“His idea is such a huge idea that it can be said in advance whether he will not endure it, just as thousands of other writers cannot endure it, he will burn, but he will leave us the same great thought as a legacy. How many lonely years Merezhkovsky waited for readers who would not interpret him in their own way, but would suffer from the same illness as him! Now they are just listening to him. Thank God it's long overdue!"

Alexander Blok, Merezhkovsky. Eternal Companions, 1906

“Thus, through the intense eradication of modernity, Merezhkovsky revealed his Egypt - “Infinite antiquity and endless novelty.” Such is Merezhkovsky's everlasting path: grow roots from the present through the present to the past. All his work is a slow germination into the deep and fruitful layers of History: the Russia of Alexander, Paul, Peter; Italy Leonardo; Epoch of Apostate; now - the Aegean culture, and further - Egypt, Babylon. For him, knowledge of the past is a real communion in the 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 petty 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 poetry weak, told the novice 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, the first collection of Merezhkovsky was published, simply called "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 Nadson's students, who "wailed" on their weakness and timelessness. Studying at universities, passion for the philosophy of positivism Dmitry from 1884 Dmitry Sergeevich studied at St. Petersburg and Moscow universities, at the historical and philological faculties. At this time, Merezhkovsky became interested in the philosophy of positivism, and also became close to such employees of the Severny Vestnik 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 renounces "extreme materialism" and switched to symbolism.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky, as contemporaries noted, was a very reserved person, reluctant to let other people into his world. The year 1889 became all the 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 did not part for a day. This creative and spiritual union was described by his wife in an unfinished book called Dmitry Merezhkovsky. Zinaida was the "generator" of ideas, and Dmitry designed and developed them in his work. Travels, Translations, and the Rationale for Symbolism In the late 1880s and into the 1890s, they traveled extensively throughout Europe. Dmitry Sergeevich translated ancient tragedies from Latin and Greek, and also acted as a critic, published in such publications as Trud, Russian Review, and Severny Vestnik.

Merezhkovsky in 1892 gave a lecture in which he gave the first justification for symbolism. The poet argued that impressionism, the language of the symbol and "mystical content" can 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 questions of Christianity related to the cathedral 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.

The wife of Dmitry Merezhkovsky 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 the church. This is how religious-philosophical meetings appeared, famous at the beginning of the last century. Their main theme was the assertion that only on a religious basis can the revival of Russia be accomplished. Until 1903, these meetings were held, with the permission of the chief prosecutor of the Synod Pobedonostsev. The clergy also took part in them. Although Christianity of the "Third Testament" was not accepted, the desire to create a new religious society at a critical stage 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 "earthly heaven" and "heavenly earth". 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 Alexei" was born in 1905.

The fourth collection, Collected Poems, was published in 1909. There were few new poems in it, so this book was more of an anthology. However, a certain selection of works made by Merezhkovsky gave the collection modernity and novelty. It included only works that corresponded to the changed views of the author. Old poems take on new meaning. Merezhkovsky was sharply isolated among contemporary poets. He was distinguished by the fact that in his work he expressed general sentiments, 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 the middle of 1908. In collaboration with Filosofov and Gippius Merezhkovsky in 1907 published the book "Le Tsar et la Revolution". He also began to create the trilogy "The Kingdom of the Beast" based on the history of Russia in the late 18th - early 19th. After the release of the first part of this trilogy (1908), Dmitry Sergeevich was prosecuted. In 1913, its second part ("Alexander I") appeared. The last novel was "December 14", 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. Between 1911 and 1913, Wolf's book association published a 17-volume collection of his works, while Sytin published a four-volume edition in 1914. Merezhkovsky's prose was translated into many languages, it 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 were still living in Russia in 1917. Therefore, the country was seen on the eve of the revolution in the form of a "coming boor." A little later, having lived in Soviet Russia for two years, he established himself in his opinion that Bolshevism is a moral disease that is a consequence of the crisis of European culture. The Merezhkovskys hoped that this regime would be overthrown, however, having learned about the defeat of Denikin in the south and Kolchak in Siberia, they decided to leave Petrograd. Dmitry Sergeevich at the end of 1919 won the right to read his lectures in parts of the Red Army. In January 1920, he and his wife moved to the territory that was occupied by Poland. The poet gave lectures in Minsk for Russian emigrants. The Merezhkovskys move 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 put to an end, they left for Paris. The Merezhkovskys settled in an apartment that had belonged to them since pre-revolutionary times. Here they established old ties 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 a spiritual "leader" of the intelligentsia who found themselves abroad. Merezhkovsky in 1927 organized a religious-philosophical and literary society "Green Lamp". G. Ivanov became its president. The "Green Lamp" played a significant role in the intellectual life of the first wave of emigration, and also brought together the best representatives of the foreign Russian intelligentsia. When the Second World War began, the society stopped meetings (1939).

