Valery Bryusov - biography (briefly). Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich, brief biography and creativity Bryusov education

Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich (1873 - 1924) - Russian and Soviet poet, prose writer, editor, translator. One of the first Russian writers who turned to the artistic direction of symbolism.

Life path and creativity

Valery Bryusov was born into the Moscow family of the merchant Yakov Bryusov on December 1 (13), 1873. Parents limited the boy's access to religious literature and promoted Darwin's theories and atheism. Despite this, he received an excellent education in private gymnasiums.

"The Youth of a Genius" (1890s - 1899).

In 1893-99. Bryusov was a student of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. By this time, there was a passion for the writings of French symbolists, a decision to develop symbolism in Russian literature. In 1894-95. Bryusov, hiding under the name of Valery Maslov, publishes 3 collections called "Russian Symbolists", in which he publishes translations, his own poems and poems by other authors.

In 1895, he published a collection of poems "Chefs d "oeuvre" ("Masterpieces"). Young Bryusov is characterized by narcissism and a sense of superiority over the ordinary. At this time, he wrote in his diary: "My youth is the youth of a genius". The first collection and early works are characterized by the themes of the struggle with the outdated world, the desire to get away from everyday life and create a new world, similar to what Bryusov found in the writings of the Symbolists.

The young poet is actively experimenting with the form and rhyme of the verse. For example, the scandalous monostic “Oh close these pale legs” (1895), in which the literary community saw both a mockery of poetry, erotic overtones or biblical motifs.

After university, he works in the Russian Archive magazine, and becomes close to Balmont. Since 1899, Bryusov has headed the Scorpio publishing house.

Pre-revolutionary period (1900-1917)

Bryusov is noted in the history of Russian literature as an active publisher and editor. After "Scorpio" he participates in the publication of the almanac "Balance", one of the leading magazines of Russian symbolism.

Every three years he publishes a collection of poems: "The Third Guard" (1900), highly noted in the creative environment; "City and Peace" (1903), "Wreath" (1906), in which he refers to the image of the city and civil lyrics. The following collections are marked by intimacy, sincerity, and simplicity of expressing thoughts and feelings: “All Melodies” (1909), “Mirror of Shadows” (1912).

During the First World War, the poet went to the front as a correspondent, creating patriotic poems. This spiritual upsurge is soon replaced by other moods, full of premonitions of the imminent death of the modern system. During the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. Bryusov creates the drama "Earth" (1904) about the death of mankind, the short story "The Last Martyrs" (1906) about the end of the life of Russian intellectuals.

The revolution of 1917 and the establishment of a new government were received with enthusiasm by Bryusov. This is noted in the poetic (five new collections of poems), translation, educational and teaching activities. At Moscow University, the poet lectured on literature and history. He took part in the formation of various Soviet literary and poetic associations.

In 1919-1921. headed the All-Russian Union of Poets. He created the Literary and Art Institute (1921), headed it as a rector, received the academic title of professor.

Bryusov's later poems are marked by the glorification of the new Soviet system, interest in science as a source of inspiration, the search for new sounds and poetic forms.

Blok considered himself unworthy of reviewing this genius, and even more so of publishing with him in the same journal. The fact is that the main poet of the Silver Age, having re-read the work of Valery Yakovlevich, was so amazed by his creation that he immediately put himself on a lower rank. It is worth saying that the poet, whose poems are quoted by lovers of literature to this day, was deified by his contemporaries. Many saw in Bryusov the messiah, coming along the waters of intricately woven lines and denoting new rounds of literature.

In fact, this master of the pen is rightfully considered the founder of Russian symbolism and the forerunner of acmeism, which acquired both admirers and followers, and insidious ill-wishers.

It is noteworthy that Valery Yakovlevich is known not only for his poems - this talented writer also showed himself in translations, journalism and non-trivial prose. Bryusov is familiar from the works “August”, “I Forgive Everything”, “I Love”, “First Snow” and other remarkable works that have become immortal.

Childhood and youth

The master of Russian symbolism was born on a cold winter day on December 1 (13), 1873 in the very heart of Russia. The future poet grew up and was brought up in a wealthy merchant family with his sister Nadezhda, who became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

Valery Yakovlevich has an interesting pedigree. His paternal grandfather, Kuzma Andreevich, was a serf of the landowner Bruce, and two years before the abolition of serfdom - a reform carried out - he redeemed himself and began his trading business. Thanks to perseverance and diligence, Kuzma Andreevich got out of the rags to riches and acquired a two-story mansion on Tsvetnoy Boulevard in Moscow.

On the mother's side, the writer's grandfather was Alexander Yakovlevich Bakulin, known to his contemporaries as a fabulist and author of the collection Fables of a Provincial. Perhaps it was this person who influenced Valery Yakovlevich.

As for Valery's father, Yakov Kuzmich was a mysterious and ambiguous figure, he sympathized with the ideas of the populist revolutionaries, who, driven by the socialist ideas of Herzen, wanted in every way to get closer to the intelligentsia and find their place in the world. The head of the family was a gambler: carried away by horse racing, Bryusov Sr. instantly squandered his entire fortune on bets and almost lost a penny in his pocket.

It is noteworthy that Bryusov's parents were not pious people, they did not educate their offspring, but they protected him from "religious fairy tales". Thus, the future poet knew much more about naturalistic ideas than about the details of life and crucifixion.

Valery Yakovlevich early became addicted to literature. Instead of playing with the boys in the yard, the future author of the poem "The Coming Huns" spent his time reading classics and tabloid novels, it can be said that the young man devoured books one by one. Even scientific articles that accidentally fell into the hands of Bryusov did not go unnoticed.

Valery's favorites were the author of adventure literature, who gave the world "Captain Nemo", and the writer who composed "The Headless Horseman", Thomas Mine Reed. It is also known that Valery Yakovlevich received a brilliant education, he studied at two prestigious gymnasiums, and in the last years of his stay at school he began to show interest in the queen of sciences - mathematics - and successfully solved the most complex equations and problems.

Perhaps the name of Bryusov would be on a par with Francois Vieta and, however, the young man chose a different, creative path. Having earned a matriculation certificate, the young man continued to receive education and became a student at Moscow University. - studied at the Faculty of History and Philology.

Literature

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov knew his vocation from childhood, so already at the age of 13 he was writing poetry. Yakov Kuzmich supported his offspring in all endeavors, so he sent the creative efforts of his beloved child to publications and even sent his essay about a vacation with his family to the children's magazine "Sincere Word". Written by an eleven-year-old boy, "Letter to the Editor" was published in 1884.

Although Bryusov's early poems were composed with a bang, the young man's first stories cannot be called successful. It is worth noting that when young Valery took an inkwell and a pen, he was inspired by the classic of Russian literature. Later, Bryusov began to admire Semyon Yakovlevich Nadson.

It is noteworthy that already in 1893 the young poet set himself the goal of becoming a distributor of symbolism in Russia. The Symbolists tried to expose the existence of every soul and endow the protagonist with the whole spectrum of human experiences. said that the emergence of this trend is "the desire to forget, to be on the other side of good and evil."

