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Fedor Sologub's Postrevolutionary Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Evelyn Bristol
Evelyn Bristol*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic Languages, University of California (Berkeley)
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Extract

Sologub is generally remembered, after his novel The Petty Demon, for the poetry of his middle period, the Symbolist era, but his last books of verse are his best, and they are of additional interest for their marked poetic conservatism compared with the earlier works. Sologub alone of the major Symbolists who stayed in the Soviet Union continued to mature in poetic ability and remained as productive as before 1917; unlike Blok, Belyj and Brjusov, he never accepted the revolution, and suffered no subsequent disillusionment. Sologub's verse was apparently little altered by the revolution and Soviet regime. Of the eight small books of verse which appeared between 1921 and 1923, most are on themes familiar from the prerevolutionary poetry; although two of the boks are on civic topics and contain revolutionary poems, most of the poems in them were written before 1917.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , October 1960 , pp. 414 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1960

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References

1 bes Melkij (St. Petersburg, Shipovnik, 1907), and previously serialized in Voprosy Zhizni (1905), Nos. 6 to 11.

2 These and other unpublished works by Sologub are located in the Sologub archive at the Institute of Russian Literature in Leningrad. A short description of the archive including several poems from it is given by Razumnik Ivanov in “Sologub Fedor,” Pisatel'skie sud'by (New York, Literaturnyj Fond, 1951), pp. 13'19. Other poems are quoted by Orest Cexnovicer in his preface to the 1933 edition of Melkij bes, and again by Gleb Struve in “Tri sud'by. III. Rycar' pechal'nogo obraza,” Novyj Zhurnal, Volume XVII (1947), pp. 204'11. The existence of yet other anti-Soviet poems is indicated by Peter Ryss. In “Sologub F. K.,” Portrety (Paris, Rapid-Imprimerie, n.d., no pagination), Ryss records a private reading in 1918 where Sologub read “for over an hour” his 'counter-revolutionary' poems.

3 Sojuz dejatelej iskusstv. Sologub signed on their behalf resolutions rejecting appeals from Lunacharksij. See: Dienerstein, E. A., “ Majakovskij v fevrale-oktjabre 1917 g.,” Literaturnoe Nasledstvo, Volume 65 (1958), pp.541'70.Google Scholar

4 Sojuz dejatelej khudozhestvennoj literatury. For a history of this organization, founded by Sologub, his wife, and Nikolaj Gumilev, see: Shirmakov P. P., “K istorii literaturnokhudozhestvennoj literatury (1918'1919 gody),” Voprosy Sovetskoj Literatury, Volume VII (1958), pp. 454–75. Shirmakov states that the organization was short-lived in general because of its tendency to 'isolationism' and 'independence' from the Soviet government.

5 Pravda, December 6,1927, No. 279 (3811).

6 Incense (Fimiamy) (St. Petersburg, Stranstujushchij Entuziast, 1921); One Love. Poems. (Odna ljubov'. Stikhi) (St. Petersburg, 1921); The Toll of the Cathedral Bell. Poems. (Sobornyj blagovest. Stikhi), (St. Petersburg, Epokha, 1921); Blue Sky. Poems. (Nebo goluboe. Stikhi) (Reval, Bibliophile, 1922); Panpipes (Svirel') (Petrograd, Petropolis, 1922); The Enchanted Cup (Charodejnaja chasha), (St. Petersburg, Epokha, 1922); Wayside Fire (Koster dorozhnyj) (Moscow, Tvorchestvo, 1922); The Toll of the Great Church Bell. Poems. (Valikij blagovest. Stikhi) (Moscow, Gosud. Izdatel'stvo, 1923).

7 In several articles on poetry Sologub expressed his own aesthetic in terms of Don Quixote's transformation o the actual Aldonsa into the ideal Dulcinea. See especially “Iskusstvo nashikh dnej,” Russkaja Mysl' (1915), No. 12, pp. 35'62 (II).