1 Vozvrat (Moscow), The book carries the date 1904, which is actually the date of acceptance by the censor. In his memoirs Belyj records that he worked at the symphony in 1901 and 1902. Net rubeže dvukh stoletij (Moscow, 1930), pp. 403, 443-44.

2 Zoloto v lazuri (Moscow, 1904).

3 Severnaja simfonija (Pervaja, geroičeskaja) (Moscow, 1903). Vtoraja simfonija (Dramatičeskaja) (Moscow, 1902).

4 In his prefatory chapter “On Romantic Mentality” in the book Studies in European Literature (New York, 1930), and in his volume Aspects of Modernism (London, 1935), Professor Lavrin vividly describes the symbolist aspect of the romantic mentality.

5 In establishing motivation, the author has accepted compensatory reaction as a valid explanation. In this, the approach will resemble that of Ivanov-Razumnik in Istorija russkoj obščestvennoj mysli (6th ed.; St. Petersburg, 1918).

6 Hence the compensation reaction that prompted them to disdain the coming master and to register their feelings in attempts to “shock the Philistines” and to reject the “small man's” beliefs.

7 Solovëv, Vladimir, Tri razgovora o vojne, progresse i konce vsemirny istorii (St. Petersburg, 1900).Google Scholar

8 Thus, two precursors of symbolism, Nikolaj Minskij and Dmitrij Merežkovskij, regard themselves as harbingers foreshadowing a “new dawn.” Each expresses this belief in poems entitled “Before the Dawn” (Pered zareju). Merežkovskij's is found in Russkaja mysl' No. 9 (1894), p. 204; Minskij's in Iz mraka k svetu (Berlin, 1922), p. 9.

9 In his reminiscences, Na rubeže dvukh stoletij, pp. 163-250, passim., Belyj describes, without stressing it however, another psychological factor that would have tended to predispose him to a dualistic philosophy. In his “problem of scissors” (cf. p. 181) Belyj describes himself as being constantly torn between his two parents, between his natural, intellectual inclination to his father, and his emotional, aesthetic leaning toward his mother, both of whom constantly fought for control of the child. The mother, determined to have no “second mathematician” in the family, went to extremes in order to retard her “Kitten's” intellectual development. The boy was thus prompted to develop a dual personality; he normally, therefore, hid behind a cloak of stupidity, which he shed only occasionally in the presence of his father, Professor N. Bugaev (cf. pp. 71 ff.).

10 Herein Belyj and his colleagues follow Schopenhauer's idea expressed in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung in Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1938), I, 217. See Belyj's “Formy iskusstva” in his book Simvolizm, pp. 147-74, 507-23; also: “Any art begins [only] there, where the human spirit, be it even unconsciously, proclaims the pre-eminence of art over knowledge.” Arabeski (1911), p. 19.

11 “Auf den niedrigen Stufen seiner Objektität, wo er noch ohne Erkenntniss wirkt, betrachtet die Gesetze der Veränderungen seiner Erscheinungen die Naturwissenschaft als Aetiologie.” Schopenauer, op. cit., p. 217.

12 In his reminiscences, Načalo veka (Moscow, 1933), p. 323, Belyj recalls how Vjačeslav Ivanov used to greet him, “Well, Gogolek, start up your Moscow chronicle!” Belyj's interest in Gogol was crowned with his book Masterstvo Gogolja (Moscow, 1934). One of Belyj's pseudonyms was “Janovskij,” adopted in honor of Gogol.

13 Herein Belyj again follows Schopenhauer: “Die Musik ist nämlich eine so unmittelbare Objektivation und Abbild des ganzen Willens, wie die Welt es ist, ja wie die Ideen es sind.

“Die Musik ist also keineswegs, gleich den andern Künsten, des Abbild der Ideen; sondern Abbild des Willens selbst, dessen Objektität auch die Ideen sind …” Schopenhauer, , op. cit., p. 304.Google Scholar

“Die Musik ist demnach, wenn als ausdruck der Welt angesehen, eine im höchsten Grad allgemeine Sprache, die sich sogar zur Allgemeinheit der Begriffe ungefähr verhalt wie diese zu den einzelnen Dingen.” Ibid., p. 309.

14 Severnaja simjonija, p. 95.

15 “The striving after combining words in images is the basic trait of poetry.” Simvolizm, p. 448.

16 Severnaja simfonija, p. 12.

17 Belyj's mythical creatures reflect his desire to practice mythurgy. Here, like many another modernist, he is attracted by the irrationality of old religions. In mythurgy, Belyj (following Ivanov, who in turn follows Nietzsche) saw a sign in the regeneration of man through reverting to a naïve primitivism. Belyj has a whole cycle of poems depicting centaurs in Zoloto v lazuri (pp. 124-32). Belyj here was influenced, not only by the reproductions of paintings of Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901) and tales from the Greek myths, but also by the fact that the circle of “Argonauts,” consisting of Belyj and his university colleagues, often indulged in playing centaurs. Belyj records: “I shall not forget [S. L. Ivanov's] ‘Gallop of a centaur’ past the walls of the Novodevičij monastery—toward the little pond: arms akimbo; eyes popping; cheeks ballooning. The ‘scholar’ was thus the portrayer of my verses about centaurs.” (Načalo veka, p. 23.) Of interest is Yeats's coincidental depiction of a black centaur: “On a Picture of a Black Centaur by Edmund Dulac” in Collected Poems (New York, 1942), pp. 248-49.