Bryusov's views were preceded by fascination with French poets, he enjoyed the works of Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé and eventually became the author of the drama The Decadents (End of the Century, 1893). In 1899, Valery Yakovlevich received a diploma and began to intensively engage in literature and develop the theory of symbolism. Around the same time, Bryusov became close to.

The acquaintance of the two poets later grew into a strong friendship, they closely communicated until the emigration of Konstantin Dmitrievich. It got to the point that at the beginning of the 20th century, Bryusov dedicated to his friend the collection “Tertia Vigilia” (“The Third Guard”), which literary critics consider the first germ of the urban stage of the writer’s work: the author more and more often sings in his writings of the expanses of a noisy city and scrupulously describes even the smallest details.

Three years later, Bryusov's creative biography is replenished with a collection of civil lyrics "Urbi et Orbi" ("City and Peace"). The collection includes the elegy "Woman", the ballad "Slave", as well as sonnets, poems, odes and epistles. The works of Valery Yakovlevich from "Urbi et Orbi" influenced, and.

Further, Valery Yakovlevich becomes the author of the collection "Στεφανος" ("Wreath", 1905), which, according to Bryusov, is the apogee of his work. All the works from the "Wreath" were written under the influence of a fierce revolution, which could not but affect the mood of the author. There are few poems about love in this book, but the active civil position of the poet is expressed.

In 1907, Valery Yakovlevich became the author of his debut novel, The Fiery Angel. The plot was based on the relationship between Bryusov, Andrei Bely and Nina Petrovskaya, however, the actions of the main characters do not take place in Moscow, but in medieval Europe. The writer seasons the work with fantastic elements and borrows motifs taken from Faust.

Later, the work of Valery Bryusov is correlated with the revolution, and, judging by the works of the poet, he, like the Marxists, began to praise the Bolshevik coup and became the founder of Russian literary Leniniana, contradicted his own postulate, set out in the poem "To the Young Poet" (1896).

According to the writers, Valery Yakovlevich strove to become part of the new era under the general rumble, but he did not find the support of the public and could not withstand the competition from the new Soviet poetry, which was identified with and.

Personal life

As for his personal life, Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was married only once: in 1897, the writer made a marriage proposal to Joanna Runt, a Czech by birth, who agreed. The lovers lived hand in hand until their death, and Joanna was both a faithful wife and a muse, inspiring the poet to new works. There were no children in the Bryusov family.

Death

The founder of symbolism in Russia died on October 9, 1924 in Moscow. The cause of death is pneumonia. The great poet was interred at the Novodevichy cemetery. It is known that after the death of her beloved John Matveevna, she published the unpublished works of her husband.

Bibliography

• 1895 - "Chefs d'Oeuvre" ("Masterpieces")
• 1903 - "Urbi et orbi" ("To the city and the world")
• 1907–1911 - "Earth's Axis"
• 1907 - "Fiery Angel"
• 1909 - "All the tunes"
• 1911–1912 – “The Altar of Victory. Tale of the 4th century"
• 1912 - Mirror of Shadows
• 1913 - Nights and Days
• 1916 - Rhea Sylvia. Eluli son of Eluli
• 1916 - "Seven Colors of the Rainbow"
• 1916–1917 - "Ninth Kamena"
• 1917-1919 - "Last Dreams"
• 1922 - "Dali"
• 1924 - "Mea" ("Hurry")
• 1928 - "Unpublished poems"

aliases: Valery Maslov, Aurelius, Bakulin, Nellie

Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, literary critic, literary critic and historian; one of the founders of Russian symbolism

Valery Bryusov

short biography

Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich- famous Russian poet, one of the founders of Russian symbolism, prose writer, playwright, literary critic, critic, translator. The Moscow merchant family, in which he was born on December 13 (December 1, O.S.), 1873, did not pay much attention to the upbringing of his son. Most often, Valery was left to himself, so he had the opportunity to read everything that was at hand, starting with scientific articles and ending with tabloid novels. The first poem was written by him at the age of 8, and the first publication of Bryusov took place in the magazine for children "Sincere Word" when the boy was 11 years old. Not particularly concerned with their son, the parents nevertheless provided him with a good education. From 1885 to 1893 He studied at two private gymnasiums. As a 13-year-old teenager, Bryusov already realized that his life calling was connected with poetry.

In the early 90s. Bryusov was seriously carried away by the French Symbolists, who, by his own admission, opened up a new world, inspired a different type of creativity. In a letter written in 1893 to Verlaine, the young Bryusov positions himself as the founder of a new literary movement in Russia, and names its dissemination as his mission. Between 1893 and 1899 he was a student of the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. During 1894-1895 he published three collections under the title "Russian Symbolists", most of the poems in which were written by himself. In 1895, his debut "personal" collection appeared - "Masterpieces", which caused fire with a pretentious title, which critics considered inappropriate to the content.

After graduating from the university in 1899, Bryusov got the opportunity to devote himself completely to creativity. The second half of the 90s is marked in his biography by a rapprochement with symbolist poets. In 1899, Bryusov was among the initiators and leaders of the new Scorpion publishing house, which rallied supporters of the movement around itself. In 1897, Bryusov married Ioanna Runt, who until the death of the poet was his faithful friend and assistant.

In 1900, the book "The Third Guard" was published, written in line with symbolism, which opened a new stage in Bryusov's creative biography. From 1901 to 1905, Bryusov was directly involved in the creation of the almanac "Northern Flowers", from 1904 to 1909 he was the editor of the main central printed organ of the Symbolists - the magazine "Scales". The significance of Bryusov's activities for Russian modernism and symbolism in particular is difficult to overestimate. Both the publication he headed and he himself were known as great literary authorities, Bryusov was called the master, the priest of culture.

Bryusov considered the apogee of his work to be the collection "Wreath", which was written in the conditions of the revolutionary events of 1905. In 1909, the publication of "Balance" was stopped, and by the next year there was a noticeable decrease in the activity of the symbolism movement. Bryusov no longer positions himself as the leader of this trend, does not lead a literary struggle for the right to exist, his position becomes more balanced. Period 1910-1914 Literary critics call Bryusov's crisis both spiritual and creative. When the First World War began, in 1914 he was sent to the front as a war correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti.

With the advent of the Bolsheviks to power, a new life and creative stage began. V.Ya. Bryusov develops a vigorous activity, striving to be at the forefront everywhere. In 1917-1919. he was the head of the Committee for the Registration of the Press, in 1918-1919. - Head of the Moscow Library Department at the People's Commissariat for Education, in 1919-1921. he is the chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets (the poet's entry into the Bolshevik Party in 1919 contributed to his stay in this post). There were such episodes in his biography as work in the State Publishing House, head of the literary sub-department of art education at the People's Commissariat of Education, membership in the state academic council, professorship at Moscow State University. In 1921, Valery Yakovlevich became the organizer of the Higher Literary and Art Institute, of which he was a professor and rector until the end of his life. Bryusov was the editor of the Department of Literature, Art and Linguistics in the team preparing the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Creative activity also remained active, but his creative experiments inspired by the revolution remained equally little understood by both supporters of modernism and the broad masses. Nevertheless, on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1923, the Soviet government presented the poet with a diploma for services to the country. Death overtook Bryusov on October 9, 1924. The cause was croupous pneumonia, probably aggravated by the writer's long years of addiction to drugs. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Biography from Wikipedia

creative way

Childhood

Valery Bryusov was born on December 1 (13), 1873 in Moscow, into a merchant family. The future emperor of symbolism was on the maternal side the grandson of the merchant and poet-fabulist Alexander Yakovlevich Bakulin, who published in the 1840s. collection "Fables of a provincial" (Bryusov signed some of his works with the name of his grandfather).

