Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich. “Bryusov tried to lead proletarian art, as Symbolism once did
Valery YakovlevichBryusov rightfully holds one of the leading places in the history of Russian symbolism. He is the inspirer and initiator of the first collective performance of “new” poets (collections “Russian Symbolists”, 1894 - 1895), one of the leaders of the Scorpion publishing house and the Libra magazine, which united the main forces of symbolism in the 1890s, theorist of the “new » directions and an active participant in all intra-symbolist polemics and discussions. A long black tightly buttoned frock coat, a starched collar, Napoleonic-style arms crossed on his chest - with such meager touches Bryusov created his image of the “nurseman”, “commander and conqueror of Russian symbolism”, “tastemaker”, “prophet” and “magician”.
Valery Bryusov was born on December 13, 1873 in Moscow, into a middle-income merchant family. He wrote: “I was the first child and was born when my father and mother were still experiencing the strongest influence of the ideas of their time. Naturally, they passionately devoted themselves to my upbringing and, moreover, on the most rational principles... Under the influence of their convictions, my parents placed fantasy and even all the arts, everything artistic very low.”. In his autobiography he added: “From infancy, I saw books around me (my father built up a pretty good library for himself) and heard conversations about “smart things.” They diligently protected me from fairy tales and all “devilish things.” But I learned about Darwin’s ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply... I... didn’t read Tolstoy, Turgenev, or even Pushkin; Of all the poets in our house, an exception was made only co for Nekrasov, and as a boy I knew most of his poems by heart.”
“My passion... for literature grew and grew. I constantly began new works. I wrote poetry, so much that I soon filled up the thick Poesie notebook that was given to me. I tried all forms - sonnets, tetracines, octaves, triplets, rondos, all meters. I wrote dramas, stories, novels... Every day carried me further. On the way to the gymnasium, I thought about new works, in the evening, instead of studying homework, I wrote... I had huge bags of paper covered in writing.”.
In 1893Bryusovgraduatedgymnasium, then studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University.
First snow
Silver, lights and sparkles, -
A whole world made of silver!
Birch trees burn in pearls,
Black and naked yesterday.
This is the realm of someone's dreams,
These are ghosts and dreams!
All items of old prose
Illuminated with magic.
Crews, pedestrians,
There is white smoke on the azure.
The life of people and the life of nature
Full of new and holy things.
Making dreams come true
Life is a game of dreams,
This world of enchantment
This world is made of silver!
At the end of 1892, young Bryusov became acquainted with the poetry of French symbolism - Verlaine, Rambaud, Malarme - which had a great influence on his further work. In 1894 - 95 he compiled small collections “Russian Symbolists”, most of which were written by Bryusov himself. Some of these poems spoke of the author's talent.
In 1895ValeryBryusov publishes the book “Masterpieces”, and in 1897 - the book “This is Me” about the world of subjective-decadent experiences that proclaim egocentrism. In 1899, after graduating from the university, Valery Yakovlevich completely devoted himself to literary activity.
Andrey Bely
I believed many people to the point of frenzy,
With such hope, with such love!
And my delirium of love was sweet to me,
Burnt by fire, covered in blood.
How deaf in the abysses, where there is loneliness,
Where the milky-gray dusk froze...
On the muddy heights the vestments turn black!
"Brother, what do you see?" - Like the echo of a hammer,
Like an extra-worldly laughter, I hear the response:
"In the radiance of the sky - wine and gold! -
How bright they were! what a magnificent evening!"
Having given myself up again, I hasten to the steep slope
Along sharp stones, between their breaks.
The prickly flowers cut my hands,
I hear the laughter of the underground gnomes.
But in the heart there is a strict decision with thirst,
Hope burns like a tired ray.
I believed a lot, I cursed a lot
And he took revenge on the infidels in his own time with a dagger.
In 1900, the book “The Third Watch” was published, after which Bryusov received recognition as a great poet. In 1903 he published the book “To the City and the World”, in 1906 - “Wreath”, his best poetry books.
The time has come for Bryusov when he was recognized by critics, he becomes a great poet.In subsequent years, his poetry became more intimate, new features of his lyrics appeared: intimacy, sincerity, simplicity in the expression of thoughts and feelings.Bryusov's later lyrics:books “All the Tunes” (1909), “Mirror of Shadows” (1912)contains special features that distinguish the author from other poets. Poem of subsequent periodscreativityBryusovafull of sincerity.
During the First World War, having gone to the front from one of the most widespread newspapers, “Russian Vedomosti,” Bryusov published a large number of correspondence and articles devoted to military issues. The false patriotic frenzy quickly passes, the war increasingly appears to Bryusov in its disgusting guise. He wrote highly critical poems (“The Double-Headed Eagle,” “A lot can be sold..”, etc.), which, naturally, then remained unpublished. As the widow of the writer I.M. Bryusov testifies, in May 1915 he “finally returned, deeply disappointed by the war, no longer having the slightest desire to see the battlefield.”
Desperate to find real, exciting themes, to feel and convey the fullness of life, he plunges more and more into the abyss of “creating poetry.” He looks for especially exquisite rhymes, creates poems of the most outlandish and rare form. He creates Old French ballads, writes poetry where all words begin with the same letter, and tries to revive the formal techniques of the poets of the Alexandrian era. He achieves exceptional technical sophistication. Many contemporaries recall how they were stunned by the improvisational talent of Bryusov, who could instantly write a classic sonnet. During this period he creates two “wreaths of sonnets”. A little later he releases the collection “Experiments”, where he strives to present the most diverse and complex methods of rhyming and poetic meters.
One of the most grandiose poetic ideas dates back to these years.Bryusova- “Dreams of Humanity.” It originated fromhimin 1909, but finally took shape in 1913. Bryusov intended to introduce “the soul of humanity, as far as it was expressed in his lyrics. These should not be translations or imitations, but a series of poems written in those forms that successive centuries have created for themselves in order to express their cherished dreams" Even according to the original plans, “Dreams of Humanity” should have consisted of at least four volumes, about three thousand poems. Bryusov intended to present all the forms that lyrics have gone through among all peoples and at all times. This publication was supposed to cover all eras from the songs of primitive tribes to European decadence and neorealism. This gigantic plan was not destined to be completed.
Z. Gippius
(Upon receiving "Last Poems")
You crazy proud woman!
I understand your every hint,
White Spring Fever
With all the rage of ringing lines!
All words are like stings of hatred,
All words are like piercing steel!
Poison-filled dagger
I kiss the blade, looking into the distance...
But in the distance I see the sea, the sea,
A gigantic sketch of new countries,
Where the hurricane hums and howls!
Scary, sweet, inevitable, necessary
I should throw myself into the foamy shaft,
To you - a green-eyed naiad
Sing, splash around the Irish rocks.
High - above us - above the waves, -
Like the dawn over black rocks -
The banner is flying - International!
On Gorky's advice,Valeria YakovlevichIn 1915, representatives of the Moscow Armenian Committee asked to take over the organization and editing of a collection of translations of Armenian poetry, covering more than one and a half thousand years of its history. In 1916, the collection “Poetry of Armenia” was published, most of the translations of which were carried out by him. In fact, this was the Russian writer’s first acquaintance with the history of Armenian poetry from folk songs to the present.
To the Armenians
And now, in this new world,
In a crowd of restless tribes,
You stood up - looking stern
These are mysterious times for us.
But what was is forever alive,
In the past there is a reward and a lesson.
You have the right to wear it proudly
Your centuries-old wreath.
And we, a great legacy
Marveling, we hear vows in it.
So! The past is heavy copper
It buzzes over every new day.
And I believe, the people of Tigran,
That, having overcome the storm again,
You will emerge from the fog like a star,
Having matured for new exploits;
That your living lyre is again,
Over the stones of decaying slabs,
Two alien, two hostile worlds
It will unite in the highest melody!
Bryusov’s role in promoting Armenian culture was not limited to this. He also published an extensive work, “Chronicle of the Historical Fates of the Armenian People,” and was the author of a number of articles dedicated to figures of Armenian culture. All this brought Bryusov high recognition. In 1923 he was awarded the honorary title of People's Poet of Armenia.