The Merezhkovskys founded Novy Kurs in 1927, a journal 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 the Nobel Prize, but Bunin received it.

The Merezhkovskys were not liked in the Russian environment. The hostility was largely due to their support of Hitler, whose regime seemed to them more acceptable than Stalin's regime. Merezhkovsky at the end of 1930 became interested in fascism, 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 the 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 poemsMerezhkovskyvery characteristic. "Poems" (1888) is a book in which Dmitry Merezhkovsky still appears as a student of Nadson. Noteworthy quotes from it include the following: "Do not despise the crowd! Do not stigmatize their sorrows and needs with a ruthless 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 noted, he spoke of strength and joy. His poems are pompous, rhetorical, but this is also characteristic, since Nadson's associates were most afraid of rhetoric, although they used it, in a slightly different guise, sometimes immoderately. Merezhkovsky, on the other hand, turned to rhetoric in order to break through the soundless, colorless fog in which the life of Russian society was wrapped up in the 1880s with its sonority and brightness. "Symbols" - the second book of poems, written in 1892. It is notable for the versatility of themes. Here is the 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 the books, will occupy all the minds in 10-15 years, was outlined in this collection. "Symbols" is a book of forebodings. Dmitry Sergeevich foresaw the advent of a different, more lively era.

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

Directions in creativity

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

"Symbols", which gave a name to the emerging direction of Russian poetry. In the same

year in a lecture by Merezhkovsky "On the causes of decline and on new trends in

modern Russian literature "symbolism received the first theoretical

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

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 theoreticians 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

a fifteen-year-old schoolboy to Dostoevsky, who found student poems

Merezhkovsky is bad and weak: "To write well, one must suffer,

suffer!" At the same time, Merezhkovsky met Nadson and through him entered into

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

He always spoke of 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. By that time, Merezhkovsky experienced

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

social activities.

Bryusov associated with the name of Merezhkovsky the beginnings that arose in Russian society

1900s movement, the essence of which "consisted in a call to religious

revival and in the preaching of neo-Christianity "capable of uniting

gospel ideal with a full-fledged "pagan" beginning, having approved

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

book of articles "Eternal Companions" (1897), a 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 struggle

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

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

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

("Autobiography"). 1905-1907 spent in Paris, later performed on

as a prose writer, publicist and critic. October Revolution is not

accepted, since 1920 in exile. Moving away from fiction, he wrote

historical and religious essays.

Merezhkovsky, the poet, belongs entirely 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,

ended with the renewal of poetic motives and means. Consciousness

hopeless loneliness of a person in the world, fatal duality and impotence

personality, the preaching of beauty, "saving the world", - developing these common for

"senior symbolist" motives, Merezhkovsky failed to overcome in verse

rationality and declarativeness. Published in 1896 "New Poems. 1891-

1895", acted 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. A milestone collection of poems "Symbols" (1892).

Prose trilogy "Christ and Antichrist" brought European fame

("Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate", 1896; "The Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci",

1901; "Antichrist. Peter and Alexei", ​​1905).

Distinctive features of creativity

Least of all Merezhkovsky is 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

Merezhkovsky at first most closely adjoined Nadson. Not being

"civilian" poet in the narrow sense of the word, he willingly developed such

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

willingness to suffer for one's beliefs ("Habakkuk"), etc. For one of the works

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

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

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

Motifs of symbolism and Nietzscheanism in creativity

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

Vomit of war - October fun!

From this stinking wine

How disgusting was your hangover

O poor, o sinful country!

What devil, what dog please,

What a nightmare obsessed with a dream,

The people, mad, killed their freedom,

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

Devils and dogs laugh at the slave dump,

Laughing guns, gaping mouths ...

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

The people who do not respect the shrines!

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

Until death... Who would have thought?

(Sled at the entrance. Evening. Snow.)

Nobody knew. But I had to think

What is it - absolutely? Forever and ever? Forever?

