Vyacheslav Ivanov (poet)
Vyacheslav Ivanov | |
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Berlin University |
Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (
Early life
Born in
In 1886 Ivanov married Darya Mikhailovna Dmitrievskaya, the sister of his close childhood friend Aleksei Dmitrievsky. From 1892 he studied
Influenced by his recent discovery and enthusiasm for the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Ivanov and Zinovieva-Annibal surrendered to their mutual attraction, "during a tempestuous night at the Colosseum, which he described in verse as a ritualistic breaking of taboos and regeneration of ancient religious fervor."[4]
In 1895, Ivanov's wife and daughter separated from him almost immediately and, on 15 April 1896, Lidia gave birth to Ivanov's second daughter, who was named Lidia, after her mother.[4]
Both wronged spouses were easily granted
Despite the rejection of
They first settled in Athens, then moving to Geneva, and making pilgrimages to Egypt and Palestine. During that period, Ivanov frequently visited Italy, where he studied Renaissance art. The rugged nature of Lombardy and the Alps became the subject of his first sonnets, which were heavily influenced by the medieval poetry of Catholic mystics.
At the turn of the 20th century, Ivanov elaborated his views on the spiritual mission of Rome and the Ancient Greek cult of Dionysus. He summed up his Dionysian ideas in the treatise The Hellenic Religion of the Suffering God (1904), which traces the roots of literature in general and, following Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, the art of tragedy in particular to ancient Dionysian mysteries. This was because, similarly to his hero Vladimir Soloviev, Ivanov, "understood Nietzsche as a Christian thinker in spite of himself. This explains why he applies New Testament concepts to Nietzsche's fundamentally anti-Christian worldview."[7]
With the assistance of both his ex-wife and the poet and philosopher
The Tower
After capturing the attention of Russian Symbolist poet
According to James H. Billington, "'Viacheslav the Magnificent' was the crown prince and chef de salon of the new society, which met in his seventh floor apartment 'The Tower,' overlooking the gardens of the Tauride Palace in St. Peterburg. Walls and partitions were torn down to accommodate the increasing numbers of talented and disputatious people who flocked to the Wednesday soirees, which were rarely in full swing until after supper had been served at 2 A.M."[10]
According to his close friend
Even during the
At the Tower, Ivanov spearheaded a seachange which brought
Future
More recently, Robert Bird has been less critical, "Nomenclature notwithstanding,
It was at this time that Ivanov wrote the first of his two plays,
The ideas of
Ivanov proposed the creation of a new type of mass theatre, which he called a "collective action," that would be modelled on ancient religious
Rejecting theatrical illusion, Ivanov's modern liturgical theatre would offer not the representation of action (mimesis), but action itself (praxis).[14] This would be achieved by overcoming the separation between stage and auditorium, adopting an open space similar to the classical Greek orchêstra, and abolishing the division between the actors and the audience, so that all became co-creating participants in a sacred rite.[24] Ivanov imagined staging such a performance in a hall in which furniture is distributed "by whim and inspiration."[25] Actors would mingle with the audience, handing out masks and costumes, before, singing and dancing as a chorus, collective improvisation would merge all participants into a communal unity.[25]
Thus, he hoped, the theatre would facilitate a genuinely spiritual revolution in culture and society. Writing in Po zvezdam in 1908, Ivanov argued:
The theatres of the chorus tragedies, the comedies and the mysteries must become the breeding-ground for the creative, or prophetic, self-determination of the people; only then will be resolved the problem of fusing actors and spectators in a single orgiastic body. [...] And only, we may add, when the choral voice of such communities becomes a genuine referendum of the true will of the people will political freedom become a reality.[26]
While some, such as the director Meyerhold, enthusiastically embraced Ivanov's ideas (at least insofar as they proposed overcoming the division between actor and audience in a collective improvisation), others were more skeptical.
Let's suppose we go into the temple-theatre, robe ourselves in white clothes, crown ourselves with bunches of roses, perform a mystery play (its theme is always the same—God-like man wrestles with fate) and then at the appropriate moment we join hands and begin to dance. Imagine yourself, reader, if only for just one minute, in this role. We are the ones who will be spinning round the sacrificial altar—all of us: the fashionable lady, the up-and-coming stockbroker, the worker and the member of the State Council. It is too much to expect that our steps and our gestures will coincide. While the class struggle still exists, these appeals for an aesthetic democratization are strange.[28]
Splintered Symbolism
His wife's death in 1907 was a great blow to Ivanov. Thereafter the dazzling Byzantine texture of his poetry wore thin, as he insensibly slipped into
The medium departed for other targets, however, after Ivanov had a dream of his late wife ordering him to marry Vera Shvarsalon, her daughter by her first marriage. Indeed, he married 23-year-old Vera in the summer of 1913; their son Dmitry had been born in 1912. Vera's death in 1920, at the age of 30, broke his heart.