On October 9, 1924, before reaching the age of 51, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov died in Moscow.
Poet, novelist, playwright, translator, literary critic, literary critic and historian. One of the founders of Russian symbolism.
Valery Bryusov was born on December 13, 1873 in Moscow, into a merchant family. The future master of symbolism was the grandson of the poet-fabulist Alexander Bakulin, who began a trading business in Moscow after receiving his freedom. Valery Bryusov later signed some of his works with the name of his grandfather.
Another grandfather of Valery Kuzma Andreevich, the ancestor of the Bryusovs, was a serf of the landowner Bryus. In 1859, he bought his freedom and moved from Kostroma to Moscow, where he bought a house on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. The poet was born in this house and lived until 1910.
Bryusov's father, Yakov Kuzmich Bryusov, sympathized with the ideas of the populist revolutionaries. He published poems in magazines, and in 1884 he sent to the magazine “987z” a “Letter to the Editor” written by his son, describing the summer vacation of the Bryusov family. The "letter" was published. Later, Valery Bryusov wrote about his father in his autobiography: “In the 60s, my father, who had previously only learned to read and write from a sexton, succumbed to the general movement and actively began self-education; At one time he was a volunteer student at the Petrovsky Academy. In those same years, my father became close to the circles of the then revolutionaries, to whose ideas he remained faithful until the end of his life. By the way, in the 70s my father was close to N.A. Morozov, the future Shlisselburger, whose image I remember from the days of my early childhood. Portraits of Chernyshevsky and Pisarev constantly hung above my father’s desk.”
Valery Bryusov in his youth.
Carried away by horse racing, the father lost all his fortune on the betting. Later, he introduced his son to horse racing, whose first independent publication in the magazine “Russian Sport” in 1889 was an article in defense of betting. Parents did little to raise Valery, and the boy was left to his own devices. Much attention in the Bryusov family was paid to the “principles of materialism and atheism,” so Valery was strictly forbidden to read religious literature. “They zealously protected me from fairy tales, from any “devilish” things. But I learned about Darwin’s ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply,” Bryusov recalled. But at the same time, no other restrictions were imposed on the young man’s reading range, so among the “friends” of his early years were both literature on natural history and “French pulp novels,” books by Jules Verne and Mayne Reid and scientific articles. At the same time, the future poet received a good education - he studied in two Moscow gymnasiums - from 1885 to 1889 in the private classical gymnasium of F.I. Kreiman, and from 1890 to 1893 - in the gymnasium of L.I. Polivanov, who was an excellent teacher who had a significant influence on the young poet. Bryusov said: “I studied first in private gymnasiums in Moscow (for those were the years during the life of my grandfather, the greatest wealth of our family), then at Moscow University, the course of which I graduated from the Historical Department of the Faculty of History and Philology in 1899. Of the professors, I remember with gratitude F.E. Korsh, with whom I remained acquainted later. However, I gained more knowledge than at school from independent reading. Having learned to read when I was 3 years old, I have been devouring books continuously ever since. Even before entering the gymnasium, I read a huge amount of both purely literary and scientific; He was especially interested in natural sciences and astronomy. In the gymnasium, I was most interested in mathematical sciences, a passion that has remained with me to this day. At the university I studied the history of philosophy a lot.”
Already at the age of 13, Bryusov linked his future with poetry. Bryusov's earliest known poetic experiments date back to 1881; his first (rather unartful) stories appeared somewhat later. While studying at the Kreiman gymnasium, Bryusov wrote poetry and published a handwritten journal. In his adolescence, Bryusov considered Nekrasov his literary idol, then he was fascinated by Nadson’s poetry. At the same time, Bryusov could become a good mathematician. The process of solving various mathematical problems gave him incomparable pleasure. The poet Vladislav Khodasevich recalled: “In the sixteenth year, he admitted to me that sometimes “for fun” he solves algebraic and trigonometric problems using an old gymnasium problem book. He loved the logarithm table." At the age of 15, he writes in his diary: “Talent, even genius, will honestly only give you slow success if given it. This is not enough! It is not enough for me! We must choose something else... Find a guiding star in the fog. And I see it: this is decadence. Yes! No matter what you say, whether it is false or funny, it is moving forward, developing, and the future will belong to it, especially when it finds a suitable leader. And I will be this leader!”
By the beginning of the 1890s, the time had come for Bryusov to become interested in the works of French symbolists - Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé. “Acquaintance with the poetry of Verlaine and Mallarmé, and soon Baudelaire, in the early 90s, opened up a new world for me. “Under the impression of their creativity, those of my poems that first appeared in print were created,” recalled Bryusov.
In 1893, he wrote a letter (the first known) to Verlaine, in which he spoke about his mission to spread symbolism in Russia and introduced himself as the founder of this new literary movement for Russia. Admiring Verlaine, Bryusov at the end of 1893 created the drama “The Decadents. (End of the Century),” in which he talked about the short-lived happiness of the famous French symbolist with Mathilde Mothe and touched on Verlaine’s relationship with Arthur Rimbaud.
In the 1890s, Bryusov wrote several articles about French poets. In the period from 1894 to 1895, under the pseudonym Valery Maslov, he published three collections of “Russian Symbolists”, which included many of his own poems (including under various pseudonyms). Most of them were written under the undoubted influence of the French symbolists. In addition to Bryusov’s, the collections widely featured poems by A.A. Miropolsky (Lang), a friend of Bryusov, as well as the mystical poet A. Dobrolyubov. The third issue of “Russian Symbolists” featured Bryusov’s one-line poem “Oh, close your pale legs,” which quickly gained fame, but also ensured the rejection of criticism and the Homeric laughter of the public in relation to the collections. For a long time, the name of Bryusov, not only among the bourgeoisie, but also among the traditional, “professorial”, “ideological” intelligentsia, was associated with this particular work - a “literary piece” in the words of S.A. Vengerov. Vladimir Solovyov, who wrote a witty review of the collection for Vestnik Evropy, also treated the first works of Russian decadents with irony. Solovyov also owns several well-known parodies of the style of the “Russian Symbolists”.
In 1893, Bryusov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. His main interests as a student included history, philosophy, literature, art and languages. “...If I were to live a hundred lives, they would not satisfy all the thirst for knowledge that burns me,” the poet noted in his diary. In his youth, Bryusov was also interested in theater and performed on the stage of the Moscow German Club, where he met Natalya Alexandrovna Daruzes, who soon became the poet’s lover. Shortly before this, Bryusov’s first love, Elena Kraskova, died suddenly of smallpox in the spring of 1893. Many of Bryusov’s poems were dedicated to her in the period from 1892 to 1893.
Daruzes Bryusov experienced love for “Tala” until 1895. In the same year, the first collection of exclusively Bryusov’s poems, “Chefs d’oeuvre” (“Masterpieces”), was published. In the preface, Bryusov wrote: “Printing my book these days, I do not expect a correct assessment of it... I bequeath this book not to my contemporaries or even to humanity, but to eternity and art.” The very name of the collection, which, according to critics, did not correspond to the contents of the collection, caused attacks from the press. Narcissism was characteristic of Bryusov in the 1890s. So, for example, in 1898 the poet wrote in his diary: “My youth is the youth of a genius. I lived and acted in such a way that only great deeds can justify my behavior.”
Both “Chefs d’oeuvre” and Bryusov’s early work in general were characterized by the theme of the struggle against the world of patriarchal merchants, the desire to escape from “everyday reality” to the new world that he saw in the works of the French symbolists. The principle of “art for art’s sake”, detachment from the “external world”, characteristic of all of Bryusov’s lyrics, are reflected in the poems in the collection “Chefs d’oeuvre”. In this collection, Bryusov appeared as a “lonely dreamer,” cold and indifferent to people. Sometimes his desire to break away from the world reached the point of suicide, “last poems.” At the same time, Bryusov constantly searched for new forms of verse, created exotic rhymes and unusual images.