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

She will not die - know!

She will not die, Russia,

They will jump - believe me!

Its fields are golden!

And we will not perish - believe.

But what is our salvation?

Russia will be saved - know!

And Sunday is near! .

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

But the soul does not want reconciliation
And does not know what fear is;
To the people in it - great contempt,
And love, love in my eyes:

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

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

Children of night

Turning our eyes
To the pale east
Children of sorrow, children of the night
We are waiting for our prophet to come.
We hear the unknown
And with hope in our hearts,
Dying, we yearn
About uncreated worlds.
Our words are daring
But condemned to death
Too early forerunners
Too slow spring.
Buried Sunday
And in the deep darkness
Rooster night singing,
The chill 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”) blows everywhere. A whole series of poems about loneliness complement each other ("Dark Angel", "Loneliness", "Loneliness in Love", "Blue Sky" and others). It is hard for a lyrical hero among people:

... Heart is closer than friends -

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

Loneliness is not only the result of alienation, the bitter human fate imposed by the “unknown forces of nature” fate is the pride of the initiate rising above the earth (“Morituri”, “Children of the Night”). Voluntary death for D. Merezhkovsky is desirable and predetermined ("Children of the Night"), the poet's sadness is "great and mute" ("Recognition"). 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, in crazy sadness I die,
I'm dying…
Z. Gippius.

Undoubtedly, this is not just the result of the throwing of a broken soul or the “childhood” of the heart, but also serious philosophical questions that occupied not only D. Merezhkovsky. And then 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
All 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
The Lord will punish me as here -
That will be death, like my life,
And death will not tell me anything new.
(“So life is terrible by nothingness”)

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

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

All deceit; and things, in fact, containing a high meaning, giving value and awareness to human life - love, death, faith - misunderstood 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 wrote his "Silence". The theme of loneliness is especially acute when the poet tries to express the impotence of words in love:

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

“And everything sacred is embraced by silence,” – in this thought of D. Merezhkovsky one hears an echo of the incomprehensible – not a primitive, pre-verbal period, but a fleeting breath of the one that comes when all the words end:

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

Silence helps the poet to feel God and hear such “unmanifested” sounds as “talk of the stars”, “whisper of an angel”, “call and delirium” of the “universal soul”. One can hear in the lyrics both 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 shafts” on the Black Sea, etc. However, the 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 "deadly" philosophy of the author. The end of winter, spring, the arrival of autumn, even the passing day, the poet interprets as a reminder of death. Her charm reigns everywhere. This is a kind of gloomy sacrament given by nature as a model of humility, peace:

She, the teacher of the divine,
Learn, people, to die.
("This is death - but without a painful struggle")

According to D. Merezhkovsky, the passing day or moment brought a person a lot or a little, even if they are insignificant in the human sense, all the same, nature gives its best gift - death - to any phenomenon, rewarding it with shining beauty. Everything cries out: remember death! Such are the “funeral songs” of the wind, the oxymoron “the dull brightness of the last flowers”, “sick and dark ice, Tired, melting snow”, “calmed 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 being it is not finished. God is always life, 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 the meaning of 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 being turns into aggression against oneself, since it is impossible, having killed oneself, to remain alive at the same time - in our consciousness there is always the "Other". 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, because in the feeling of love we discover eternity and infinity, trampling death, and only a step towards the conscious , self-expressing being returns to the person himself, only the transformation of loneliness into creativity makes it love. BEING, LONELINESS AND DEATH AS LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL PHENOMENA IN THE POETRY OF D. MEREZHKOVSKY AND A. BLOK

D. Merezhkovsky's poem "Double Abyss" speaks of mirroring, and therefore the equivalence of life and death. Both are "native abysses", they are "similar and equal", while it is not clear, and it does not matter where the one is looking, and where the reflection is. Life and death are two mirrors, between which a person is placed, entangled in the repeatedly repeated faces of the mirror:
And death and life are native abysses:
They are similar and equal
Alien and kind to each other,
One is reflected in the other.
One deepens the other
Like a mirror, and a person unites them, separates them
By my will forever.
Both evil and good are the secret of the coffin.
And the secret of life - two ways -
Both lead to the same goal,
And no matter where to go...
There is something about death and the experience of "mortality" that not only reflects life, but complements it. Its inevitability brings a sense of solidity and stability, unknown in everyday life, where everything is transient and unstable. It identifies, singles out from the crowd, peels out something individual, special, "own" from the rough bark of communal entities. 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:
Dmitri Merezhkovsky manifests duality in 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 but spiritual blindness, the result of an insane impulse to freedom.