According to an autobiographical sketch written by Anna Akhmatova, Ivanov first met her in 1910. At the time, Akhmatova was still married to Nikolai Gumilev, who first brought her to the turreted house. There, Akhmatova read some of her verse aloud to Ivanov, who ironically quipped, "What truly heavy romanticism."[29]
Moreover, Akhmatova indignantly recalled that Ivanov would often weep as she recited her verse at the Tower, but would later, "vehemently criticize," the same poems at literary salons. Akhmatova would never forgive him for this.[30]
A short time later, Gumilev left his wife for a
Meanwhile, according to Lazar Fleishman, "The year 1910 marked a crisis in the history of Russian Symbolism. It became clear that the movement was breaking up into two hostile camps. One, headed by Viacheslav Ivanov, constituted the theurgist line (going back to Vladimir Solovyov). The opposite camp, with Valery Bryusov as its major spokesman, rejected all of Symbolism's claims to transcend the limits of art, to fuse art and life, and to subordinate art to religious or mystical goals. Alexander Scriabin's close relations with the Symbolist poets strengthened the theurgist wing of this literary school."[32]
On 18 February 1912, the writer Konstantin Siunnerberg brought Fr. Leonid Feodorov, a priest of the strictly illegal Russian Greek Catholic Church who was on his third secret visit to Russia, to a meeting of the Society of Lovers of the Artistic Word and introduced him to Ivanov. During the subsequent meeting, Ivanov then read aloud an early draft of his essay "Thoughts about Symbolism" and Andrei Bely read aloud his essay "Symbolism".[33] Feodorov later recalled, "The first was quite interesting, the second was a typical example of the chaos reigning in the minds of our intelligentsia... Vyacheslav Ivanov turned out to be a supporter of the Catholic Church and took great interest in the Byzantine Rite. However, his sympathies towards Rome and those of many like him are based on motives of an aesthetic and mystical character, of quite vague and extremely whimsical fantasies."[34]
During an Italian voyage with his wife (1912–13), Ivanov met often with Aurelio Palmieri, an Italian scholar of Eastern Christianity, whose writings were later condemned by the Church as Modernistic. During the same trip Ivanov also routinely defended Catholicism in debates with Vladimir Ern.[34]
Following the Ivanovs' return to Russia in 1913, they made the acquaintances of art critic Mikhail Gershenzon, philosopher Sergei Bulgakov, and composer Alexander Scriabin. He elaborated many of his Symbolist theories in a series of articles, which were finally revised and reissued as Simbolismo in 1936. At that time, he relinquished poetry in favour of translating the works of Sappho, Alcaeus, Aeschylus, and Petrarch into the Russian language.
Ivanov continued, however, to have influence over younger poets and writers. While reading his newly composed paper aloud called, "Symbolism and Immortality" on 10 February 1913, a young Boris Pasternak both echoed and summarized the ideas of both Bely and Ivanov, by saying, "Symbolism achieves realism in religion."[35]
In his diary Cursed Days, Ivan Bunin later recalled, "Once in the spring of 1915, I was walking in the Moscow Zoological Garden and saw a guard... beating a swan with his boot and smashing ducks' heads with the heel of his shoe. When I got home I found V. Ivanov waiting for me. I had to listen to a turgid speech about Russia's 'Christ-like image' and about how, once Russia proved victorious over Germany, this Christ-like Russia would accomplish another great task, i.e., it would spiritually enlighten India -- no less a country than India, which, as regards enlightenment, is three thousand years older than we are!"[36]
After 1917
In 1920, Ivanov moved to
Emigration
From
Ivanov later explained his reasons for becoming a refugee by stating, "I was born free, and the silence there (i.e. in Soviet Russia) leaves an aftertaste of slavery."[38]
For this reason, according to Robert Bird, "Eloquently conversant in all the major European languages, with erudition of rare breadth and depth, Ivanov allied himself with representatives of the religious and cultural revival that occurred in many countries between the wars."[39]
While teaching the
On 17 March 1926, Ivanov pronounced a prayer for reunification composed by his hero Vladimir Soloviev followed by a standard abjuration under oath of all theological principles upon which Russian Orthodoxy differs from Catholicism.[34] In a 1930 open letter in French explaining his conversion to Charles Du Bos,[42] Ivanov recalled, "When I pronounced the Creed, followed by a formula of adherence, I felt Orthodox in the full sense of the word for the first time in my life, in full possession of the sacred treasure that had belonged to me since my baptism, the joy of which had, however, been encumbered for many years by a sense of growing anguish and by the consciousness that I had been severed by the other half of this living treasure of sanctity and grace, that, like a consumptive, I had been breathing with only one lung."[43]