My love is the scorching afternoon of Java,
Like a dream the deadly aroma spreads,
There the lizards lie, covering their pupils,
Here, boa constrictors coil around the trunks.
And you entered the unforgiving garden
For relaxation, for sweet fun?
Flowers tremble, grass breathes more strongly,
Everything is enchanting, everything breathes out poison.
Let's go: I'm here! We will enjoy -
Play, wander, in wreaths of orchids,
Bodies intertwined like a pair of greedy snakes!
The day will slip by. Your eyes will close.
That will be death. - And a shroud of vines
I will wrap around your motionless figure.
After graduating from the university in 1899, Bryusov devoted himself entirely to literature. For several years he worked in P.I. Bartenev’s magazine “Russian Archive”. In the second half of the 1890s, Bryusov became close to symbolist poets, in particular Konstantin Balmont. They met him in 1894 and developed into a friendship that did not stop until Balmont emigrated. He became one of the initiators and leaders of the Scorpion publishing house founded in 1899 by S.A. Polyakov, which united supporters of the “new art”.
In 1897, Bryusov married Ioanna Matveevna Runt, who served as his sisters’ governess in their home. He was captivated by the fact that the young governess heroically defended his manuscripts from the encroachments of the nanny Sekletinya, who was putting things in order in the house. Bryusov was not mistaken in choosing his wife. Ioanna Matveevna treated her husband’s literary works with reverence, and after his death for many years she became the main custodian of his creative heritage. The pages of his diary, filled after his marriage, produce the most human impression of all that Bryusov wrote. Here is an entry from October 2, 1897: “The weeks before the wedding are not recorded. This is because they were weeks of happiness. How can I write now if I can only define my state with the word “bliss”? I'm almost ashamed to make such a confession, but what? That's it". “His wife,” recalled Gippius, “is a small woman, unusually ordinary. If she surprised with anything, it was precisely with her unremarkableness.”
The consciousness of loneliness, contempt for humanity, and the premonition of imminent oblivion were reflected in the collection “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and the World”), published in 1903. It included the characteristic poems “In the Days of Desolation” and “Like Unearthly Shadows.” Bryusov was no longer inspired by synthetic images. Increasingly, the poet turned to “civil” topics. A classic example of civil lyricism was the poem “The Bricklayer.” For himself, Bryusov chose “the path of labor as a different path” in order to learn the secrets of “a wise and simple life.” Interest in reality, including suffering and need, was expressed in “urban folk” “ditties” presented in the “Songs” section, written in “popular” form. They attracted a lot of attention from critics, who, however, were mostly skeptical about these works, calling Bryusov’s “pseudo-folk ditties” a “falsification.”
A pale young man with a burning gaze,
Now I give you three covenants:
First accept: don’t live in the present,
Only the future is the domain of the poet.
Remember the second: do not sympathize with anyone,
Love yourself infinitely.
Keep the third: worship art,
Only to him, thoughtlessly, aimlessly.
These lines instantly became an aesthetic manifesto of Russian decadence of the 1890s - a literary trend that became fashionable. The poet Vladimir Solovyov reacted sharply to these lines with criticism, writing a witty parody and publishing a number of critical articles. The controversy between the two poets swept the pages of magazines and poetry salons.
The great-power mood of the times of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (the poems “To Fellow Citizens”, “To the Pacific Ocean”) was replaced by Bryusov with a period of belief in the inevitable death of the urban world, the decline of the arts and the onset of the “era of damage”. Bryusov saw in the future only times of “last days” and “last desolation.” These sentiments reached their peak during the First Russian Revolution. They were clearly expressed in Bryusov’s drama “Earth” in 1904, which described the future death of all humanity. Then - in the poem “The Coming Huns” in 1905.
In 1906, Bryusov wrote the short story “The Last Martyrs,” which describes the last days of the life of the Russian intelligentsia, participating in a crazy erotic orgy in the face of death. The mood of “Earth” was generally pessimistic. Readers were presented with the future of the planet, the era of the completed capitalist world, where there was no connection with the earth, with the vastness of nature, and where humanity was steadily degenerating under the “artificial light” of the “world of machines.” The only way out for humanity in this situation was collective suicide, which was the end of the drama. Despite the tragic ending, there were still occasional notes of hope in the play. Thus, in the final scene, a young man appeared who believed in the “rebirth of humanity” and in the New Life. Thanks to his appearance, it became clear that only true humanity is entrusted with the life of the earth, and people who decided to die a “proud death” are only a “miserable crowd” lost in life.
Decadent moods only intensified in the subsequent years of the poet’s life. Periods of complete dispassion were followed by Bryusov’s lyrics of unquenched painful passions in the works “I Love in the Swollen Eyes” in 1899, “In a Gambling House” and “In a Brothel” in 1905.
I love in the eyes of the swollen
And in a shackled smile
Guess the features of those who loved -
To the point of madness, to the point of error.
Read in their deceitful caresses,
In repeated movements,
As in immortally true fairy tales,
About lost longings.
Behind the powerlessness of dispassion,
Will not be deceived by children's lies,
I smell nights of voluptuousness,
Trembling dreams
Honoring as a non-random voice,
I thirst for death and conceptions,
I love for the glimpse of mystery
The dream of learned hugs.
The period from 1910 to 1914, and, in particular, from 1914 to 1916, is considered by many researchers to be a period of the poet’s spiritual and, as a consequence, creative crisis. The collections of the late 1900s - "Earth's Axis" in 1907 and "All Tunes" in 1909 - were assessed by critics as weaker than "Stephanos", mostly repeating the previous "tunes". The poet’s thoughts about the frailty of all things intensified, and the poet’s spiritual fatigue manifested itself, manifested in the poems “The Dying Fire” in 1908 and “The Demon of Suicide” in 1910. In the collections “Mirror of Shadows” in 1912 and “Seven Colors of the Rainbow” in 1916, the author’s calls to himself to “continue” and “swim on”, which betray this crisis, became frequent. Occasionally, images of a hero and a worker appeared. In 1916, Bryusov published a stylized continuation of Pushkin’s poem “Egyptian Nights,” which caused an extremely mixed reaction from critics. Reviews of 1916-1917 noted in “Seven Colors of the Rainbow” self-repetition, breakdowns in poetic technique and taste, hyperbolic self-praise (“Monument”, etc.), and came to the conclusion that Bryusov’s talent was exhausted.
Valery Bryusov. Portrait by S.V. Malyutin. 1913
Bryusov wrote a wreath of sonnets, “The Row of Fatal,” that is remarkable in its sophistication. The wreath itself is one of the most difficult poetic forms. It took Bryusov only seven hours to create in one day the fifteen sonnets that make up this wreath, that is, according to the author himself, half an hour per sonnet. Each of the poems in this cycle was dedicated to real characters - women whom the poet once loved. For him, the images captured in the sonnets were sacred, “tormenting the heart with torment and joy” - “beloved, memorable, living!” Perhaps in this “fatal series” there are the attachments of early youth - E.A. Maslova and N.A. Daruzes, and the hobbies of later years - M.P. Shiryaev and A.A. Shestarkin, and the love of mature years - L. N. Vilkina, N. G. Lvova and A. E. Adalis, and, of course, his wife - I. M. Bryusova. But contemporaries had no difficulty in naming the name of the woman who inspired the poet. The poet meant Nina Ivanovna Petrovskaya. Their relationship, which lasted seven long years, was known throughout literary and artistic Moscow. They played a significant role in the poet’s life, but they had even greater significance with tragic consequences for Petrovskaya herself.
Nina Petrovskaya graduated from high school, then dental courses. She married the owner of the Grif publishing house and, finding herself in a circle of poets and writers, began to try her hand at literature, although her gift was not great, judging by the collection of stories “Sanctus amor”, which looked more like a fictionalized diary. It was impossible to say that she was beautiful, but she could certainly be called cute. And she was also, as they said in Pushkin’s age, sensitive. Blok, who knew Nina, considered her quite smart, but for some reason treated her with pity. Khodasevich, who was friends with Nina for more than a quarter of a century and left memories of her, wrote that she immediately wanted to play her life - and in this essentially false task she remained truthful and honest to the end. She made an endless thrill out of her life, and nothing out of her creativity. More skillfully and decisively than others, she created a “poem from her life.”
