Abstract
The article is devoted to the Russian Symbolist poet Vyacheslav Ivanov’s perception of Evgeny Boratynsky’s poetry. The specific focus is on Ivanov’s interest concerning the way Boratynsky’s lyrics relate to his philosophy of art. The article examines various types of lyrics in which Ivanov echoes Boratynsky’s poetry. One of these is a revival of the genre of “friendly epistles,” a genre that was popular in Russian poetry of the Golden Age. In poems of this type, Ivanov uses some of the artistic principles typical of “Pushkin era” poems and refers to Boratynsky’s works. The article features Ivanov’s address to Boratynsky in the poem “Before Boratynsky’s portrait,” which serves Ivanov as a means to express his main aesthetic concepts. The article concludes with a suggestion that one of the reasons why these poets belong to the tradition of “the poetry of thought” is the influence of Goethe on both.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Both forms—Boratynsky and Baratynsky—are used equally commonly.
In the Brussels collected works of Ivanov the text of the poem is printed with the mark “undeciphered word.” Modern researchers of Ivanov's poetry were able to read the word “kost’” (“bone”) in the manuscript of the poem.
References
Anokhina, Yu.Yu. (2018). Lichnost’ i poeziia E.A. Boratynskogo v russkoi filosofskoi mysli kontsa XIX – nachala XX veka: Vl. Solov’ev i V.V. Rozanov o poete [Personality and poetry of E.A. Boratynsky in Russian philosophical thought of the late 19th - early 20th century: V. Solovyov and V.V. Rozanov about the poet] In Literatura i religiozno-filosofskaia mysl’ kontsa XIX – pervoi treti XX veka: K 165-letiiu Vl. Solov’eva (Vol. 2). Moscow: Vodolei.
Baratynsky, E. A. (1982). Stikhotvoreniia. Poemy [Poems]. Moscow: Nauka.
Gel’fond, M. M. (2012). Boratynsky i poety XX veka [Boratynsky and 20th century poets]. Moscow: Biosfera.
Ivanov, V. I. (1987). Sobranie sochinenii [Collected works] (Vol. 4). Bruxelles.
Ivanov, V. I. (1994a). Sobranie sochinenii [Collected works] (Vol. 1). Bruxelles.
Ivanov, V. I. (1994b). Rodnoye i vselenskoe [The native and the universal]. Moscow: Respublika.
Ivanov, V. (2016). Issledovaniia i materialy [Vyacheslav Ivanov: Research and Materials]. St. Petersburg: RKhGA.
Ivanov-Razumnik, R. V. (1920). Russkaia literatura XX veka (1890–1915) [Russian 20th century literature (1890–1915)]. Petrograd: Kolos.
Khodasevich, V. F. (2015). Knigi i liudi [Books and men]. In Vyacheslav Ivanov: pro et contra (Vol. 2, pp. 606–608). St. Petersburg: RKhGA.
Kursinsky, A. A. (1903). Review of Ivanov’s Kormchie zvezdy. Moscow: Kurier, No. 88, May 27.
Lavrov, A. V. (2015). Simvolisty i drugiye [Symbolists and others]. Moscow: NLO.
Lekmanov, O. (2011). Boratynsky and high modernists. In Studies in Russian modernist literature and culture: In honor of John E. Malmstad (pp. 29–43). Frankfurt am Main [etc.]: Lang.
Pushkin, A. S. (1979). Sochineniia [Works] (Vol. 10). Leningrad: Nauka.
Takho-Godi, E. A. (2019). Healing by memory: The Case of Vyacheslav Ivanov. In Regards croisés sur la mémoire de la Révolution russe en exil (1917 − 2017). Volume 1 of L’Age d’argent et l’emigration russe (pp. 173–182). Service Éditions de l’Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 Lyon.
Venclova, T. (2016). “Iazyk” [Language]. In Vyacheslav Ivanov: pro et contra (Vol. 2, pp. 283–295). St. Petersburg: RKhGA.
Verkhovsky, Yu. N. (1912). O simvolizme Boratynskogo [On Boratynsky’s symbolism], In Trudy i dni, 3: 1–9.
Vinokur, G. O. (2002). Boratynsky i simvolisty [Boratynsky and Symbolists]. In K 200-letiiu Boratynskogo. Sbornik materialov mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii, 21-23 fevralia 2000, Moskva - Muranovo [To the 200th birth anniversary of Boratynsky. The Proceedings of the international Conference held on February 21-23, 2000, in Moscow and Muranovo] (pp. 28–49). Moscow: IMLI RAN.
Wachtel, M. (1994). Vyacheslav Ivanov from aesthetic theory to biographical practice in creating life. In The Aesthetic Utopia of Russian Modernism (pp. 151–160). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Zvonova, S. A. (2006). Tvorchestvo Yu. N. Verkhovskogo v istoriko-kul’turnom kontekste pervoi treti XX veka [Verkhovsky’s creative work in the historic and cultural context of the first third of the 20th century]. Dissertation, Perm.
Acknowledgements
The research was carried out at the A. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IWL RAS) funded by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF, Project No. №17-18-01432-П).
Funding
This study was funded by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF, Project No. №17-18-01432-П).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anokhina, Y.Y. «Snovidets Mnemoziny»: dreaming of Mnemosyne: Evgeny Boratynsky’s poetry in Vyacheslav Ivanov’s aesthetics. Stud East Eur Thought 72, 279–290 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-020-09396-w
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-020-09396-w