In his 1937 interview for the
Despite his lack of a steady income and worries about the health of his son Dmitri, "by the early 1930s, Ivanov had become a minor star in the European intellectual firmament."[39]
In 1931, Ivanov's intellectual status was further buttressed by a successful defense of Christianity during a debate against Benedetto Croce, who had travelled with a large entourage from Milan especially for the occasion.[42]
Beginning on 11 February 1936, Ivanov began teaching on Tuesdays as professor of Church Slavonic and eventually of many other subjects at the
Ivanov's lectures at the Russicum on Russian literature were considered so challenging that only native Russian speakers and those seminarians most advanced in learning the language attended. Between 1939 and 1940, Ivanov gave a celebrated series of lectures upon the novels of Dostoevsky and, during Russian Christmas in 1940, he gave a reading of several of his own works of Christian poetry about the Nativity of Jesus Christ.[46]
According to former Russicum seminarian Gustav Wetter, Ivanov once summarized the main tenets of
Furthermore, according to Fr. Constantin Simon, Ivanov's, "services as a translator, whose golden pen deftly transformed elegant
According to Robert Bird, "In the emigration, Ivanov proved himself the consummate European, writing essays for leading journals in sophisticated German, Italian, and French. Though his reputation never reached the heights that it had in Russia, these essays attracted a highly literate, if small coterie of admirers, including Martin Buber, Ernst Robert Curtius, Charles Du Bos, Gabriel Marcel, and Giovanni Papini."[16]
According to Fr. Constantin Simon, "He was active as a poet and scholar until his very last day. Besides his poetry, Ivanov also wrote tragedies for the theatre on mythological subjects Tantalus and Prometheus, a few prose works, translations of mostly Greek and Italian poetry and literary criticism. His Roman years brought forth his Roman Sonnets (1924) and his Roman Diary (1944)."[1]
According to Fr. Constantin Simon, "His posthumous mystical allegory, Povest' o Svetomire tsareviche: Skazanie starce-inoke (The Tale of Tsarevich Svetomir, as Told by a Holy Monk) is held by some to contain the key to the whole of his artistic life and quest. The Neoplatonic and Nietzschean tones of his earlier work with their essentially pagan philosophy involving successive epiphanies of the Godhead is muted in his later works, in the light of his rediscovered Christian faith."[1]
According to Robert Bird, both Ivanov's 1926 conversion to Catholicism and his decision to isolate himself, "from the main currents of émigré and Soviet life", later helped contribute to, "an image of near-sanctity". Furthermore, "The late reawakening of Ivanov's poetic muse in 1944 serves as an eloquent reminder that, in the final analysis, he remained, first and foremost, a lyric poet held captive by eternity and struggling to define a place in history."[39]
In his 1944 Roman Diary, Ivanov composed poetry that drew upon the traditional feasts days as set within the differing liturgical calendars of the Russian and Roman Rites, as well as the Christian theology and spiritual symbols of both traditions, while also pondering the violence and chaos of life in Rome during the
Ivanov died in
Legacy
Following his death, the reading of Ivanov's writings continued to be encouraged by
In Russian Thinkers, Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote that after
This is why, according to Robert Bird, following Vyacheslav Ivanov's defection with his family to the West, "In the Soviet Union... his works were not republished for decades, and it became inadvisable - if not wholly impossible - to study them. His name became a footnote to other, more 'acceptable' currents in pre-revolutionary literature. With the
In particular, since the fall of Communism, one of the most widely circulated of Ivanov's published writings has been his Russian language commentary on the
Also see
References
- ^ a b c d e Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Page 526.
- ^ a b Deschartes, O. (1954). "Vyacheslav Ivanov" (PDF). Oxford Slavonic Papers. V.
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Page 527.
- ^ a b c Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 7.
- ^ Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 15.
- ^ Viacheslav Ivanov (2003), Selected Essays, Northwestern University Press. Page viii.
- ^ Viacheslav Ivanov (2003), Selected Essays, Northwestern University Press. Page xii - xiii.
- ^ Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 9.
- ^ a b Viacheslav Ivanov (2003), Selected Essays, Northwestern University Press. Page ix.
- ^ Billington (1966, 497).
- ^ a b Nicolas Zernov (1963), The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century, Darton, Longman & Todd, London. Page 175.
- ^ Nicolas Zernov (1963), The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century, Darton, Longman & Todd, London. Pages 175-176.
- ^ Carlson (1993, 314-315) and Kleberg (1980, 52-53).