Nina played a significant role in Moscow life at that time. She came to the court of Moscow bohemia with her hobbies for cards, wine, spiritualism, black magic and at the same time the cult of eroticism, seething under the seductive and partly hypocritical veil of mystical service to the Beautiful Lady.
She had an affair with the symbolist poet Andrei Bely, for whom she felt genuine passion. This attracted even more attention to her. Interest in the personal lives of fashionable writers, as she herself said, then swelled with piquant gossip, inventions, and tales of fables. But the relationship with Bely did not last long. The poet's passion faded away as quickly as it flared up. “He fled from Nina so that her too earthly love would not stain his pure vestments. He fled from her in order to shine even more dazzlingly in front of the other,” this is how the poet Vladislav Khodasevich later described this gap.
And then, quite unexpectedly, Bryusov burst into her world. He came into her life to stay forever, she said later. But at first she became close to Bryusov, wanting to take revenge on Bely and, perhaps, in the secret hope of returning him, arousing jealousy. Bryusov was eleven years older than Nina, his name - “the father of Russian symbolism”, publisher of literary and artistic magazines, an original poet - thundered throughout Russia. Their first meeting took place in the living room of mutual friends, where Symbolists gathered. Bryusov seemed to her like a magician and wizard who eats candied violets, roams cemetery crypts at night, and plays with goats in non-existent Moscow pastures during the day. Before that, Nina had only seen a portrait of Bryusov, in which she was struck by fiery eyes, a sharp horizontal wrinkle on the bridge of her nose, the high rise of Mephistophelean eyebrows, arrogantly compressed, childishly tender lips. After this meeting, she was left with the impression of him as a very dry, correct gentleman. He kindly listened to several of someone else's poems and her own story, read his own poems, but the whole evening remained like a drop of oil on water. This was his manner - he closed himself off, hid, in his own words, “in a box,” in a safe case, not allowing outsiders to penetrate into his spiritual depths.
That evening Bryusov pointedly did not notice her, dressed in a black dress, with a rosary in her hands and a large cross on her chest. It was clear that she became a supporter of the fashion for everything mysterious and mystical that gripped many at that time, like a disease. And of course, like all symbolists, she is committed to love. It was believed that it was enough to be in love for a person to become provided with all the objects of the first lyrical necessity: passion, despair, jubilation, madness, vice, sin, hatred, etc. If one was not really supposed to be in love, then one should at least assure oneself that as if you were in love, and, as a contemporary testified, the slightest spark of something similar to love was fanned with all their might. It is not for nothing that “love for love” was sung.
The next time they saw each other was at the Art Theater at the premiere of The Cherry Orchard in early 1904. In these January days, she recalled many years later, the strong links of the chain that bound their hearts were forged. For her, the year of their meeting became the year of resurrection: she truly fell in love, realizing that everything previous was just a flash that sparkled and went out, leaving only an unpleasant aftertaste in her soul. And for Bryusov it was a year of storm and whirlpool. His fiery dream also came true. Love came, about which he wrote in poetry, but never knew, a woman came, about whom he only dreamed and read in books. “Never,” he said, “have I experienced such passions, such torment, such joys.” And he admitted that the suffering of that time was embodied in the poems of his book “Stephanos” (“Wreath”). Like Orpheus, he enticed his Eurydice and led her on a “rebellious path.”
Higher! higher! all steps
To the sounds, to the light, to the sun again!
There shadows disappear from your eyes,
Where my love awaits!
During the same period, he dreamed of working on a long-planned novel, which he called “Fire Angel” - “a true story that told about the devil, who more than once appeared in the form of a bright spirit to one girl and seduced her into various sinful acts.”
“To write Your novel,” that’s what he called the future book in his letters to Nina, “it’s enough to remember You, it’s enough to believe You, it’s enough to love You.” He realized that he had the power to create something significant and outstanding, and he wanted to throw himself into the work headlong. He asked her to be his leader, his lighthouse, his night light here, as well as in the world of love. “Love and creativity in prose are two new worlds for me,” he wrote to her. - In one thing, you carried me far away, to fabulous lands, to unprecedented lands, where people rarely penetrate. Let it be the same in this other world.”
Piles of historical research and materials were forged into a plastically beautiful fiery plot. From these piles of sheets, where every tiny note strictly corresponded to historical truth, the conceived images emerged. But as an artist, Bryusov had to not only study and study a lot of literature from the life of Germany in the 16th century for the intended historical narrative, but also find genuine life-like similarities to these conceived images.
Nina Petrovskaya, contradictory by nature, sensual, hysterical, prone to exaltation and mysticism, perfectly suited the image of the main character of the novel. Bryusov wrote his Renata from it. She herself confirmed this. He found in her much of what was required for the romantic appearance of a witch: despair, a dead longing for a fantastically beautiful past, a readiness to throw his devalued existence into any fire, religious ideas and aspirations turned inside out, poisoned by demonic temptations. And also - isolation from everyday life and people, almost hatred of the objective world, organic mental homelessness, a thirst for destruction and death.
It was often said about Bryusov that he considered everything only an occasion for creativity - “he crowned sorrow with a sonnet or a ballad.” It was the same this time. He dressed himself up for the hero of the novel Ruprecht, and Andrei Bely, at that moment his fierce antagonist (the break with him almost ended in a duel), portrayed him under the name of Heinrich, endowing him not only with the appearance of the prototype - blue eyes and golden hair, but also with many character traits. Nina herself very soon took on the role of his heroine and played her quite seriously. It seemed to her that she had really entered into an alliance with the devil, and almost believed in her witchcraft. She stated that she wanted to die so that Bryusov would blame Renata’s death on her, and thereby become “a model for the last beautiful chapter.”
In the summer of 1905, they made a trip to the Finnish Lake Saimaa, from where Bryusov brought a cycle of love poems. He wrote to her, remembering this time: “That was the pinnacle of my life, its highest peak, from which, like Pizarro once, both oceans opened up to me - my past and my future life. You lifted me to the zenith of my sky. And you let me see the last depths, the last secrets of my soul. And everything that was riot, madness, despair, passion in the crucible of my soul burned out and, like a gold bar, poured into love, one, boundless, forever.”
When they happened to be separated, even for a short time, they bombarded each other with almost daily letters. He sang the joy of meeting in verse:
You are with me again! you are the same! is the same!
Let me repeat the words of love...
The devils on guard laugh,
And their halberds are covered in blood.
Ring the fire - glass to glass!
Look at me from torture!
Floats, floats through the restaurant
The blue of the resurrection day.
She loved him obsessively, selflessly, demanding complete dedication from him. “All or nothing” was her motto. She had no purpose in life outside of him. In her maximalism of feelings, she wanted all of him, undividedly, to belong only to her. Bryusov asked her to understand, convinced her that the one to whom he belongs is poetry: “I live because she lives in me, and when she goes out in me, I will die.” And then he wrote the words that she could never forgive him: “In the name of poetry, I, without hesitation, will sacrifice everything: my happiness, my love, myself.”
She was burned by a feeling of jealousy for his work, a consciousness of her powerlessness to somehow influence him. At times, he had a hard time experiencing this blind subordination to another all-consuming passion and wrote in despair that he needed some kind of resurrection, rebirth, baptism of fire in order to become himself again. “Dear girl, my happiness, my happiness! Leave me if I am unable to become different, if I remain a shadow of myself, a ghost of the past and an unrealized future.”
Gradually, love for him turned into a burnt-out passion. He was clearly calming her down, and perhaps he was carefully preparing her for separation, because he was afraid of an abrupt breakup, knowing her painful emotional emotional state, her ability to do anything.
Bound together by secret will.
We are breaking ties in vain,
Our vows are unsaid
But forever we are together!
Hateful! darling!
Ghost! Devil! Deity!
The soul burns insatiably
Thirst for your body!
Like a murderer to a dead body,
I'm returning to you.