Merezhkovsky Dmitry Sergeevich (August 2, 1865-December 7, 1941), historical novelist, poet, playwright, translator, and critic. At about the age of 13, imitating Pushkin's "Fountain of Bakhchisaray", he composed his first poem. Then he wrote the first critical article - a cool essay "The Tale of Igor's Campaign". He published his first poems at the age of 15 in the collection "Response" (1881) and in the "Picturesque Review".

In the first still imitative collection "Poems". 1883-1887" (1888) Merezhkovsky stands "at a crossroads" in painful reflections on the problem of the existence of God, personal immortality, good and evil, his social vocation. Merezhkovsky's second book of poems, "Symbols (Songs and Poems)" (1892), "is remarkable for the versatility of its themes.

The third collection of Merezhkovsky's poems, New Poems (1896), was imbued with the expectation of a "new vice", "daring" ("Children of the Night"), the desire to love life in large and small manifestations ("Bees"), to love life as an "eternal game" ("What I Was"), measuring her with "a new, aimless beauty" ("Blue Sky").

In the fourth poetry collection of Merezhkovsky “Collected Poems. 1883-1903 ”(1904) there were few new poems (“Trumpet voice”, “Children's heart”, “Prayer for wings”, etc.). If in the third collection the desire to fall in love with the “demonic” antinomy of being was only theoretically declared, then here we see an attempt to look closely through our own life experience into samples of this mysterious duality (“Double Abyss”). The collection also traces a turn to catholic Christianity (“Oh, if the soul were full of love”, “Trumpet voice”, etc.). The last collection "Collected Poems. 1883-1910" (1910) was a repetition of the previous collection, with the exception of the poem "Old Octaves".

The Severny Vestnik publishes the first novel, The Outcast (1895; later The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate). A novel about the last dramatic period of early Christianity in the face of the tragic figure of Emperor. Juliana was the first part of the trilogy "Christ and Antichrist" (1895-1905). The continuation of the trilogy is the novels “The Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci" (1902) and "Antichrist. Peter and Alexei" (1904-05). Following the first trilogy, he writes the trilogy "The Kingdom of the Beast" - already on the material of exclusively Russian history. It included the drama "Paul I" (1908), as well as the novels "Alexander I" (1911-12) and "December 14" (1918; originally "Nicholas I and the Decembrists").

In 1900-05, the history of Merezhkovsky’s “main” case began: a neo-Christian concept was formed, the famous religious “tribrotherhood” was created (Merezhkovsky, his wife Z. Gippius, D. V. Filosofov), and a program was set for subsequent religious and social activities. The study "L. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Life, creativity and religion” (1900-02. In general, the end of the century for Merezhkovsky, as well as for many other symbolists, is the end of world history and the beginning of a new apocalyptic, “supra-historical path”, i.e. religion.

Despite the huge amount of writing, more than 60 volumes of works, the most valuable part of Merezhkovsky's creative heritage is not the novel trilogies that brought him European and world fame, not poetry and dramaturgy, but literary-psychological and religious-philosophical studies. Already in his early articles, he writes about Long, Flaubert, Rousseau, Cervantes, Calderon, Montaigne, Marcus Aurelius, Ibsen, Goncharov, Maikov, Pushkin, etc. Many of these works were included in the collection Eternal Companions (1897). Later, the famous studies “Tolstoy and Dostoevsky”, “The Fate of Gogol” (1903), “Gogol and the Devil” (1906), such collections of literary and philosophical articles as “The Coming Ham” (1906), “Not the world, but the sword” appeared. , “In the still waters” (both - 1908), “Sick Russia” (1910), “It was and will be” (1915), “Why is it risen” (1916), “Non-military diary” (1917). He wrote large articles about Dostoevsky - "The Prophet of the Russian Revolution" (1906), Seraphim of Sarov - "The Last Saint" (1907), Lermontov - "M. Y. Lermontov. Poet of Superhumanity (1909). In 1915 Merezhkovsky published the pamphlets Belinsky's Testament and Two Secrets of Russian Poetry. Nekrasov and Tyutchev" (1915), in which he revised traditional ideas about Russian writers.