Valery's grandfather, Kuzma Andreevich, the ancestor of the Bryusovs, was a serf of the landowner Bruce. In 1859, he bought himself free and moved from Kostroma to Moscow, where he started a trading business and bought a house on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. The poet was born in this house and lived until 1910.

Bryusov's father, Yakov Kuzmich Bryusov (1848-1907), sympathized with the ideas of the populist revolutionaries; he published poems in magazines; in 1884, Yakov Bryusov sent to the journal "Intimate Word" written by his son "Letter to the Editor", describing the summer vacation of the Bryusov family. "Letter" was published (No. 16, 1884).

Carried away by the races, the father squandered his entire fortune on the sweepstakes; he became interested in racing and his son, whose first independent publication (in the journal "Russian Sport" for 1889) is an article in defense of the sweepstakes. Parents did little to educate Valery, and the boy was left to his own devices; a lot of attention in the Bryusov family was paid to “the principles of materialism and atheism”, so Valery was strictly forbidden to read religious literature (“From fairy tales, from any “devilry”, I was diligently guarded. But I learned about Darwin’s ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply " , - recalled Bryusov); but at the same time, there were no other restrictions on the young man’s reading circle, therefore, among the “friends” of his early years were both natural science literature and “French boulevard novels”, books by Jules Verne and Mine Reed and scientific articles - the word “everything that came across under the arm." At the same time, the future poet received a good education - he studied at two Moscow gymnasiums: from 1885 to 1889 - at the private classical gymnasium of F.I. Kreiman (he was expelled for promoting atheistic ideas) and in 1890-1893 - at the private gymnasium of L. I. Polivanova; the last teacher had a significant influence on the young poet; in his last years at the gymnasium, Bryusov was fond of mathematics.

entry into literature. "Decadentism" of the 1890s

Already at the age of 13, Bryusov linked his future with poetry. Bryusov's earliest known poetic experiments date back to 1881; a little later his first (rather unskilful) stories appeared. While studying at the Kreyman gymnasium, Bryusov composed poetry and published a handwritten journal. In adolescence, Bryusov considered Nekrasov his literary idol, then he was fascinated by Nadson's poetry.

By the beginning of the 1890s, the time had come for Bryusov's passion for the works of the French Symbolists - Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé. “Acquaintance in the early 90s with the poetry of Verlaine and Mallarmé, and soon Baudelaire, opened up a new world for me. Under the impression of their work, those of my poems that first appeared in print were created, ”recalls Bryusov. In 1893, he wrote a letter (the first known) to Verlaine, in which he spoke of his mission to spread symbolism in Russia and presented himself as the founder of this new literary movement for Russia.

In the 1890s, Bryusov wrote several articles on French poets. Admiring Verlaine, at the end of 1893 he created the drama The Decadents. (End of the Century)”, which tells about the short happiness of the famous French symbolist with Mathilde Mote and touches on the relationship between Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. Between 1894 and 1895 he published (under the pseudonym Valery Maslov) three collections entitled "Russian Symbolists", which included many of his own poems (including under various pseudonyms); most of them were written under the influence of French Symbolists. In addition to Bryusov's, the collections widely represented the poems of his friend A. A. Miropolsky (real name Lang), as well as the mystic poet A. M. Dobrolyubov. In the third issue of "Russian Symbolists" Bryusov's one-line poem "O close your pale feet" was placed, which quickly gained fame and ensured the rejection of criticism and the Homeric laughter of the public in relation to the collections. For a long time, the name of Bryusov, not only among the bourgeoisie, but also among the traditional, “professorial”, “ideological” intelligentsia, was associated precisely with this work - the “literary circle” (in the words of S. A. Vengerov). The literary critic Vladimir Solovyov, who wrote a witty review of the collection for Vestnik Evropy, treated the first works of the Russian decadents with irony (Soloviev also owns several well-known parodies of the style of the Russian Symbolists). However, later Bryusov himself spoke of these first collections in the following way:

I remember these books
Like half asleep a recent day
We were bold, there were children,
Everything seemed bright to us.
Now in the soul and silence and shadow.
The first step is far
Five fleeting years are like five centuries.

Collection "Tertia Vigilia", 1900

In 1893, Bryusov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, where he studied on the same course with the famous literary historian Vladimir Savodnik. His main interests in his student years were history, philosophy, literature, art, and languages. “... If I could live a hundred lives, they would not satisfy all the thirst for knowledge that burns me,” the poet noted in his diary. In his youth, Bryusov was also fond of theater and performed on the stage of the Moscow German Club; here he met Natalia Alexandrovna Daruzes (she performed on stage under the surname Raevskaya), who soon became the poet's lover (Bryusov's first love, Elena Kraskova, died suddenly of smallpox in the spring of 1893; many of Bryusov's poems of 1892-1893 are dedicated to her). Daruzes Bryusov experienced love for "Tala" until 1895.

In the same year, the first collection of exclusively Bryusov's poems appeared - "Chefs d'oeuvre" ("Masterpieces"); The name of the collection itself caused attacks from the press, which, according to critics, did not correspond to the content of the collection (narcissism was characteristic of Bryusov in the 1890s; for example, in 1898 the poet wrote in his diary: “My youth is the youth of a genius. I lived and acted in such a way that only great deeds can justify my behavior. Moreover, in the preface to the collection, the author states: “Printing my book today, I do not expect it to be properly assessed either by critics or by the public. I do not bequeath this book to my contemporaries and not even to humanity, but to eternity and art. As for "Chefs d'oeuvre", and in general for Bryusov's early work, the theme of the struggle against the decrepit, obsolete world of the patriarchal merchant class, the desire to escape from "everyday reality" - to a new world, which was drawn to him in the works of French symbolists, is characteristic. The principle of "art for art's sake", detachment from the "outside world", characteristic of all Bryusov's lyrics, was already reflected in the poems of the collection "Chefs d'oeuvre". In this collection, Bryusov is generally a "lonely dreamer", cold and indifferent to people. Sometimes his desire to break away from the world comes to those of suicide, "the last verses." At the same time, Bryusov is constantly looking for new forms of verse, creating exotic rhymes, unusual images. See for example:

Shadow of Uncreated Creatures
Swaying in a dream
Like blades of patching
On the enamel wall.

purple hands
On the enamel wall
Sleepily draw sounds
In the resounding silence...

In the poems of the collection one can feel the strong influence of Verlaine.