What is given to me, prostrate?
Just submit to Fate.
Not wanting to come to terms with the thought of losing her loved one, Nina decided to resort to a proven remedy for many women: jealousy. She flirted with young people - regulars at literary salons - in front of Bryusov, kissed them, they took her away from the stuffy living rooms. At first she did not seriously cheat, she teased, tried to return the warmth of the relationship, then she cheated - once, twice, three times... He turned away, became a stranger. The severity of the breakup was unbearable, and to escape thoughts of suicide, Nina tried morphine. Wine and drugs undermined her health, but doctors miraculously brought her back to life. When they returned, she decided to leave Russia - irrevocably, forever. It was a cold November day. The locomotive was steaming, and the signal to depart was about to sound. Khodasevich, who was almost late for the farewell, found Bryusov and Petrovskaya already sitting in the compartment. There were tears in their eyes, and on the floor stood an open bottle of cognac, the “national” drink of the Moscow Symbolists. They took turns drinking straight from the bottle, hugging, kissing and crying.
At first Nina lived in Italy, then in France. She continued to write ecstatic letters to Bryusov, still full of outpourings of love and pretentiously signed: “the one who was your Renata.” Nina became so accustomed to this image, imbued with the consciousness that it was literally copied from her, that in real life she felt “forgotten, abandoned by Renata.” She wanted to visit Cologne, where the heroine of “The Fire Angel” was staying, and she prostrated herself on the slabs of the Cologne Cathedral, “like that Renata whom you created, and then forgot and stopped loving.” In these moments, she experienced their whole life, remembered the days of happiness, and “in the dark arches the waves of the organ trembled, like a real funeral song for Renata,” and she heard the guttural, bubbling voice of her idol:
Remember, remember! green beam
The joy of songs, the joy of dancing!
Remember, hidden in the night
Sweet-burning horror of caresses!
In 1913, being in a state of severe depression, she jumped out of the window of a hotel on the Boulevard Saint-Michel. She remained alive, but broke her leg and became lame. The reincarnation of Nina Petrovskaya into the image of Bryusov’s heroine occurred after she converted to Catholicism. “My new and secret name, written down somewhere in the indelible scrolls of Santa Pietro, is Renata,” she informed Khodasevich. It was a step of desperation, but not the end yet. For several years she wandered abroad in cheap hotels. She supported herself with tiny earnings from translations, leading a miserable life in a foreign land. She became a lonely woman, unbalanced, frantic, and by that time almost insane. Her painful wanderings continued for several more years. She lived in Rome, Warsaw, almost died and was treated for a long time in Munich, suffering from a severe nervous disorder, aggravated by alcohol and drugs. “Her soul is sick and sad,” her ex-husband wrote on the eve of the World War, reporting at the same time that now “her soul has completely recovered from the power of Bryusov.” She herself somehow burst out the words that now he couldn’t get her, that now others were suffering, and she lived, taking revenge on him with every movement, every thought.
“The war found her in Rome, where she lived until the autumn of 1922 in appalling poverty. She begged, begged, sewed linen for soldiers, wrote scripts for a film actress, and went hungry again. Saw. Converted to Catholicism. “My new and secret name, written down somewhere in the indelible scrolls of San Pietro, is Renata,” she wrote to me, Khodasevich recalled. - Nina’s life was a lyrical improvisation, in which, only by applying herself to the same improvisations of other characters, she tried to create something holistic - “a poem from her personality.” The end of personality, like the end of a poem about it, is death. In essence, the poem was completed in 1906, the same year where the plot of “The Fire Angel” ends. Since then, both in Moscow and in Nina’s travels abroad, a painful, terrible, but unnecessary epilogue devoid of movement lasted.” One February day in 1928, Petrovskaya opened the gas tap in the hotel room where she lived. The painful, terrible epilogue of her life, which lasted for many years, finally ended. It seemed to her that by death she was redeeming her whole life, and just as Renata, dying, told Ruprecht, so she mentally whispered: “I forgive you everything.” “Her truly suffering life ended in a small Parisian hotel,” said the obituary, then published, “and this life is one of the most difficult dramas of our emigration. Complete loneliness, hopeless need, a miserable existence, the absence of the most insignificant income, illness - This is how Nina Petrovskaya lived all these years, and every day was the same as the previous one - without the slightest light, without any hope.” This was “The End of Renata,” as Khodasevich called his memories of her.
Meanwhile, Valery Bryusov was in the thick of things. In 1917, the poet defended Maxim Gorky, who was criticized by the Provisional Government. After the October Revolution of 1917, Bryusov actively participated in the literary and publishing life of Moscow and worked in various Soviet institutions. The poet remained true to his desire to be the first in any business he began. From 1917 to 1919, he headed the Committee for Press Registration (from January 1918 - the Moscow branch of the Russian Book Chamber). Also from 1918 to 1919, he headed the Moscow library department at the People's Commissariat for Education. From 1919 to 1921, he was chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets (as such he led poetry evenings of Moscow poets of various groups at the Polytechnic Museum). In 1919, Bryusov became a member of the RCP(b). He worked at the State Publishing House, headed the literary subsection of the Department of Art Education at the People's Commissariat for Education, was a member of the State Academic Council, and a professor at Moscow State University since 1921. From the end of 1922, he became the head of the Department of Art Education of the Glavprofobra, and in 1921 he organized the Higher Literary and Art Institute (VLHI) and remained its rector and professor until the end of his life. Bryusov was also a member of the Moscow City Council, took an active part in the preparation of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, and was the editor of the department of literature, art and linguistics. The first volume of the encyclopedia was published after Bryusov’s death.
Bryusov said: “I want to live so that in the history of universal literature there are two lines about me. And they will!” He always tried to be seen and heard. He knew how to predict changes in fashion, literature and society like no one else. He quickly adjusted to them. “Russian spelling had not yet been banned for being counter-revolutionary,” wrote Gippius, “when Bryusov began writing in Bolshevik and declared that he would not publish in another. Before they had time to destroy the press, Bryusov sat down as a censor - to monitor whether it was destroyed well, whether ... some kind of contraband unsuitable for the Bolsheviks would creep in. As soon as they wanted to throw off the “rotten swaddling clothes of Social Democracy” and dubbed themselves “communists,” Bryusov hastened to publish the brochure “Why I Became a Communist...”.
In 1923, in connection with his fiftieth anniversary, Bryusov received a letter from the Soviet government, which noted the poet’s numerous services “to the entire country” and expressed “gratitude to the workers’ and peasants’ government.”
After the revolution, Bryusov continued his active creative work. In October, the poet saw the banner of a new, transformed world, capable of destroying bourgeois-capitalist culture, the “slave” of which the poet had previously considered himself. Some of his post-revolutionary poems became enthusiastic hymns to the “dazzling October.” In some of his poems, he glorified the revolution, for example, in the poems of the collection “On Such Days” in 1923 - in particular, in the poems “Work”, “Responses”, “To the Brothers-Intellectuals” and “Only Russian”. Having become the founder of the “Russian literary Leninina,” Bryusov neglected the “testaments” that he himself had set out back in 1896 in the poem “To the Young Poet” - “don’t live in the present” and “worship art.”
Despite all his aspirations to become part of the new era, Bryusov was never able to become a “poet of the New Life”. In the 1920s, in the collections “Dali” in 1922 and “Hurry!” in 1924, he radically updated his poetics, using rhythm overloaded with accents, abundant alliteration, jagged syntax, neologisms (again, as in the era of “Nellie’s Poems,” using the experience of futurism). Vladislav Khodasevich, who was generally critical of Bryusov, assessed this period not without sympathy as an attempt to find “new sounds” through “conscious cacophony.” These poems were saturated with social motives, the pathos of “scientificness” (in the spirit of the “scientific poetry” of Rene Gil, in which Bryusov was interested even before the revolution, exotic terms and proper names (the author provided many of them with detailed comments). The style of the late Bryusov was studied in detail by M .L. Gasparov called “academic avant-gardeism.” Some texts showed notes of disappointment with their past and present life, even with the revolution itself (the poem “House of Visions” is especially characteristic). In his experiment, Bryusov found himself alone: in the era of building a new, Soviet poetry, experiments Bryusov were considered too complex and “incomprehensible to the masses”; representatives of modernist poetics also reacted negatively to them.
