this book. Nevertheless, from the very beginning, Dmitry Sergeevich was able to take an independent tone. As we have already noted, he spoke of strength and joy. His poems are pompous and rhetorical, however, this is also typical, since Nadson’s comrades were most afraid of rhetoric, although they used it in a slightly different guise, sometimes immoderately. Merezhkovsky turned to rhetoric in order to use its sonority and brightness to break the silent, colorless fog in which the life of Russian society was wrapped in the 1880s. "Symbols" is the second book of poems, written in 1892. It is notable for the versatility of its themes. Here is ancient tragedy and Pushkin, Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe, Francis of Assisi and ancient Rome, the poetry of the city and the tragedy of everyday life. Everything that will fill all books, occupy all minds in 10-15 years, was outlined in this collection. "Symbols" is a book of premonitions. Dmitry Sergeevich foresaw the onset of a different, more vibrant era.

Merezhkovsky gave a titanic appearance to the events taking place around him (“Come, new prophets!”). “New Poems” is the third collection of poems, written in 1896. It is significantly narrower in its coverage of life phenomena than the previous one, but much more poignant. Here the calmness of “Symbols” turned into constant anxiety, and the objectivity of the poems turned into intense lyricism. Merezhkovsky considered himself in Symbols a servant of the “abandoned gods.” But by the time the “New Poems” appeared, he himself had already renounced these gods, spoke about his comrades-in-arms and about himself: “Our speeches are daring...”. "Collected Poems" - the last, fourth collection (1909). Merezhkovsky turned to Christianity in it. He recognized the blade of “boldness” as too brittle and the altar of “world culture” devoid of deity. However, in Christianity he wanted to find not only consolation, but also weapons. All the poems in this book are imbued with a desire for faith.

L.P. Shchennikova

Poetry Dm. Merezhkovsky attracted serious attention from domestic researchers, as evidenced by two collections of his works that were published in 2000 in St. Petersburg: “Merezhkovsky D.S. “Collected Poems” (Series “Eternal Companions”) and Merezhkovsky D.S. “Poems and Poems” with introductory articles by A.V. Uspenskaya and K.A. Kumpan accordingly. They attempt to identify cross-cutting motifs that integrate the poet’s work. So far, everything comes down to a statement of a torn poetic consciousness: the development of creative thought is considered within the limits between the populist preaching of sacrifice and the movement towards a “new religious consciousness”, incorporating “Nietzscheanism”, “Buddhism” and ideas about “new beauty”.

Experiences in considering the entire poetic world of Dm. Merezhkovsky as a whole, in which there is a certain constant mythologem, has not yet been produced, with the exception of a chapter in the dissertation of S.V. Sapozhkov, who saw the unifying thought of Merezhkovsky the poet in justifying the atoning sacrifice of an entire generation, born at the turn of two eras. But this is a look at the poet from the perspective social history, and Merezhkovsky himself presented his lyrical hero as a philosophizing subject who feels the need to establish himself not so much in society as in the universe - in relation to the general laws of Existence, to God. The central conflict of all of Merezhkovsky’s lyrics is also the main internal conflict of most of the “clever” poets of the 1880-1890s, who lived in the era of a general religious crisis, about which Merezhkovsky himself said: “Never before have people felt so much in their hearts the need to believe and so not understood with reason the impossibility of believing.”

The hero of the first collection of poems is a rebel-individualist who has lost faith and challenged “heaven”, a protester, like Ivan Karamazov F.M. Dostoevsky, against the world created by God. Researchers have noted some motives that bring them together: unwillingness to forgive “not a single tear” “for all the greatness of the universe”, inability to “love your neighbor”, assertion of the right to spiritual self-will. There is also a fundamental difference between Merezhkovsky’s hero and Ivan Karamazov: the latter does not openly admit his lack of faith, while the former openly declares his discord with the faith of the people:

He is full of holy faith,
And I... neither in God nor in freedom
I don’t believe it with my sad soul...

The rebellion of the early hero Merezhkovsky was at first daringly major: he was intoxicated by the consciousness of himself “one on one” with the world - without an intermediary, without the Divine; They were pleased with the demonstrative rejection of fashionable populist asceticism and the assertion of their rights to all “the dreams of my youth and all my desires.” The words of V. Bryusov are noteworthy: “When the entire “school” of Nadson, following their teacher, considered it their duty to “whine about timelessness and their weakness,” Merezhkovsky spoke about joy and strength.”