In the next collection - "Me eum esse" ("This is me", 1897), Bryusov progressed slightly compared to "Chefs d'oeuvre"; in "Me eum esse" we still see the author as a cold dreamer, detached from the "outside" world, dirty, insignificant, hated by the poet. The period "Chefs d'oeuvre" and "Me eum esse" Bryusov himself later called "decadent". The most famous poem is "Me eum esse" - "To a young poet"; it opens the collection.

In his youth, Bryusov was already developing the theory of symbolism: “The new direction in poetry is organically connected with the former ones. It’s just that new wine requires new skins,” he wrote in 1894 to the young poet F. E. Zarin (Talin).

After graduating from the university in 1899, Bryusov devoted himself entirely to literature. For several years he worked in P. I. Bartenev's magazine "Russian Archive".

In the second half of the 1890s, Bryusov became close with the symbolist poets, in particular, with K. D. Balmont (acquaintance with him dates back to 1894; it soon turned into friendship, which did not stop until Balmont’s emigration), became one of the initiators and the leaders of the Scorpion publishing house founded in 1899 by S. A. Polyakov, which united supporters of the “new art”.

In 1897, Bryusov married Joanna Runt. She was the companion and closest assistant of the poet until his death.

1900s

"Tertia Vigilia"

In 1900, the collection Tertia Vigilia (Third Guard) was published in Scorpio, which opened a new - "urban" stage in Bryusov's work. The collection is dedicated to K. D. Balmont, whom the author endowed with the “eye of a convict” and noted as follows: “But I love you - that you are all a lie.” A significant place in the collection is occupied by historical and mythological poetry; Bryusov's inspirations were, as noted by S. A. Vengerov, "the Scythians, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, Ramesses II, Orpheus, Cassandra, Alexander the Great, Amalthea, Cleopatra, Dante, Bayazet, the Vikings, Ursa Major."

In later collections, mythological themes gradually fade away, giving way to the ideas of urbanism - Bryusov sings of the pace of life in a big city, its social contradictions, the urban landscape, even tram bells and dirty snow piled up in heaps. The poet from the "desert of loneliness" returns to the world of people; he seems to be regaining his "father's house"; the environment that nurtured him is destroyed, and now, in the place of "dark shops and barns," shining cities of the present and future("The dream of the prison will dissipate in the light, and the world will reach the predicted paradise"). One of the first Russian poets, Bryusov fully revealed the urban theme (although elements of "urban lyrics" can be found long before Bryusov - for example, in Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman", in some poems by N. A. Nekrasov). Even poems about nature, of which there are few in the collection, sound “from the mouth of a city dweller” (“Electric Monthly Light”, etc.). The Third Watch also contains several translations of poems by Verhaern, whose admiration for his work followed admiration for the music and "fuzzy images" of Verlaine's poetry.

At this time, Bryusov is already preparing a whole book of translations of Verharn's lyrics - "Poems about Modernity." The poet is carried away not only by the growth of the city: he is excited by the very premonition of impending changes, the formation of a new culture - the culture of the City; the latter should become the "king of the universe" - and the poet is already bowing before him, ready to "throw into dust" in order to open "the path to victories." This is the key theme of the Tertia Vigilia collection.

A characteristic feature of Bryusov's poetics from this period is stylistic inclusiveness, encyclopedism and experimentation, he was a connoisseur of all types of poetry (he visits "K. K. Sluchevsky's Fridays"), a collector of "all tunes" (the title of one of his collections). He speaks about this in the preface to Tertia Vigilia: “I equally love the faithful reflections of the visible nature in Pushkin or Maikov, and the impulses to express the supersensible, the superearthly in Tyutchev or Fet, and the mental reflections of Baratynsky, and the passionate speeches of a civil poet, say, Nekrasov. Stylizations of a variety of poetic manners, Russian and foreign (up to “songs of Australian savages”) are Bryusov’s favorite pastime, he even prepared an anthology “Dreams of Humanity”, which is a stylization (or translations) of poetic styles of all eras. This feature of Bryusov's work evoked the most polarizing responses; its supporters (primarily symbolists, but also such acmeist students of Bryusov as Nikolai Gumilyov) saw in this the “Pushkin” trait, “proteism”, a sign of erudition and poetic power, critics (July Aikhenvald, Vladislav Khodasevich) criticized such stylizations as a sign "omnivorous", "heartlessness" and "cold experimentation".

"Urbi et Orbi"

Consciousness of loneliness, contempt for humanity, a premonition of inevitable oblivion (characteristic poems - “In the days of desolation” (1899), “Like otherworldly shadows” (1900)) were reflected in the collection “Urbi et Orbi” (“City and the world”), published in 1903; Bryusov is no longer inspired by synthetic images: more and more often the poet turns to the "civilian" theme. A classic example of civil lyrics (and perhaps the most famous in the collection) is the poem "The Mason". For himself, Bryusov chooses among all life paths "the path of labor, like a different path", in order to explore the secrets of "a wise and simple life." Interest in reality - knowing suffering and need - is expressed in the "urban folk" "chastushkas" presented in the "Songs" section. The "Songs" are written in a lifelike way, in a "popular" form; they attracted a lot of attention from critics, who, however, were mostly skeptical of these works, calling Bryusov's "pseudo-folk ditties" "falsification". The urban theme is more developed here than in Tertia Vigilia; the poet draws with separate strokes the life of a big city in all its manifestations: thus, we see the feelings of the worker (“And every night I regularly stand here under the window, and my heart is grateful that I see your icon lamp”), and the true experiences of the inhabitant “at home with red flashlight."

In a few poems, far-fetched self-adoration is visible (“And the virgins and young men stood up, meeting, crowning me like a king”), while in others - erotomania, voluptuousness (the section “Ballads” is largely filled with such poems). The theme of love receives a remarkable development in the section "Elegies"; love becomes a sacrament, a “religious sacrament.” If in all previous collections Bryusov took only timid steps along the path of New Poetry, then in the collection "Urbi et Orbi" he is a master who has already found his calling, determined his path; it was after the release of "Urbi et Orbi" that Bryusov became the recognized leader of Russian symbolism. The collection had a particularly great influence on the young symbolists - Alexander Blok, Andrei Bely, Sergei Solovyov.

The apotheosis of capitalist culture is the poem "The Bled Horse". In it, the reader is presented with a full of anxiety, intense life of the city. The city with its "roars" and "nonsense" erases the impending face of death, the end from its streets - and continues to live with the same furious, "noisy" tension.