18 Belyj, , Sobranie sočinenij (Moscow, 1917), IV, 126.Google Scholar

19 In an article on Nietzsche, Belyj writes: “Among [the Europeans] here and there begin to appear representatives of the … coming race, endowed with clairvoyance.” Arabeski, p. 62.

20 “Siehe, wir wissen, was Du lehrst: Dass alle Dinge ewig wiederkehren und wir selbst mit, und dass wir schon ewige Male dagewen sind, und alle Dinge mit uns… .

“Nun sterbe und schwinde ich, würdest du sprechen, und im Nu bin ich ein Nichts. Die Seelen sind so sterblich wie die Leiber.”

“Aber der Knoten von Ursachen kehrt wieder, in den ich verschlungen bin,—der wird mich wieder schaffen! Ich selber gehöre zu Ursachen der ewigen Wiederkunft.

“Ich komme wieder … nicht zu einem neuen Leben,oder ähnlichen Leben:—ich komme ewig zu diesem gleichen und selbigen Leben, im Grössten und ouch im Kleinsten.” Zarathustra, pp. 281-82.

21 Handrikov, incidentally, develops a first-rate, clinically speaking, case of paranoia. This seems to be a logical progression over his predecessor, Dostoevskij's Mr. Goljadkin (The Double), who is at best a paranoic schizophrenic. (I am referring to an unpublished paper by one of our students, Miss Evelyn Bristol.) Belyj, incidentally, was quite proud of the clinical soundness of his case. See Načalo veka, p. 368.

22 Vozvrat (Berlin, 1922), p. 61. The first edition of The Return seems unavailable in the United States.

23 Ibid., pp. 41, 62, 111.

24 Ibid., p. 54.

25 The Waste Land of T. S. Eliot is a good example of the “disjunctive phenomena.” The sudden changes from one image to another creates the illusion of unreality.

26 Vozvrat, pp. 73-74.

27 “ To the Isle of Children beckons us Zarathustra….” Arabeski, p. 72.

28 Vozvrat, p. 7.

29 See Zarathustra, p. 25. See also Belyj: “ The path to our emancipation [Nietzsche] designated as the metamorphoses of the camel [bearer of the old tablets of commandments] into the lion, and the lion [i.e., the destroyer of the tablets] into the child …” Arabeski, p. 72.

30 Zarathustra, p. 151.

31 Arabeski, p. 135.

32 “The old God has become for Nietzsche the child whom his soul is prepared to bear. Yet did not Christ, in admitting His Father into His soul, transform the Father in turn into his own child—the spirit of beneficence, issuing from the Father, Whom He had sent to us.” (Arabeski, p. 71.) “Nietzsche … symbolizes the absolutely free spirit … now in a child, now in Superman.” (Ibid., p. 60.)

33 There, he is “some one robed in white” who comes from the mists and calls the “white children.” Severnaja simfonija, pp. 119-20.

34 Vozvrat, p. 27.

35 Sobranie sočinenij, IV, 214-15.

36 Vozvrat, p. 8.

37 Ibid., p. 9.

38 ibid., p. 13.

39 Ibid., pp. 23-25.

40 Ibid., p. 31.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid., pp. 35-36.

43 Ibid., pp. 37-38.

44 Ibid., p. 45.

45 Sofia Čižikovna is perhaps a caricature of the Divine Sophia, with the siskin offered in contrast to the dove.

46 Vozvrat, p. 46.

47 Ibid., p. 47.

48 The Russian degree of Master of Arts approximated in requirements our degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It usually entitled one to teach in an institution of higher education.

49 Vozvrat, p. 50.

50 Ibid., p. 38.

51 Ibid., p. 25.

52 Ibid., p. 49.

53 Ibid., pp. 72, 80.

54 Ibid., p. 17.

55 Madness plays an important role in the works of Belyj. Thus, not only does Handrikov go insane, but the philosopher of his second symphony meets a similar fate. The tragic figure of the insane Nietzsche is undoubtedly the prototype of these images.

56 Vozvrat, pp. 117-18.

57 Ibid., p. 121.

58 Ibid., pp. 123-24; cf. note 31 supra.

59 Herein we see the identity of the child-superman. “One seeks [him] who has passed over abysses, and who has ended his journey in rest on the other shore. Through his tragic face, torn to shreds, emerges a new face, acquired forever—the face of a child, calmed on the other shore—the face that regards us with a smile of tender sadness.” Arabeski, p. 133.