- ^ a b Rudninsky (1988, 9).
- ^ Hackel (1982, 80-81).
- ^ a b c d Viacheslav Ivanov (2003), Selected Essays, Northwestern University Press. Page xi.
- ^ a b Golub (1998, 552).
- ^ a b Kleberg (1980, 53) and Rudninsky (1988, 9).
- ^ Carlson (1993, 313-315, 317-318), Rosenthal (2004, 42), and Rudninsky (1981, 27-48).
- ^ Carlson (1993, 314-315).
- ^ Carlson (1993, 315), Golub (1998, 552), and Rudninsky (1988, 9).
- ^ Golub (1998, 552) and Rudninsky (1988, 9).
- ^ a b c Carlson (315).
- ^ Golub (1998, 552), Kleberg (1980, 53), and Rudninsky (1988, 10).
- ^ a b Rudninsky (1988, 10).
- ^ Quoted by Kleberg (1980, 56).
- ^ Carlson (1993, 317-318), Kleberg (1980, 53, 56), and Rudninsky (1988, 10).
- ^ Andrei Bely, writing in 1908, quoted by Rudninsky (1988, 10).
- ^ Polivanov (1994, 38).
- ^ a b Polivanov (1994, 39).
- ^ Polivanov (1994, 38-39).
- ^ Lazar Fleishman (1990), Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics, Harvard University Press. Page 24.
- ^ Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 271, footnote 77.
- ^ a b c Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 37.
- ^ Lazar Fleishman (1990), Boris Pasternak: The Poet and His Politics, Harvard University Press. Pages 50-51.
- Ivan R. Dee, 1998. pp. 251-252.
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Page 52.
- ^ Viacheslav Ivanov (2003), Selected Essays, Northwestern University Press. Page x.
- ^ a b c Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 35.
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Page 52-53.
- ^ Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov (Russian poet) – Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ a b c Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 39.
- ^ Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 237.
- ^ Puskas (2002, 29-31).
- ^ Puskas (2002, 29).
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Pages 528-529.
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Pages 529-530.
- ^ Fr. Constantin Simon, S.J. (2009), Pro Russia: The Russicum and Catholic Work for Russia, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Piazza S. Maria Maggiore, Roma. Page 52, footnote #27.
- ^ Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Pages 250-264.
- ^ a b c Robert Bird (2006), The Russian Prospero: The Creative World of Viacheslav Ivanov, University of Wisconsin Press. Page 40.
- ^ Isaiah Berlin (1978), Russian Thinkers, Penguin Books. Page 183.
Sources
- Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. ISBN 978-0-521-43437-9.
- Billington, James H. 1966. The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretice History of Russian Culture. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-70846-1.
- Carlson, Marvin. 1993. Theories of the Theatre: A Historical and Critical Survey from the Greeks to the Present. Expanded ed. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-8154-3.
- Golub, Spencer. 1998. "Ivanov, Vyacheslav (Ivanovich)." In Banham (1998, 552).
- Hackel, Sergei. 1982. Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova, 1891-1945. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir's Seminary P. ISBN 978-0-913836-85-9.
- Kleberg, Lars. 1980. Theatre as Action: Soviet Russian Avant-Garde Aesthetics. Trans. Charles Rougle. New Directions in Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1993. ISBN 978-0-333-56817-0.
- Polivanov, Konstantin. 1994. Anna Akhmatova and Her Circle. Trans. Patricia Beriozkina. Fayetteville: U of Arkansas P. ISBN 978-1-55728-309-2.
- Puskás, Lásló, et al. 2002. Theodore Romzha: His Life, Times, and Martyrdom. Fairfax, VA: Eastern Christian Publications. ISBN 978-1-892278-31-9.
- Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer. 2004. New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche To Stalinism. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP. ISBN 978-0-271-02533-9.
- Rudnitsky, Konstantin. 1981. Meyerhold the Director. Trans. George Petrov. Ed. Sydney Schultze. Revised translation of Rezhisser Meierkhol'd. Moscow: Academy of Sciences, 1969. ISBN 978-0-88233-313-7.
- ---. 1988. Russian and Soviet Theatre: Tradition and the Avant-Garde. Trans. Roxane Permar. Ed. Lesley Milne. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28195-6. Reprinted as Russian and Soviet Theater, 1905-1932. New York: Abrams.
External links
- V.Ivanov Research Center in Rome
- Works by or about Vyacheslav Ivanov at Internet Archive
- Works by Vyacheslav Ivanov at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- An ample selection of English translations of verse and prose poems by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1921
- English translations of 2 short poems
- Russian Virtual Library's Collection of Ivanov's Poetry and Prose (in Russian)
- The Poems by Vyacheslav Ivanov (English)