Themes and moods in the work of this period

The great-power mood of the times of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (the poems “To Fellow Citizens”, “To the Pacific Ocean”) were replaced by Bryusov’s period of belief in the inevitable death of the urban world, the decline of the arts, the onset of the “era of damage”. Bryusov sees in the future only the times of "last days", "last desolations". These sentiments reached their peak during the First Russian Revolution; they are clearly expressed in Bryusov's drama The Earth (1904, included in the collection The Earth's Axis), which describes the future death of all mankind; then - in the poem "The Coming Huns" (1905); in 1906, Bryusov wrote the short story "The Last Martyrs", describing the last days of the life of the Russian intelligentsia, participating in a crazy erotic orgy in the face of death. The mood of "Earth" (a work of "extremely high", according to Blok's definition) is on the whole pessimistic. The future of our planet is presented, the era of the completed capitalist world, where there is no connection with the earth, with the expanses of nature, and where humanity is steadily degenerating under the "artificial light" of the "world of machines". The only way out for humanity in the current situation is collective suicide, which is the finale of the drama. Despite the tragic ending, the play occasionally still contains hopeful notes; so, in the final scene, a young man who believes in the "rebirth of mankind" and in the New Life appears; according to it, only true humanity is entrusted with the life of the earth, and people who decide to die a “proud death” are only an “unfortunate crowd” lost in life, a branch torn from their tree. However, decadent moods only intensified in the subsequent years of the poet's life. Periods of complete dispassion are replaced by Bryusov’s lyrics of unquenched painful passions (“I love in the eyes of those swollen”, 1899; “In a gambling house”, 1905; “In a brothel”, 1905, and many others).

«Στεφανος»

Bryusov's next collection was "Στεφανος" ("Wreath"), written during the most violent revolutionary events of 1905 (came out in December 1905); the poet himself considered him the pinnacle of his poetic creativity (““ Wreath ” completed my poetry, put on it truly a“ wreath ”,” writes Bryusov). Bryusov's civic lyrics flourish brightly in it, which began to appear in the Urbi et Orbi collection. Only the cycles "Driven from Hell" and "Moments" are dedicated to love. Bryusov sings a “hymn of glory” to the “coming Huns”, knowing full well that they are going to destroy the culture of the contemporary world, that this world is doomed and that he, the poet, is its inseparable part. Bryusov, who came from the Russian peasantry, who was under the "master's yoke", was well acquainted with rural life. Peasant images appear even in the early - "decadent" - period of Bryusov's lyrics. Throughout the 1890s, the poet turned to the "peasant" theme more and more often. And even during the period of worship of the city, Bryusov sometimes has the motive of "escape" from the noisy streets to the bosom of nature. A person is free only in nature - in the city he only feels like a prisoner, a “slave of stones” and dreams of the future destruction of cities, the onset of “wild will”. According to Bryusov, the revolution was inevitable. “Oh, it’s not the Chinese who are beaten in Tianjin who will come, but those who are more terrible, trampled down in mines and squeezed into factories ... I call them, because they are inevitable,” the poet writes to four Symbolists in 1900, after Vladimir Solovyov’s “Three Conversations” . The divergence of views on the revolution among the symbolists thus began already at the turn of the century. Bryusov himself feels himself a slave to bourgeois culture, the culture of the city, and his own cultural construction is the construction of the same prison that is presented in the poem "The Mason". Similar in spirit to "The Bricklayer" and the poem "Rowers of the Trireme" (1905). The poems "Dagger" (1903), "Satisfied" (1905) - poems of the "songwriter" of the growing revolution, ready to meet its overthrow with a "welcome anthem".

Leader of symbolism

The organizational role of Bryusov in Russian symbolism and in general in Russian modernism is very significant. The Libra, headed by him, became the most thorough in the selection of material and an authoritative modernist magazine (opposing the eclectic and not having a clear program of the Pass and the Golden Fleece). Bryusov influenced the work of many younger poets with advice and criticism, almost all of them go through the stage of one or another “imitation of Bryusov”. He enjoyed great prestige both among his peers-symbolists and among literary youth, had a reputation as a strict impeccable "master", creating poetry as a "magician", "priest" of culture, and among acmeists (Nikolai Gumilyov, Zenkevich, Mandelstam), and futurists ( Pasternak, Shershenevich and others). Literary critic Mikhail Gasparov assesses the role of Bryusov in Russian modernist culture as the role of a "defeated teacher of victorious students" who influenced the work of an entire generation. Bryusov was not without a sense of "jealousy" for the new generation of Symbolists.

Bryusov also took an active part in the life of the Moscow literary and artistic circle, in particular, he was its director (since 1908). Collaborated in the journal "New Way" (in 1903, he became editorial secretary).

1910s

Valery Bryusov. Portrait by S. V. Malyutin. 1913

The Scales magazine ceases publication in 1909; by 1910 the activity of Russian symbolism as a movement was declining. In this regard, Bryusov ceases to act as a figure in the literary struggle and the leader of a particular direction, taking a more balanced, "academic" position. From the beginning of the 1910s, he paid considerable attention to prose (the novel The Altar of Victory), criticism (work in Russkaya Mysl, the journal Art in Southern Russia), and Pushkin studies. In 1913, the poet experiences a personal tragedy caused by a painful romance for both with the young poetess Nadezhda Lvova and her suicide. In 1914, with the outbreak of World War I, Bryusov went to the front as a war correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti. It should be noted the growth of patriotic sentiments in the lyrics of Bryusov in 1914-1916.

1910-1914 and, in particular, 1914-1916, many researchers consider the period of spiritual and, as a result, creative crisis of the poet. Already the collections of the late 1900s - "The Earth's Axis" (a prose collection of stories, 1907), "All the Melodies" (1909) - were criticized as weaker than "Stephanos", they basically repeat the former "tunics"; thoughts about the frailty of all things intensify, the poet’s spiritual fatigue manifests itself (poems “The Dying Bonfire”, 1908; “The Demon of Suicide”, 1910). In the collections “Mirror of Shadows” (1912), “Seven Colors of the Rainbow” (1916), the author’s calls to himself to “continue”, “swim further”, etc., which betray this crisis, become frequent, occasionally images of a hero, a worker appear. In 1916, Bryusov published a stylized continuation of Pushkin's poem "Egyptian Nights", which caused an extremely mixed reaction from critics. Reviews of 1916-1917 (who wrote under the pseudonym Andrey Polyanin Sofia Parnok, Georgy Ivanov and others) note self-repetitions, breakdowns in poetic technique and taste, hyperbolic self-praise (“Monument”, etc.) in Seven Colors of the Rainbow, and come to the conclusion about the exhaustion of Bryusov's talent.

With an attempt to get out of the crisis and find a new style, researchers of Bryusov's work associate such an interesting experiment of the poet as a literary hoax - the collection "Nelli's Poems" (1913) dedicated to Nadezhda Lvova and the "Nelli's New Poems" (1914-1916) that continued it (1914-1916, remained unpublished under author's life). These poems are written on behalf of a “chic” urban courtesan, carried away by fashion trends, a kind of female counterpart of the lyrical hero Igor Severyanin, poetics reveals - along with the characteristic signs of the Bryusov style, thanks to which the hoax was soon exposed - the influence of Severyanin and futurism, to which Bryusov refers with interest.

Bryusov and the revolution

In 1917, the poet defended Maxim Gorky, who had been criticized by the Provisional Government.