He led a strange lifestyle, began to smoke, became addicted to morphine, became unkempt and nervous. He spent his last energy on efforts to confer upon him, on the occasion of the upcoming anniversary, the Order of the Red Banner and was upset by receiving a Certificate of Honor. At the end of his life, he took in his wife’s little nephew. It was strange for those around him to see such tender affection in him. Every evening he returned home laden with sweets and toys and, spreading out the carpet, played for a long time with the boy on the floor. Tsvetaeva in her memoirs cited one of the stories of the poetess Adalis about Bryusov: “At V.Ya. there is a foster child, a four-year-old boy, he loves him tenderly and touchingly, he takes him for walks and especially loves to explain everything to him along the way. “This is called a pediment. Repeat: pediment.” - "Pediment". - “And this column is Doric. Repeat: Doric.” - “Doric”. - “And this one, with a curl, is Ionic style. Repeat!" - “Ionic”. Etc., etc. And recently, he told me himself, a dog came towards me, with some kind of special tail, a squiggle. And the boy to Bryusov: “What style is this dog? Ionian or Dorian? At the end of the year, it is customary to take stock and draw some conclusions. Sometimes it’s just to see the light. Autumn is the time of wisdom. What about Bryusov? “Here he is sitting in the dining room at the table. He smokes without a break... and his hands with untidy nails are shaking so much that he sprinkles ashes on the tablecloth, into a glass of tea, then pulls off the corner of the tablecloth, then he pulls himself out of his seat and begins to walk randomly around the narrow dining room. The face has become thinner and darker, the black eyes are dull - otherwise they will suddenly sparkle strangely in the hollows. There are whole gray stripes in the beard, and the head has a white tint. There is such intense anxiety in him that he himself becomes restless around him.”
On October 9, 1924, Valery Bryusov died in his Moscow apartment from lobar pneumonia. The poet was buried at the capital's Novodevichy cemetery.
Bryusov has a poem - a translation from Armenian of the poet Jivani. These lines, so unlike anything created by Bryusov, could probably decorate the cold marble slab that covers his remains today as an epitaph.
Like the days of winter
days of bad luck are short here:
they will come and go.
Everything has its end
do not Cry! -
What's the running minutes:
They will come and go.
The whole world: hotel, Jivan,
and people are an unsteady caravan!
And everything goes on as usual:
love and work, -
they will come and go!
In 2008, a documentary film “Duel” was shot about the relationship between Valery Bryusov and Nina Petrovskaya.
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Text prepared by Tatyana Halina
Used materials:
Ashukin N.S. “V. Bryusov in autobiographical notes, memoirs of contemporaries and critical reviews”
Bibliography of V.Ya.Bryusov: 1884-1973.
Valery Bryusov and Nina Petrovskaya. Correspondence 1904-1913. Introductory articles, preparation of the text and comments by N.A. Bogomolov, A.V. Lavrov. - M.: New Literary Review, 2004. Also partially published: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters.
Maksimov D.E. "The Poetry of Valery Bryusov."
Lavrov A.V. "Russian Symbolists".
www.brusov.net.ru
www.stihi-rus.ru
Valery Bryusov is an outstanding Russian poet of the Silver Age. But his type of activity was not limited to poetry. He established himself as a talented prose writer, journalist and literary critic. Along with this, Bryusov was very successful in literary translations. And his organizational skills found their application in editorial work.
Poet's family
A short biography of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov is impossible without a story about the poet’s family. This is necessary in order to find an explanation for the presence of many talents concentrated in one person. And Valery Bryusov’s family was the foundation on which his versatile personality was formed.
So, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, was born in 1873, December 1 (13), into the family of a wealthy merchant, which was famous for its outstanding people. The poet's maternal grandfather, Alexander Yakovlevich Bakulin, was a merchant and poet-fabulist from a very wealthy merchant family in the city of Yelets. Along with countless fables, my grandfather’s archive contained novels, stories, poems, and lyric poems, written by him without hope of a reader.
Selflessly devoted to literature and dreaming of devoting himself entirely to it, Alexander Yakovlevich was forced to engage in merchant affairs all his life in order to be able to adequately support his family. Many years later, the famous grandson would use his grandfather’s name to sign some of his works.
On his father's side, Valery Bryusov had an equally remarkable grandfather. Kuzma Andreevich was a serf to the famous landowner Bruce in those days. Hence the surname. In 1859, my grandfather bought his freedom from the landowner, left Kostroma and moved to Moscow. In the capital, Kuzma Andreevich became a successful merchant and on Tsvetnoy Boulevard purchased a house in which his later famous grandson, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, was born and lived for a long time.
Valery Yakovlevich's father, Yakov Kuzmich Bryusov, also a merchant and poet, was published in small publications. It was the father who sent his son’s first poem to the editor of one of the magazines, which was published. The poem was called “Letter to the Editor,” Valery was 11 years old at the time.
Bryusov's sister, Nadezhda Yakovlevna (1881-1951), like many in the family, was a creative and musically gifted person. She became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. She has several scientific works on music pedagogy and folk music to her credit. And the younger brother of Valery Bryusov, (1885-1966), was an archaeologist and doctor of historical sciences, who wrote works on the history of the Neolithic and Bronze Age eras.
The poet's childhood
In continuation of the description of the short biography of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, it is necessary to note the poet’s childhood years. As a child, Valery Bryusov was left to his own devices, since his parents did not pay special attention to the upbringing of their offspring. However, children were strictly forbidden to read religious literature because the parents were convinced atheists and materialists. Subsequently, Bryusov recalled that his parents introduced him to the principles of materialism and the ideas of Darwin before they taught him to count. Any other literature in the family was allowed, so young Bryusov devoured everything: from the works of Jules Verne to pulp novels.
Their parents gave all their children, including Valery, an excellent education. In 1885, at the age of eleven, he began studying at the private classical gymnasium of F. I. Kreiman, and immediately in the second grade. At first, young Bryusov had a very difficult time: he endured ridicule from his classmates and had difficulty getting used to restrictions and order. However, very soon he won the favor of his comrades with his intelligence and talent as a storyteller. Valery could retell entire books interestingly and enthusiastically, gathering many listeners around him. But in 1889, high school student Bryusov was expelled for freethinking and atheistic views.
Then he undergoes training at another private gymnasium. This educational institution is owned by a certain L.I. Polivanov, a great teacher, whose mentoring had an invaluable influence on the worldview of young Bryusov. In 1893, he successfully completed his studies at the gymnasium and entered the Faculty of History and Philology at Moscow University, from which he graduated in 1899.
First literary experience
Already at the age of thirteen, Valery was sure that he would become a famous poet. While studying at the Kreiman gymnasium, young Bryusov wrote quite good poetry and published a handwritten journal. At the same time, his first experience in writing prose occurred. True, the early stories were a little angular.
As a teenager, Bryusov was passionate about the poetry of Nekrasov and Nadson. Later, with the same passion, he read the works of Mallarmé, Verlaine and Baudelaire, who opened the world of French symbolism to the young poet.
Under the pseudonym Valery Maslov in 1894-1895. Bryusov publishes three collections “Russian Symbolists”, where he publishes his poems under different pseudonyms. Along with poems, Bryusov included in the collections the works of his friend A. A. Miropolsky and opium lover, mystical poet A. M. Dobrolyubov. The collections were ridiculed by critics, but this did not dissuade Bryusov from writing poetry in the spirit of symbolism, but rather the opposite.
Youth of a genius
Continuing the description of the short biography of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, it is necessary to note the publication of the first collection of poems by the young poet (Bryusov was 22 years old at that time). He called his collection “Masterpieces,” which again caused laughter and attacks from critics, according to whom the title was contrary to the content.