However, Merezhkovsky’s lyrical hero soon realized that the absence of a Center that unites the world turns his beauty into an “insensitive, dead and cold” outfit. Another consequence of unbelief was the consciousness of the meaninglessness and purposelessness of man’s stay on earth, moreover, the consciousness of the meaninglessness of the entire Universe, which appeared to the poet as a huge sarcophagus with “extinct worlds.” The hero's spiritual illness is associated with inescapable suffering and despair, but they do not become indicators of the final decline of spirit. Merezhkovsky emphasizes a seemingly paradoxical idea: despair contains within itself a fruitful seed:

Sometimes when despair presses into my chest
And I look at the world with a curse on my lips, -
Crazy joy will ignite in the soul,
Like a flash of lightning in leaden clouds:
So ringing a key, from the depths of underground granite
Suddenly bursting forth, trembling with happiness,
And immediately at this moment bondage is forgotten,
And in wild joy it shines and thunders.

“Crazy fun” at the moment of despair “lights up” from the resulting feeling of emancipation; giving birth to another thing that is important for the hero - a heuristic anticipation of the discovery of something new in the world; the relaxed spirit at this moment helps to break out from the depths of the subconscious of a new, free thought, which is an individual discovery of the world. This is how a poetic rethinking of the concept of “despair” begins, which traditionally meant only extreme loss of spirit - a rethinking that will receive special development later, at a new stage in the lyricist’s path - in the third collection of poems. This interpretation of despair is close to the thought of S. Kierkegaard: “ .. “despair is a completely free mental act that leads a person to the knowledge of the absolute,” “...he who decides on despair decides, therefore, on... knowledge of himself as a person, in other words, the consciousness of his eternal significance.”

It is this idea that permeates the poet’s second collection of poems, “Symbols” (St. Petersburg, 1892), which expressed the expectation of a general religious transformation. Its main part consists of works of large lyric-epic genres: “Death”. "Petersburg Poem"; "Faith". "A Tale in Verse"; legend “Francis of Assisi”, “End of the Century. Essays on modern Paris”, etc. The pathos of the book is best expressed by the opening poem “God”:

I thirsted for God - and did not know;
I didn’t believe it yet, but, lovingly,
While I denied with my mind -
I felt You in my heart.
And You revealed yourself to me: You are the world.
You are everything. You are sky and water...

The work declares the traditional theological idea of ​​synergism, according to which the purpose of human life is to unite with God, arising from the deep inner need of the individual. God also “goes” to meet the person who seeks Him, illuminating with His Grace, since God’s Economy cannot be fully realized without human will.

But in the third collection of poetry - “New Poems” (1892-1895) (St. Petersburg, 1896) - the idea of ​​synergy will be expressed differently, not in a theological way. In it, the old antithesis of rebellion and despair is spelled out in a new way: now despair “enters” into a state of “quiet rebellion.” In two works with the same title “Calmness” (“We set out on the road light...”, 1893, and “We are close to the eternal end...”, 1896), initially not included in the collection, the idea of ​​man’s doom to be chained suffering ending in death is presented as the result of a fruitless search for God. And this is not only a personal conclusion: the author speaks on behalf of an entire generation of people who have suffered the right (“suffering has conquered faith”!) to renounce their trust in the Christian God. Merezhkovsky argues that the historical mission of courageous dissident people turns out to be not only mournful, but also ascetic, since they have to endure reproaches for “heresy”, for “Nietzscheanism” and “Buddhism”:

There is joy in making people hate
Good was considered evil
And they walked by and didn’t see your tears,
Calling you an enemy...

Merezhkovsky was primarily a “singer” of Nietzscheanism, Buddhism and eroticism in the eyes of those who assessed his poetry from an orthodox Christian or radical populist position. But even in our time these reproaches are repeated. “Decadentism”, “Nietzscheanism” and other “flaws” of Merezhkovsky the poet are, as a rule, derived from a few poetic formulas and bright, memorable phrases: “... in beauty, great and cold, to live aimlessly, to die aimlessly”; or: “If you want, go and sin, / But let your sin be fearless, like a feat”; or: “...and do not be ashamed of nakedness”; or: “to love boundless sorrow,” etc. But the same poetic fragments lose their “decadent” meaning in the context of the entire work, and even more so in the context of the entire structure. consciousness of the lyrical hero.