After the October Revolution of 1917, Bryusov actively participated in the literary and publishing life of Moscow, worked in various Soviet institutions. The poet was still faithful to his desire to be the first in any business started. From 1917 to 1919 he headed the Committee for the Registration of the Press (since January 1918 - the Moscow branch of the Russian Book Chamber); from 1918 to 1919 he was in charge of the Moscow Library Department at the People's Commissariat of Education;. from 1919 to 1921 he was chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets (as such, he led poetry evenings of Moscow poets of various groups in the Polytechnic Museum). In 1919 Bryusov became a member of the RCP(b). He worked at the State Publishing House, headed the literary sub-department of the Department of Art Education at the People's Commissariat for Education, was a member of the State Academic Council, a professor at Moscow State University (since 1921); from the end of 1922 - head of the Department of Art Education of the Glavprofobra; in 1921 he organized the Higher Literary and Art Institute (VLHI) and remained its rector and professor until the end of his life. Bryusov was also a member of the Moscow Council. He took an active part in the preparation of the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (he was the editor of the department of literature, art and linguistics; the first volume was published after the death of Bryusov).

In 1923, in connection with the fiftieth anniversary, Bryusov received a letter from the Soviet government, which noted the poet's numerous merits "to the whole country" and expressed "gratitude from the workers' and peasants' government."

Late creativity

After the revolution, Bryusov continued his active creative activity. In October, the poet saw the banner of a new, transformed world, capable of destroying bourgeois-capitalist culture, the "slave" of which the poet considered himself earlier; now he can "resurrect life." Some post-revolutionary poems are enthusiastic hymns to "dazzling October"; in some of his poems, he glorifies the revolution in one voice with Marxist poets - in particular, “Work”, “Responses”, “To the Brothers-Intellectuals”, “Only Russian”) Having become the founder of the “Russian literary Leniniana”, Bryusov neglected the “precepts”, set out by him back in 1896 in the poem "To the Young Poet" - "do not live in the present", "worship art."

Despite all his aspirations to become part of the new era, Bryusov could not become a “poet of the New Life”. In the 1920s (in the collections "Dali" (1922), "Mea" ("Hurry!", 1924)) he radically renews his poetics, using rhythm overloaded with accents, abundant alliteration, ragged syntax, neologisms (again, as in the era of Nelly's Poems, using the experience of futurism); Vladislav Khodasevich, who is generally critical of Bryusov, evaluates this period not without sympathy as an attempt to acquire “new sounds” through “conscious cacophony”. These poems are saturated with social motives, the pathos of "scientific" (in the spirit of "scientific poetry" by Rene Gil, which Bryusov was interested in even before the revolution: "The World of the Electron", 1922, "The World of N-Dimensions", 1924), exotic terms and proper names ( the author provided many of them with detailed comments). M. L. Gasparov, who studied it in detail, called the manner of the late Bryusov “academic avant-garde”. In some texts, notes of disappointment with one's past and present life, even with the revolution itself, appear (the poem "House of Visions" is especially characteristic). In his experiment, Bryusov was alone: ​​in the era of building a new, Soviet poetry, Bryusov's experiments were considered too complex and "incomprehensible to the masses"; representatives of modernist poetics also reacted negatively to them.

Death

On October 9, 1924, Bryusov died in his Moscow apartment from lobar pneumonia. The poet was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in the capital.

The main features of Bryusov's work

In Bryusov's poems, the reader is faced with opposite principles: life-affirming - love, calls for the "conquest" of life by labor, for the struggle for existence, for creation - and pessimistic (death is bliss, "sweet nirvana", therefore the desire for death is above all; suicide is "seductive", and insane orgies are "the secret pleasures of artificial edens"). And the main character in Bryusov's poetry is either a brave, courageous fighter, or a man who despairs of life, who sees no other way but the way to death (such, in particular, are the already mentioned "Nellie's Poems", the work of a courtesan with a "selfish soul ").

Bryusov's moods are sometimes contradictory; they replace each other without transitions. In his poetry, Bryusov either strives for innovation, or again goes back to the time-tested forms of the classics. Despite the desire for classical forms, Bryusov's work is still not an empire style, but a modernist style that has absorbed contradictory qualities. In it, we see a fusion of qualities that are difficult to combine. According to Andrei Bely's characterization, Valery Bryusov is a "poet of marble and bronze"; at the same time, S. A. Vengerov considered Bryusov a poet of "solemnity par excellence." According to L. Kamenev, Bryusov is a "hammer fighter and jeweler."

Bryusov's versification

Valery Bryusov made a great contribution to the development of the form of verse, actively used inaccurate rhymes, “free verse” in the spirit of Verhaarn, developed “long” meters (iambic 12-foot with internal rhymes: “Near the slow Nile, where Lake Merida is, in the kingdom fiery Ra // you loved me for a long time, like Osiris Isis, friend, queen and sister ... ", the famous 7-foot trochee without caesura in "The Pale Horse": "The street was like a storm. The crowds passed // As if they were pursued by the inevitable Rock ... ”), used alternating lines of different meters (the so-called “linear logaeds”: “My lips are approaching // To your lips ...”). These experiments were fruitfully received by the younger poets. In the 1890s, in parallel with Zinaida, Gippius Bryusov developed tonic verse (dolnik is a term that he introduced into Russian poetry in an article of 1918), but, unlike Gippius and subsequently Blok, he gave few memorable examples to this verse in the future. rarely addressed: the most famous dolniks of Bryusov are The Coming Huns (1904) and The Third Autumn (1920). In 1918, Bryusov published the collection "Experiments ...", which did not set creative tasks and was specially dedicated to the most diverse experiments in the field of verse (extra-long line endings, figured poetry, etc.). In the 1920s, Bryusov taught versification at various institutes, some of his courses were published.

Bryusov in different genres

Bryusov tried his hand at many literary genres.

Prose

The most famous historical novels by Bryusov are The Altar of Victory, which describes the life and customs of Rome in the 4th century AD. e., and - in particular - the "Fiery Angel". In the latter, the psychology of the time being described (Germany of the 16th century) is superbly displayed, the mood of the era is accurately conveyed; based on the "Fiery Angel" Sergei Prokofiev wrote the opera of the same name. The motives of Bryusov's novels fully correspond to the motives of the author's poetic works; Like poetry, Bryusov's novels describe the era of the collapse of the old world, depict its individual representatives who paused in thought before the arrival of the new world, supported by fresh, revitalizing forces.

Bryusov's original short stories, built on the principle of two worlds, were compiled in the collection The Earth's Axis (1907). In the short story cycle "Nights and Days" Bryusov gives himself up to the "philosophy of the moment", the "religion of passion". Bryusov also wrote fantastic works - this is the novel "Mountain of the Stars", the stories "The Rise of the Machines" (1908) and "The Mutiny of the Machines" (1914), the story "The First Interplanetary", the anti-utopia "Republic of the Southern Cross" (1904-05). Noteworthy is the story "The Betrothal of Dasha", in which the author portrays his father, Yakov Bryusov, who was involved in the liberal social movement of the 1860s. The story "The Last Pages from a Woman's Diary" also received considerable attention from critics.

Translations

As a translator, Bryusov did a lot for Russian literature. He opened to the Russian reader the work of the famous Belgian urban poet Emile Verhaern, was the first translator of the poems of Paul Verlaine. Bryusov's translations of works by Edgar Allan Poe (poems), Romain Rolland ("Liliuli"), Maurice Maeterlinck ("Pelleas and Melesande", "Massacre of the Innocents"), Victor Hugo, Racine, Ausonius, Molière ("Amphitryon"), Byron, Oscar Wilde ("The Duchess of Padua", "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"). Bryusov completely translated Goethe's Faust, Virgil's Aeneid. In the 1910s, Bryusov was fascinated by the poetry of Armenia, translated many poems by Armenian poets and compiled the fundamental collection "Poetry of Armenia from ancient times to the present day", for which he was awarded the title of People's Poet of Armenia in 1923, Yerevan Linguistic University bears his name.