Youthful insolence, narcissism and arrogance were characteristic of the poet Bryusov of that time. “My youth is the youth of a genius. “I lived and acted in such a way that only great deeds can justify my behavior,” the young poet wrote in his personal diary, confident in his exclusivity.
Detachment from the world and the desire to hide from the dull everyday existence can be traced both in the poems of the first collection and in Bryusov’s lyrics in general. However, it would be unfair not to note the constant search for new poetic forms, attempts to create unusual rhymes and vivid images.
Decadence: a classic of symbolism
The life and work of Valery Bryusov did not always go smoothly. The scandalous atmosphere around the release of the collection “Masterpieces” and the shocking nature of some poems attracted attention to a new trend in poetry. And Bryusov became known in poetic circles as a propagandist and organizer of symbolism in Russia.
The decadent period in Bryusov’s work ends with the release of his second collection of poems, “This is Me,” in 1897. Here the young poet still seems to be a cold dreamer, detached from the insignificant, hateful world.
But gradually a rethinking of his creativity comes to him. Bryusov saw heroism and sublimity, mystery and tragedy everywhere. His poems acquire a certain clarity when, at the end of the 19th century, significant changes occurred in literature and symbolism was seen as a self-sufficient movement.
The release of the following collections (“Third Watch” - 1900, “To the City and the World” - 1903, “Wreath” - 1906) revealed the direction of Bryusov’s poetry towards the French “Parnassus”, the distinctive features of which were historical and mythological plots lines, firmness of genre forms, plasticity of versification, penchant for exoticism. Much of Bryusov’s poetry was from French symbolism with a lot of poetic shades, moods and uncertainties.
The collection “Mirror of Shadows,” published in 1912, was distinguished by its noticeable simplification of forms. But the poet’s nature prevailed and Bryusov’s later work was again directed towards the complication of style, urbanism, scientificity and historicism, as well as the poet’s confidence in the existence of many truths in poetic art.
Extra-poetic activity
When describing a brief biography of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, it is necessary to touch upon some important points. After graduating from university in 1899, Valery Yakovlevich worked in the Russian Archive magazine. In the same year, he headed the Scorpion publishing house, whose task was to unite representatives of the new art. And in 1904, Bryusov became the editor of the magazine “Vesy”, which became the flagship of Russian symbolism.
At this time, Valery Yakovlevich writes many critical, theoretical, scientific articles on various topics. After the abolition of the magazine "Scales" in 1909, he headed the literary criticism department in the magazine "Russian Thought".
Then there was the revolution of 1905. Bryusov perceived it as inevitable. At this time he wrote a number of historical novels and was engaged in translations. After the October Revolution, he actively collaborated with the Soviet government and even joined the Bolshevik Party in 1920.
In 1917, Valery Bryusov headed the press registration committee, headed scientific libraries and literature. department of the People's Commissariat for Education. He holds high positions in the State Academic Council and lectures at Moscow State University.
In 1921, Bryusov organized the Higher Literary and Art Institute and became its first rector. At the same time, he teaches at the Institute of Words and the Communist Academy.
Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov died in his Moscow apartment in 1924, on October 9, from lobar pneumonia. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Sergei Rachmaninov and Mikhail Gnesin, Alexander Grechaninov and Reinhold Gliere wrote music for Valery Bryusov's poems. However, the poet not only wrote poetry - he created plays and translated foreign authors, published magazines and directed a literary institute. Valery Bryusov became one of the founders of Russian symbolism.
“Huge bags of written paper”
Valery Bryusov was born in 1873 into a Moscow merchant family. He was the grandson of the poet Alexander Bakulin, author of "Fables of a Provincial".
At the age of four, Bryusov learned to read and literally settled in his parents’ library. He studied biographies of great people and foreign classics, and read pulp novels and scientific literature. The poet recalled his childhood: “They diligently protected me from fairy tales and all kinds of “devilish things.” But I learned about Darwin’s ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply. I knew classical literature poorly: I had not read Tolstoy, Turgenev, or even Pushkin; Of all the poets in our house, an exception was made only for Nekrasov, and as a boy I knew most of his poems by heart.”. Bryusov was also fond of scientific experiments: he conducted simple chemical and physical experiments and studied the nature of various phenomena from books. While still in preschool age, the boy wrote his first comedy, “The Frog.”
At the age of 11, Valery Bryusov became a student at the private Kreiman gymnasium - after the exam he was accepted straight into the second grade. He grew up at home without friends, did not know simple children's games, and his passion for science and literature alienated him from his classmates even more. However, later Bryusov became close with other young reading enthusiasts, and together they began publishing the handwritten magazine “Nachalo”. During these years, the aspiring writer tried his hand at prose and poetry, translating ancient and modern authors. However, Bryusov’s first publication was a completely ordinary article - at the age of 13, he appeared on the pages of the magazine “Russian Sport” in support of betting at horse races.
“I constantly began new works. I wrote poetry, so much that I soon filled up the thick Poesie notebook that was given to me. I tried all forms - sonnets, tetracines, octaves, triplets, rondos, all meters. I wrote dramas, stories, novels... Every day carried me further. On the way to the gymnasium, I thought about new works, in the evening, instead of studying my homework, I wrote... I had huge bags of paper covered in writing.”
The magazine “Nachalo” was published for several years, and then the high school students abandoned this idea. Bryusov resumed his editorial activities when he was 16 years old. He began to produce a handwritten “V Class Leaflet” at school. The newspaper criticized the rules of the gymnasium, so that the freethinking student was soon forced to move to another educational institution. He continued to study at the Polivanov gymnasium.
Dedication to “Eternity and Art”
In the 1890s, Valery Bryusov became interested in the works of Pushkin and the French symbolists - Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Stéphane Mallarmé. In 1893, he wrote a letter to Verlaine, in which he called himself the founder of Russian symbolism. In the same year, Bryusov created the drama “The Decadents (End of the Century)” - it told about some facts of the biography of the French poet.
In 1893, Bryusov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He studied history and philosophy, art and literature. The young poet devoted a lot of time to foreign languages - sometimes only to read foreign authors in the original.
In his diary Bryusov wrote: “If I were to live a hundred lives, they would not satisfy all the thirst for knowledge that burns me.”.
Already in his second year of study, the poet published his first collection “Chefs d’oeuvre” - “Masterpieces”. In the preface, he wrote: “Printing my book these days, I do not expect a correct assessment of it... I bequeath this book not to my contemporaries or even to humanity, but to eternity and art.” Critics received the poems with skepticism, including because of the book's loud title. Two years later, the second collection, “This Is Me,” was published. Urban, historical and scientific motifs appeared in it. The poet dedicated the next book - a collection of poems “The Third Watch” with historical and mythological subjects - to Konstantin Balmont. The poet published his works in many Moscow and St. Petersburg magazines, and worked at the Moscow Scorpion publishing house.
In 1897, Valery Bryusov got married. His chosen one was Joanna Runt, the young governess of the poet’s sisters. The poet wrote in his diary: “The weeks before the wedding are not written down. This is because they were weeks of happiness. How can I write now if I can only define my state with the word “bliss”? I'm almost ashamed to make such a confession, but what? That's it". Ioanna Runt was very sensitive to Bryusov’s manuscripts, before the wedding she did not allow them to be thrown away during cleaning, and after that she became a real keeper of Bryusov’s works.
Valery Bryusov and his wife Ioanna Bryusova (née Runt). 1899 Photo: M. Zolotareva
Valery Bryusov with his wife Ioanna Matveevna
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Valery Bryusov became close to other symbolists - Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Fyodor Sologub. In 1901, their first joint almanac “Northern Flowers” was published - it was then that symbolism became an established literary movement. Poets and writers organized literary meetings in the Gippius circle, on “Wednesdays” with Bryusov, and also with his friend Alexander Miropolsky (Lang). Spiritualistic seances, which were fashionable in those years, often took place here. The lights in the rooms were dimmed and “spirits” were summoned, who moved the furniture and even “wrote” mysterious texts - of course, by someone else’s hand.