Let us turn to the poem “Nirvana,” which supposedly affirms the poet’s “Buddhist dispassion.” Let's quote it in full:

And again, as on the first day of creation,
The azure of heaven is quiet,
As if there is no suffering in the world,
As if there is no sin in the heart.
I don't need love and fame:
In the silence of the morning fields
I breathe like these grasses breathe...
Neither past nor future days
I don't want to torture and count.
I just feel again
What happiness - not to think,
What bliss - not to desire!

Contrary to the title, which manifests detachment from the world, the content of the work does not express the dead peace of indifference and indifference to the environment, but a joyful feeling of being a part of Nature, as if immersed in the silence of the azure sky. The hero feels a harmonious participation in both the silence of the morning fields and the breath of the grass. The work captures the mysterious process of approaching Being, freeing a person from thoughts about his “finitude”, from the torture of returning consciousness to the past or running ahead. “Nirvana” echoes the poem “Spring Feeling” - one of the most major - they are brought together by the blessing of life, its childish joyful acceptance.

In the first book of poems, nature with its sensual beauty seemed to the hero an unattainable example. In the latest collection of poetry, another thought becomes the conceptual one: the “wonderful temple of nature” is radically different from the majestic cathedral by its closeness and kinship to man. In the eternal “temple” of forests and fields, those who are there reverently recognize

Your unity with nature, -
There are connections with her of ancient kinship...

Religious unbelief is opposed by the hero’s complete trust in the natural world. If rational approach does not give full opportunity to understand it as a living eternity, then the instinctively direct perception of the beauty of nature as a particle of the native world gives rise to a feeling of the living integrity of the Universe. Communicating with nature intuitively and sensually achieves what the hero cannot comprehend either by reason or by religious feeling:

Consciousness whispers to me so proudly:
"You are the sound of the universal chord,
You are a link in the chain of life..."

Here there is a kinship with the ideas of Russian cosmism, with the comprehension of the truth contained in the following: “... living things are connected with all of nature by millions of invisible, elusive connections.” These ideas among Russian natural philosophers appeared parallel to the religious concepts of the metaphysical unity of the world by Vl.S. Solovyova, N.F. Fedorova, S.N. Bulgakov and sometimes in direct contact with them as a religious and philosophical form of Russian cosmism.

In the light of the process under consideration - man’s acquisition of harmony in natural Being - some of the poet’s “decadent” formulas in poems such as “Laughter”, “Song of the Bacchantes”, “Evening Song”, etc., receive a different meaning in a poetic context. Thus, the “Sermon” of sin and fearlessness before sinfulness in the poem “Laughter” is directed against the theological thought about the inevitable enmity and struggle between the “fallen nature” of man and the gospel commandments. The poet, distancing himself from them and wanting complete emancipation, writes his own:

There is only one eternal commandment - to live
In beauty, in beauty no matter what...

In “Evensong” - the apotheosis of an easy, joyful acceptance of death - the organizing thought is the affirmation of the eternity of instant human joys:

For a moment - love, for a moment and happiness,
But this moment is eternity to the heart...

Merezhkovsky the poet, in search of a centering idea that unites the world, never completely renounced the Divine, but over the years he wrote more and more insistently about self-deification:

You yourself are your own God, you are your own neighbor,
Oh, be your own Creator.
Be the upper abyss, the lower abyss,
Your beginning and your end.

It is noteworthy, however, that the cult of the man-god turns out to be combined with the cult of the God-man, Christ: in a number of poems (“Oh, if only the soul were full of love...”, “Children’s heart”), the poet states, turning to Christ: “My soul and You - We are alone with You,” “I loved God and myself as one.”

The inseparability of the man-god from the God-man, from an orthodox Christian point of view, is blasphemous. This is no longer theological synergy. Such a combination can be understood from the standpoint of the philosophical understanding of synergy as the interaction of the polar principles of the world and the modern understanding of synergy thinking man seeking integrity in various, seemingly absolutely incompatible phenomena and processes.