Bryusov was a translation theorist; some of his ideas are still relevant today, the review of "Verhaarn on a Procrustean bed" (1923), etc.

Criticism and literary criticism

As a literary critic, Valery Bryusov began to speak as early as 1893, when he selected poems by beginning poets (the same, however, as he himself) for the first collection, Russian Symbolists. The most complete collection of Bryusov's critical articles is Far and Near. In his critical articles, Bryusov not only revealed the theory of symbolism, but also made statements about the dependence of form on content in literature; Poetry, according to Bryusov, "can and should" be learned, because it is a craft that has an important educational value. According to Bryusov, separation from reality is fatal for the artist. Bryusov's works on versification are interesting ("Fundamentals of versification", etc.). Bryusov was sympathetic to the work of proletarian poets, which is expressed in his articles "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow of Russian Poetry", "Synthetics of Poetry".

Of Bryusov's literary works, the most famous are his works devoted to the biography and work of Alexander Pushkin (works on Pushkin's versification, Pushkin's Letters to Pushkin, Pushkin in the Crimea, Pushkin's Relations with the Government, Pushkin's Lyceum Poems. In the last The work contains newly discovered and restored texts by Pushkin the lyceum student). Several articles ("Pushkin and serfdom", an article on Pushkin's poetic technique, etc.) were written by Bryusov for the collected works of the great Russian poet (Brockhaus edition). Bryusov studied the work of Nikolai Gogol (which was expressed in his speech "Incinerated"), Baratynsky, Fyodor Tyutchev (Bryusov actually opened the work of this talented poet to Russian society), Alexei Tolstoy.

Bryusov-journalist

Bryusov began his journalistic career in the journal, far from literary storms - "Russian Archive", where from the end of the 1890s he went through the school of scientific publishing under the guidance of a prominent historian and editor of the journal Bartenev, and from 1900 to 1903 he was the secretary of the editorial board of the journal. Published in Yasinsky's Monthly Works (1900-1902).

Later, Bryusov became the main character in the journal Scales (1904-1909), the main organ of Russian symbolism. Bryusov put all his energy into editorial work. Bryusov was both the principal author and editor of Vyesov. In addition to him, Andrey Bely, Konstantin Balmont, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Maximilian Voloshin, Mikhail Kuzmin were published there. Bryusov also directed the publishing house "Scorpion" and participated in the publication of the almanac of this publishing house "Northern Flowers" (published in 1901-1903, 1905 and 1911).

The experience of Bryusov as an editor was taken into account by Struve when he invited the poet to edit the literary department of the oldest Moscow magazine Russkaya Mysl in 1910. Bryusov saw his mission as a literary editor in the continuation of the traditions of Libra. Soon, Bryusov, in addition to fiction, began to oversee the bibliography and criticism of the magazine. With the advent of a new literary editor, Alexei Tolstoy, Andrei Bely, Alexander Blok appeared on the pages of the magazine,

Bryusov is considered, if not the creator of Russian symbolism, then one of the most prominent figures in this direction. At the turn of the century, when the period of the creative acme of the poet came, many people created incredible works, discovered really new and valuable things. Such, probably, is always the development of the transitional period, but, of course, the personalities who act in such periods are far from being banal.

Bryusov was born on December 1, 1873 into a fairly wealthy family with a large library. A feature of his upbringing is a bias towards the ideas of materialism. Surprisingly, Bryusov was not read fairy tales in childhood, did not tell stories about brownies or something like that, but was actively developed in the field of Darwin's ideas.

In his youth, the poet studied at two Moscow gymnasiums, then graduated from the historical and philological direction at the university, in 1895 he published the first collection of Masterpieces, followed by the Third Guard. These poems were created under the influence of the French Symbolists, who strongly impressed Bryusov. Of the landmarks in Russian lyrics, Nekrasov should be noted, who was allowed to read in childhood, unlike Pushkin and Tolstov, in whom the Bryusov family did not see the educational potential for the child.

By the beginning of the 20th century, the poet becomes recognized by critics, acquires a recognizable style. He is also imbued with the ideas of a new social order, stands up for transformations in the country, although over time, Bryusov will stop praising the revolution and return to pure creativity. At the same time, of course, he will remain the main ideologist and, if it is possible to put it that way, the locomotive of Russian symbolism, the poetry of allusions, as he himself expressed it.

At the beginning of the 20th century, he was engaged in literary magazines, translations and dramaturgy. When the First World War begins, he enters the service of a war correspondent. As a result of the war, Valery Yakovlevich remains completely disappointed in patriotism and politics, and begins to study purely art.

This period is interesting for sonnets, collections of experiences and dreams of mankind and, of course, excellent research articles about Pushkin. Like Blok, Bryusov accepts the revolution, but after that he does not live long and leaves this world in 1924, as if closing the silver age of Russian poetry.

Biography 2

Bryusov Valery Yakovlevich is a legend of Russian symbolism, without exaggeration one of the most significant poets of the beginning of the previous century. For this man, fate was quite favorable, and he skillfully used what was given to him in order to absorb knowledge, in order to work on his own creativity, to transform art in general.

Valery Yakovlevich was born in 1873 in a family of merchants, quite rich, and thanks to this, from childhood he could be fond of art. He began to write at an early age, from childhood he read French symbolists, thanks to which he himself later became the ideologist of Russian symbolism. The basis of this poetry is the search for something unspoken and fundamentally unspoken, impalpable, moving away from objective reality into the sphere of halftones and allusions, into the realm of dreams, dreams and similar phenomena.

The poet studied at Moscow University, where he absorbed knowledge from various fields from history to philosophy. In addition, from an early age, he was quite attached to various mystical stories and secret areas of knowledge. Bryusov eventually became quite a big mystic, and many of his contemporaries knew about this tendency.

In general, the poet’s youth was quite intense, he was fond of many progressive ideas for that time (for example, Darwin’s theory and atheism, for the promotion of which he was successfully expelled from the gymnasium), went to the races, to which his father taught him, deeply studied mathematics. In general, to say about the comprehensive development of this person is to say nothing. During his studies at the university, he learned 20 languages, modern and ancient, in each area he showed incredible diligence and achieved a high degree of perfection.

In the early 1900s, the poet began to work in the spirit of urban studies and quite actively sympathized with new revolutionary ideas. However, he would continue this way practically only until the revolution of 1905, after which he would return to the pure ideas of symbolism and become the ideologist of this movement. In the 1910s, Bryusov gradually changed the role of the leader of the Symbolists to a more restrained one and became a conductor of academic views, although symbolism remains the basis of creativity in many respects.