In 1903, Bryusov published the book “To the City and the World,” and in 1906, the collection “Wreath.” “Wreath” includes works from several previous years - mythological, lyrical, and also dedicated to revolution and war. In parallel with his literary work, the poet publishes the symbolist magazine “Scales”, heads the department of literary criticism in the magazine “Russian Thought”, writes plays, prose, and translates foreign authors.
Correspondent, translator, professor
During the First World War, Valery Bryusov worked as a war correspondent for the Russian Vedomosti newspaper. But the patriotic sentiments of the first years of the war quickly faded. Ioanna Bryusova recalled that he “returned deeply disappointed by the war, no longer having the slightest desire to see the battlefield.” During this period, Bryusov's critical poems appeared, but they remained unpublished.
During these years, Valery Bryusov focused not on the plots of his new poems, but on the form of the verse and poetic technique. He selected sophisticated rhymes, wrote classic French ballads, and studied the techniques of the poets of the Alexandrian school. Bryusov became a virtuoso of improvisation: he created a classic sonnet in record time. Bryusov created one wreath of sonnets, “The Fatal Row,” out of fifteen works in just seven hours.
In 1915, by order of the Moscow Armenian Committee, Valery Bryusov began preparing a collection of national poetry. The anthology covered one and a half thousand years of Armenian history. The poet was involved in organizing the work, translating, editing the book, and preparing it for printing. When the collection was published, Bryusov wrote several articles about Armenian culture and the book “Chronicle of the Historical Fates of the Armenian People.” Later he received the title of People's Poet of Armenia.
After the revolution, Valery Bryusov became a civil servant. At first, he headed the Committee for Press Registration, worked at the State Publishing House, was chairman of the presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets, and helped prepare the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In 1921, Anatoly Lunacharsky proposed to Bryusov to organize the Higher Literary and Artistic Institute. Until the end of his life, the poet remained its rector and professor.
In 1924, the poet passed away - he died of pneumonia. Valery Bryusov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich - literary critic, poet, translator, critic, playwright and prose writer. Considered the founder of Russian symbolism. After the end of the October Revolution, he was engaged in social and pedagogical activities. In this article you will be presented with a biography of Bryusov. So let's get started.
Childhood and studies
Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich was born in 1873 into a merchant family. His paternal grandfather was a merchant from former serfs, and his maternal grandfather was a self-taught poet. The boy's father was interested in natural sciences and literature.
After graduating from the Polivanov gymnasium, L.I. Valery entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Philology and History. The future poet managed to graduate with a 1st degree diploma. In 1896, the young man married Joanna Runt, who became his faithful assistant (and after death, the publisher of the heritage and the keeper of the archive). Already in his youth, Bryusov’s personality was divided into two antinomic components: one included dedication to the elements of life (roulette, night restaurants, play of passions, eroticism), and the second - strong-willed organizing activity, a tendency to “self-construct” and manage various situations and people around him.
Creative debut and first collections
We can say that 1894-1895 are the years when Bryusov’s creative biography began. The first three collections were published under the title “Russian Symbolists”. They included translations of several French symbolists, as well as works by aspiring poets. Based on further poetry collections - “This Is Me”, “Romances Without Words”, “Masterpieces” - we can say that Valery became not only a follower of symbolism, but also an organizer and propagandist of this movement. After a skillfully orchestrated scandal involving a number of shocking poems, the new school immediately became the center of attention of the literary community. Books of poetry from 1900-1909 - “The Third Watch”, “To the City and the World”, “Wreath”, “All Tunes” - linked the antinomic orientation of his works with the traditions of the French “Parnassus”, which was distinguished by verbal plasticity, solid verse and genre forms, as well as a penchant for exoticism and mythological, historical subjects.
After 1910, the poet Valery Bryusov decided to move to simpler forms (“Mirror of Shadows”), but in his later work he again returned to the complexity of style and language. The poems of that period reveal complexes of figurative and thematic nature that distinguish all of his work: historicism, urbanism, conviction in the intrinsic value of art and the plurality of truths.
Literary environment and other activities
In the 2nd half of the 1890s, Bryusov’s circle of connections in the literary world expanded significantly (acquaintance with F.K. Sologub, K.M. Fofanov, N.M. Minsky, K.D. Balmont, Z.N. Gippius, D. S. Merezhkovsky, K. K. Sluchevsky, etc.). In 1899, he headed the Scorpio publishing house, which set itself the task of uniting all people of the “new art”. In 1904-1909, Valery served as editor in the magazine “Scales”. In essence, this publication was the central organ of Russian symbolism. In “Scales” Bryusov published a number of programmatic theoretical and critical articles, as well as reviews and notes about Russian poets. Valery became known as the master of Russian symbolism. On the other hand, Bryusov did not agree with his theurgic direction and insisted on the sovereignty of art. The Russian poet refused to accept its relationship with socio-political and mystical-theological phenomena.
Unfortunately, "Scales" closed in 1909. After this, Valery headed the criticism department of the Russian Thought magazine. There he began to attract Symbolist authors to destroy the isolation of the Symbolist school in the world of literature.
Historical novels and concepts
Valery Bryusov, whose personal life never interfered with his creativity, showed a constant interest in history. He tried to give an objective assessment of the facts in line with world events. It all started with the publication of political reviews in the New Way publication. The Russian poet perceived the revolution of 1905 as the inevitable destruction of the culture of the past. At the same time, he admitted the possibility of his death, being part of the old world (“The Coming Huns”). In 1907-1912, Valery loses interest in current politics, but at the same time his desire to comprehend the deep laws of the historical process intensifies.
In the works “Altar of Victory” and “Fire Angel” he describes critical historical eras, trying to convey to readers the crisis state of the world through historical analogies. During the First World War, Valery advocated maintaining military patriotism (“7 colors of the rainbow”, “The Ninth Stone”). But after working at the front as a war correspondent, the poet realized the inhumanity of hostility between states.
Literary-historical and translation activities
In 1898, Valery Bryusov, whose work is known to all admirers of symbolism, met P. I. Bartenev. The latter headed the editorial board of the Russian Archive magazine. Thus began their long-term collaboration, during which Valery was engaged in commentary, publishing and literary-historical work. Also throughout his life, Bryusov made literary translations (T. Gautier, O. Wilde, M. Maeterlinck, S. Mallarmé, P. Verlaine, E. Poe, E. Verhaerne, J. W. Goethe, J. Byron, Armenian poets, ancient authors, etc.). From the beginning of his first works to his last, Valery’s translation style changed noticeably - it grew from free transcriptions to fundamental literalism.
Pedagogical and cultural-educational work after October
During and after the October Revolution, Bryusov’s biography was full of a number of important events both in his work and in life. The poet accepted the new government and became the head of the Press Registration Committee. Then Valery headed the department of the Moscow library at the People's Commissariat for Education. But his most responsible position was that of chairman of the presidium of the Union of Poets. In 1920, Bryusov joined the ranks of the RCP, and a year later he organized a literary and artistic university. The poet's educational activities were not limited to lecturing. He published an article on the ways of development of literature, created a historical anthology called “Dreams of Humanity,” describing in it all forms of expression of human poetry. In “Dreams,” Valery included works by Armenian and Latin poets, as well as various stylizations of poetic forms, from Japanese tanka to Alcaeus stanza. During the same period, he wrote a work devoted to solving problems of poetry.
Last verses
Bryusov's late poetry collections (Last Dreams, Dali, Mig, In Days Like These, Mea) are distinguished by formal experiments. They show the features of scientific poetry, which was invented by the French poet Gil in the early 1900s. These are the poems “Reality”, “World of N Dimensions”, “World of Electron”. Due to unnecessary complexity, many later poems were not understood by contemporaries, but they clearly demonstrated to them the possibilities of Russian versification.
Heritage
This was the entire biography of Bryusov. The legacy of Valery Yakovlevich is very extensive. In addition to prose and poetic works, he performed many translations of poems by Italian, German, English, French and ancient authors. His critical articles help to better understand the literary situation at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. And works on poetry and poetry research made a serious contribution to the development of Russian literary criticism. Bryusov died in 1924 in Moscow.
