Biography The content of the article

Dmitry Merezhkovsky. Life and Acts. Against this background, the book of Yuri Zobnin is not very remarkable in itself about Merezhkovsky seems to be a return to the origins of the genre, with all its advantages and disadvantages. It is easily and quite excitingly written, the author does not evade fiction or science, does not get stuck in the material, is not afraid of generalizations, knows the texture.

It is quite clear why the editorial office of the ZhZL is betting on him - in the near future, Vyacheslav Ivanov, sculpting by the St. Petersburg researcher, apparently, apparently, other Meters of the Silver Age, is expected after Morozhkovsky. Of course, the Book of Zobnin is openly comprehensive, it has many quotes and retelling of quite famous and affordable sources and a minimum of independent surveys.

But in the absence of any serious biography of Merezhkovsky and competent compilation, the option is not the worst. The problem, however, is that the biography is always a “portrait in the background”, that is, not only the text, but also the context, not only the hero himself, but also his environment. And then the reader of Zobnin now and then faces irritating small inaccuracies.

In itself, not too significant and the “main plot” do not affect, at the same time they undermine confidence in the whole - what kind of biography is this, where every detail needs to be double -checking? Here is a crop, which is collected only from two pages, where it is about the new acquaintances of the Merezhkovsky mid -x. The author exaggerated the gloom of Pertsov and Merezhkovsky.

In fact, by the year of Comrade - Pertsov really amounted to two anthologies - “Young Poetry” and “Philosophical Times of Russian Poetry”. But out of 42 poets presented in the first of them, symbolists can only be called Merezhkovsky, Minsk, Bryusov and Balmont, moreover, they were all more or less widely known before the release of “young poetry”, so there is no “first” we are talking about.

Pertsov himself subsequently wrote that the “Fofanovsky moment” of the history of Russian poetry was captured in anthology, which preceded symbolism. As for the “philosophical movements ...”, they are even composed of poems by Russian classics from Pushkin to Apukhtin and related analytical articles and are related to the “struggle for idealism” in Russian criticism, but not to symbolism as such.

But Volynsky was especially unlucky. The whole image of criticism and editor is woven from stretch and inaccuracies why, for example, Zobnin believes that Volynsky, proceeding to the revision of the history of Russian criticism, was counting on “gratitude” from the “figures of liberal democracy”? In fact, not “colleagues”, but one Volyn, and not for “solemn dinner”, but “for tea”.

In addition, the essay of Volynsky about the Hippius of the year “Sylphide”, from where this information is called, is called “unpublished memories” and is quoted by A. Evstigneeva and N. Pushkareva to publish letters to Hippius to Volynsky in the almanac “past”. However, Sylphide was printed 15 years ago, in the production of the same “past”, as part of the cycle of essays-portraits of Volynsky “Russian women”.

And it is completely arbitrary that made on the basis of one, no descriptive and “objective”, fragment of “sylphides”, the statement that “even after thirty -four years [after meeting with Hippius. In fairness, I note that such “blunders” in the transition “from text to context” are characteristic by no one of the zobnin. For example, Cracked by criticism and Olaure-based Barlamov’s book about A.

Tolsta was built in the same way-the confident presentation of the Tolstoyean canvas itself is replaced by approximately approaches and inaccuracies, it is worth taking a step to the side. So, the writer of Sarkis Amirjanov, who later performed under the pseudonym Sergei Borodin, was the culprit of the Mandelstam conflict with Tolstoy, led to the famous slap. In fact, the opposite is true: this is Sergey Petrovich Borodin, who wrote a lot about Central Asia, Umir Sargijan used the pseudonym for up to a year.

Let us return, however, to the zobnin. Above, it was about errors, so to speak, "non -functional." And here are examples of inaccuracies “with meaning”. At the beginning of the year, the text will be published in the same collection of critical works by Merezhkovsky ... ” - we will interrupt the quote. Firstly, the lectures were called "On the Reasons for the Decline of Russian Literature" and "On the new currents of modern Russian literature." And the general name first appeared in the aforementioned book of the year, so the definition of the “same name” is not suitable for it.