Nevertheless, the poet accepts the revolution of 1917, he received awards from the new government, continued to work in the Field of Art and did a lot for Soviet culture, for example, he worked on the creation of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, which is still used today. At first, the poet considered new times an opportunity to get rid of capitalist slavery, but in the end he was still disappointed in this and even changed the style of his work, making it more incomprehensible to ordinary people. He died in 1924.

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Sergei Rachmaninov and Mikhail Gnesin, Alexander Grechaninov and Reingold Gliere wrote music for Valery Bryusov's poems. However, the poet not only composed poetry - he created plays and translated foreign authors, published magazines and led a literary institute. Valery Bryusov became one of the founders of Russian symbolism.

"Huge bags of scribbled paper"

Valery Bryusov was born in 1873 into a Moscow merchant family. He was the grandson of the poet Alexander Bakulin, author of The Fables of a Provincial.

At the age of four, Bryusov learned to read and literally settled in his parents' library. He studied the biographies of great people and foreign classics, read tabloid novels and scientific literature. The poet recalled his childhood: “From fairy tales, from any “devilry” I was diligently protected. But I learned about the ideas of Darwin and the principles of materialism before I learned multiplication. I did not know classical literature well: I did not read either Tolstoy, or Turgenev, or even Pushkin; of all the poets in our house, an exception was made only for Nekrasov, and as a boy I knew most of his poems by heart ". Bryusov was also fond of scientific experiments: he conducted simple chemical and physical experiments and studied the nature of various phenomena from books. Even at preschool age, the boy wrote the first comedy - "The Frog".

At the age of 11, Valery Bryusov became a student of the Kreyman private gymnasium - after the exam, he was accepted immediately into the second grade. At home, he grew up without comrades, did not know simple children's games, and his passion for science and literature alienated him even more from his classmates. However, later Bryusov became close with other young lovers of reading, together they began to publish a handwritten journal "The Beginning". During these years, the novice writer tried his hand at prose and poetry, translating ancient and modern authors. However, Bryusov's first publication was a completely ordinary article - at the age of 13 he appeared on the pages of the Russkiy Sport magazine in support of a sweepstakes at the races.

“I started new works all the time. I wrote poetry, so much so that I soon filled up the thick Poesie notebook that had been given to me. I have tried all forms - sonnets, tetracins, octaves, triolets, rondos, all sizes. I wrote dramas, short stories, novels... Every day carried me further and further. On the way to the gymnasium, I thought about new works, in the evening, instead of learning lessons, I wrote ... I had huge packets of scribbled paper.

The magazine "Beginning" was published for several years, and after that the students abandoned this idea. Bryusov resumed his editorial activity when he was 16 years old. He began to issue a handwritten "Leaf of the V class" at school. The newspaper criticized the gymnasium rules, so soon the freethinker student was forced to move to another educational institution. He continued to study at the Polivanov gymnasium.

Dedication to "Eternity and Art"

In the 1890s, Valery Bryusov became interested in the work of Pushkin and the French Symbolists - Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Stefan Mallarmé. In 1893 he wrote a letter to Verlaine, in which he called himself the founder of Russian symbolism. In the same year, Bryusov created the drama "The Decadents (End of the Century)" - she talked about some of the facts of the biography of the French poet.

In 1893, Bryusov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University. He studied history and philosophy, art and literature. The young poet devoted a lot of time to foreign languages ​​- sometimes only to read foreign authors in the original.

Bryusov wrote in his diary: “If I could live a hundred lives, they would not satiate all the thirst for knowledge that burns me”.

Already in the second year of study, the poet published his first collection "Chefs d'oeuvre" - "Masterpieces". In the preface, he wrote: “Printing my book today, I do not expect it to be properly assessed ... I do not bequeath this book to my contemporaries and not even to humanity, but to eternity and art.” Critics were skeptical of the poems, including because of the high-profile title of the book. Two years later, the second collection was released - "This is me." Urban, historical and scientific motives appeared in it. The next book - a collection of poems "The Third Guard" with historical and mythological plots - was dedicated by the poet to Konstantin Balmont. The poet published his works in many Moscow and St. Petersburg magazines, worked in the Moscow publishing house "Scorpion".

In 1897 Valery Bryusov got married. His chosen one was Joanna Runt, the young governess of the poet's sisters. The poet wrote in his diary: “The weeks leading up to the wedding are not recorded. This is because they were weeks of happiness. How can I write now if I can only define my state with the word “bliss”? I'm almost ashamed to make such a confession, but what? That's it". Joanna Runt was very sensitive to Bryusov's manuscripts, before the wedding she did not allow them to be thrown away during cleaning, and after that she became a real keeper of Bryusov's works.

Valery Bryusov and his wife, Ioanna Bryusova (née Runt). 1899 Photo: M.Zolotareva

Valery Bryusov with his wife Ioanna Matveevna

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Valery Bryusov became close to other symbolists - Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Fyodor Sologub. In 1901, their first joint almanac "Northern Flowers" was published - it was then that symbolism became an established literary trend. Poets and writers arranged literary meetings in the Gippius circle, on “Wednesdays” with Bryusov, as well as with his friend Alexander Miropolsky (Lang). Quite often, seances that were fashionable in those years were held here. Lights were dimmed in the rooms and "spirits" were called in, which moved furniture and even "wrote" mysterious texts - of course, with someone else's hand.

In 1903, Bryusov published the book "City and the World", and in 1906 - the collection "Wreath". The "Wreath" includes works of several previous years - mythological, lyrical, as well as those dedicated to the revolution and war. In parallel with his literary work, the poet publishes the Symbolist magazine Scales, manages the department of literary criticism in the Russian Thought magazine, writes plays, prose, and translates foreign authors.

Correspondent, translator, professor

During the First World War, Valery Bryusov worked as a war correspondent for the Russkiye Vedomosti newspaper. But the patriotic sentiments of the first years of the war quickly faded. Ioanna Bryusova recalled that he "returned deeply disappointed by the war, no longer having the slightest desire to see the battlefield." During this period, Bryusov's critical poems appeared, but they remained unpublished.

During these years, Valery Bryusov focused not on the plots of his new poems, but on the form of verse and poetic technique. He selected refined rhymes, wrote classical French ballads, studied the techniques of the poets of the Alexandrian school. Bryusov became a virtuoso of improvisation: he created a classical sonnet in record time. Bryusov created one wreath of sonnets from fifteen works by Bryusov in just seven hours.

In 1915, by order of the Moscow Armenian Committee, Valery Bryusov began to prepare a collection of national poetry. The anthology covered one and a half thousand years of Armenian history. The poet was also involved in the organization of work, and translations, and editing the book, and preparing it for publication. When the collection came out, Bryusov wrote several articles about Armenian culture and the book Chronicle of the Historical Destinies of the Armenian People. Later he received the title of People's Poet of Armenia.

After the revolution, Valery Bryusov became a civil servant. At first, he led the Committee for the Registration of the Press, worked at the State Publishing House, was chairman of the presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets, and helped prepare the first edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. In 1921, Anatoly Lunacharsky suggested that Bryusov organize the Higher Literary and Art Institute. Until the end of his life, the poet remained his rector and professor.

In 1924, the poet died - he died of pneumonia. Valery Bryusov was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.