October 1917 Merezhkovsky perceived as the coming of the kingdom of the Antichrist, and on December 24. 1919 moves abroad. In Paris, the Merezhkovskys organized the Green Lamp Literary and Philosophical Society (1927-39), which played a prominent role in the intellectual life of the first wave of emigration. People were invited to Lampa meetings according to the list. I. Bunin, B. Zaitsev, G. Fedotov, L. Shestov, G. Adamovich, V. Khodasevich, A. Remizov, N. Berdyaev and many others often visited there. etc. The intensity of Merezhkovsky's work in exile not only does not decrease, but becomes more and more intense. He publishes here his latest historical novel, The Birth of the Gods. Tutankhamun in Crete" (1925), "Messiah" (1927). Trilogy "The Mystery of Three: Egypt and Babylon" (1925), "The Mystery of the West. Atlantis-Europe" (1930) and a huge treatise "Jesus the Unknown" (1932).

In the last years of his life, Merezhkovsky began compiling three hagiographic trilogies, reinterpreting the "Lives of the Saints": "Paul Augustine" (1937), "St. Francis of Assisi" (1938), "Joan of Arc and the Third Kingdom of the Spirit" (1938). These works were published by him under the general title "The faces of the saints from Jesus to us." In the prewar years, Merezhkovsky, together with Gippius, worked on a play from Russian history, Dmitry the Pretender. Merezhkovsky did not have time to recreate the face of Seraphim of Sarov, he died suddenly on December 7. 1941.

Merezhkovsky's religious metaphysics, no matter how fantastic it may seem today, was the writer's organic world. Symbolism, not as a way of depicting life and being, but as a leading method of interpreting man, space and history, was a characteristic feature of both Merezhkovsky and many others. other contemporary writers. Merezhkovsky was constantly worried about questions of the ontology of being, duality and antinomy, religious historiosophy and Christian symbolism. The revelation of the “Unknown” Christian God according to the gospel words was the main pathos of his whole life. However, Merezhkovsky's work, permeated with the idea of ​​a future universal religion, voluntarily or involuntarily included the "charm" of sectarianism, circleism, deviation from the historical Church.

D.S. Merezhkovsky (1866-1941) was the first to theoretically substantiate the emergence of symbolism as a new literary trend, delivering a lecture in 1892 "On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature." D.S. Merezhkovsky is a complex figure in the literature of the Silver Age. His poetry is inseparable from the religious and philosophical searches that he has been engaged in all his life, finding God and a new religion. The influence of the philosopher B.C. Solovyov, writer F.M. Dostoevsky determined the theme of D. Merezhkovsky's poetry: fatal loneliness and split personality, admiration for true beauty and "neo-Christianity", the assertion 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: an orientation towards the traditions of ancient culture and the work of A.S. Pushkin, the tragedy of everyday life, passion for urban topics. In this collection, D. Merezhkovsky anticipated the coming changes in Russia by several years. Collection-nickname "Symbols" - 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 infinitely alone, the priests will leave the gods...

The fourth collection of poetry by D. Merezhkovsky "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 of the collection are permeated with: the desire of 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")

Not accepting the Bolshevik regime, D.S. Merezhkovsky in 1919, together with his wife Z. N. Gippius, left Russia, having spent the second half of his life in France in exile.

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On this page, material on the topics:

• dmitry merezhkovsky features lyrics essay
• d s Merezhkovsky native composition
• Merezhkovsky's work briefly
• life and work of Merezhkovsky briefly
• composition - analysis of the lyrical work of Merezhkovsky native

The poem "Native" by Dmitry Merezhkovsky shows the reader a sad landscape that demonstrates the state of mind. This effect is helped by such means of artistic expression as: epithets (Dull silence, monotonous pine, constant hum, etc.). At the same time, each epithet personifies nature, makes its description much more lively and closer to the reader. It creates the feeling that you yourself are there, together with the author.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky's poem uses metaphors such as "the world is lost".

They create a kind of "fairy tale" of everything that happens.

Cross-rhyme in Dmitry Merezhkovsky's "native" poem is practically not felt, and thanks to this it adds the intonation of a prose text, a sense of a spiritual story. And it makes the poem freer, easier to understand, easier to remember.

All together the means of artistic expression create a picture of the true: calm and peaceful nature. And true feelings, not unusual, very fabulous and deep.