Secondly, this book was not a “collection of critical works”, but by reproducing the text of those very lectures. Finally, thirdly. Merezhkovsky, who feels himself the heir to the Decembrists, is the assumption no worse than anyone else. There are no special grounds for him, but there is nothing criminal in such assumption. However, why, for the sake of a spectacular guess, to be silent about the fact that one of the lectures was first given to Merezhkovsky on October 26 in the Russian literary society?

In the end, Oktyabrist is also a beautiful word.And this is far from the only example of neglect of facts for the sake of the production of the dubious taste of effects. For example, the famous episode with Diaghilev’s visit to Burenin Zobnin retells Pertsov through the “literary memoirs”, but at the same time a “fingering blow” by the cylinder “on physiognomy” turns into “packed unlucky criticism of the face of a different expression and not to choose”.

But if the actual side of Merezhkovsky’s biography as a whole is nevertheless reproduced soundly, then the conceptual part causes much more doubt. Author's generalizations are often too sweeping, the assessments are arbitrary, and the interpretations are approximate. Exactly opposite. No matter how you relate to the RFU, it is not to admit that the interests of the vast majority of intellectual “fractions” their problems had absolutely nothing to do with the interests of the vast majority.

What gives the zobnin the reason to believe that the ancient translations of Merezhkovsky, very coolly met by contemporaries and traditionally third -thirds, “now make up the pride of the Russian school of artistic translation”? Under “historical” Christianity, Merezhkovsky understood, of course, not only “the practice of modern clergy”. Examples can be multiplied. But the saddest thing is that Sobnin is not at all going to be satisfied with the role of the collector and compoter.

There is a “fork” between the author’s ambitions and the reality of his text. As a result, the analysis of the problem is constantly replaced by arbitrary psychologization and no less arbitrary evaluative characteristics “nonsense! And Hippius of sympathy does not cause a role! The desire to certainly create a “concept”, to make the “discovery” ultimately leads to a zobnin to a sensational conclusion: Merezhkovsky’s notorious speech on the French radio in support of the “liberation of Russia from the Bolsheviks”, carried out by Nazi Germany, is nothing more than a legend.

And the article “Bolshevism and Humanity”, printed in the collaborationist “Parisian messenger” three years after the death of the writer and is still considered the text of that very radio, is a fake, concocted by Mussolinian propaganda. Proof - in the year the last work of Merezhkovsky’s “The Secret of the Russian Revolution” was published, which was considered lost, but preserved in Paris, in a private archive for more than half a century.

The text of this essay in a large part coincides with the text of the article from the Parisian Herald, although it many times exceeds it in volume. The conclusion - the fascist propagandists created on the basis of the manuscript of Merezhkovsky, sent by him to his Italian translator, agita, who misled the Russian Parisians. In this chain of assumptions, not a single link is documented.

It is not known whether the Merezhkovsky manuscript “The Secrets of the Russian Revolution” sent to Italy. There is no evidence of interest in Merezhkovsky from the Mussolinian propagandists. It is not clear why none of the contemporaries of events has ever refuted the repeatedly voiced version of the writer's radio, the radio execution of the writer. Finally, why not assume that Merezhkovsky himself used his last work to create campaign material on his basis?

It seems that this way of explaining textual coincidences is much more simple and logical. But the worst pages of the book are dedicated to ...

Vyacheslav Ivanov - to Tor Vyacheslav Ivanov, whose biography is now preparing. The main content of the five "Ivanovo" pages is prosecutorial intonation, in the narrative of Merezhkovsky manifesting only occasionally. The poet and thinker are appointed responsible for all silver -haired excesses, up to the intention of Alexander Kursinsky to “rape everyone”. Apparently, in the near future readers of ZhZL awaits many pleasant minutes.

Mikhail Edelstein [1] font discharge belongs to the author of the book. A constant indication of the particular importance of certain provisions with the help of italics and semi -fat looks, in my opinion, quite comical. However, a matter of taste, of course.