This desire for the rapprochement of polarities was also manifested in the thirst for combining the Christian God with pagan idols. Merezhkovsky expressed the desire for a broad cultural synthesis capable of satisfying the ineradicable need for unanimity in his second collection of poems, in the 1891 poem “Future Rome”:

Now we are wandering in the ruins of the ancients, full of sorrow.
Oh, can’t we really find such faith that again
Unite all tribes and peoples on earth?
Where are you, unknown God, where are you, O future Rome?

In the Roman Pantheon, the poet is acutely aware of the dramatic clash of pagan faith in the "Olympian holy shadows" with the Christian faith in the crucified God-man. He feels awe before Christ, who accepted torture and death for people, and at the same time delight in the earthly beauty and love of life of the pagan gods. These “combined-bifurcated” predilections represent a lyrical prolegomena to the realization of the possibility of a synthesis of paganism and Christianity, which Merezhkovsky would later prescribe in his novels and philosophical and critical works.

We have come to the most important feature of the structure of the consciousness of Merezhkovsky’s hero - the uniqueness of his duality. He not only clearly understands his duality, but manifests it, makes it a special “subject” of comprehension. Very often the hero expresses immediately, one after another, mutually exclusive thoughts that conceptualize different attitudes to the world. In his mind, all contradictions exist immanently: the fight against God, and the “unquenchable heat of mystical delirium,” and the thirst for renewed spirituality, and the addiction to carnal beauty. The compositional contrast is noteworthy, expressed in the paradoxical completion of the thought that constructs the work. The poem “Laughter,” which asserts that there is nothing wiser and more beautiful than jubilant laughter, seems to end with an unexpected conclusion:

Having understood the horror of the world as no one else understood,
To love boundless sorrow.

And the poem “Spring Feeling,” which, from our point of view, is the apotheosis of the immediate joy of Being, unexpectedly ends with the lines:

Let it be equally sweet to live and to die.

A logical-compositional “breakdown” can also occur in the middle of a work, when a stanza that is integral in thought comes to an end:

But the soul does not want reconciliation,
And he doesn’t know what fear is;
There is great contempt for people in it,
And love, love in my eyes...

This “unmotivated” expression of love after a fearless outburst of contempt for the world is shocking and surprising.

The style of contrasts (not only logical-compositional, but also lexical-semantic, such as “dispassionate laughter”, “the darkness of the icon”, “the beauty of evil”, etc.) expresses the poet’s original ideological postulate: the conviction in the interconnection and interdependence of the polar principles of the world and their desire for conjugation and acquisition. The poet’s contrasts, dissonances and paradoxes are imbued with the energy of “poetic synergy” and gravitate towards a certain systematicity.

At the same time, Merezhkovsky’s poetry reveals both the shocking nature of the reader and the unplanned consequences of the “mind game.” They sometimes express involuntary fantasies, born in the depths of an element of an intellectual nature, which turns out to be as uncontrollable and unsystematic as, for example, uninhibited emotional confession. In a number of works: “Dark Angel”, “Blue Sky”, “Autumn Leaves”, “Mediterranean Sea”, etc. - the author finds himself captive of fantastic dreams. The mental images created in them represent variations on the theme of the “spell of death”: “My heart charms death to me.” The embodiment of these charms becomes either the “dark angel of loneliness” or the “dispassionate” blue sky, then the “dispassionate” sea, then the beauty of falling leaves. These mental images capture the poet’s consciousness so much that it is not he who owns the thought that struck him, but it, with its internal logic, leads the hero’s thoughts to a “charming” dead end.

Despite these “flaws”, the lyrics of Dm. Merezhkovsky expressed, in our opinion, not the chaos of experiences and “fractured consciousness,” but the poet’s need for an ideal - for a spiritual center that connects the world:

Do I care - Madonna or Venus -
But faith in the ideal is the only faith
What is left to us from the common destruction,
She is the last God, she is the last temple!..

In the paradoxical synergy of Dm. Merezhkovsky spelled out the generally significant cultural needs of the “transitional era”: the desire to find a non-catastrophic way out of the seemingly catastrophic situation of the total spiritual crisis of the 1880s.

L-ra: Philological sciences. – 2002. – No. 6. – P. 3-11.