Valery Bryusov: short biography and creativity. Bryusov, Valery Yakovlevich - short biography Bryusov biography summary

Biography of Bryusov

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (1873-1924) - Russian poet and prose writer, playwright, translator, literary critic, one of the founders of Russian Symbolism.

Childhood and youth

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was born on December 1 (December 13) in Moscow into a merchant family. The future poet received his primary education at home. Since 1885, Bryusov studied at the classical gymnasium of F.I.Kreiman in Moscow. In 1890 he was transferred to the Moscow gymnasium of L. I. Polivanov.

University years

In 1893, Bryusov entered Moscow University at the Faculty of History and Philology. During this period, Valery Yakovlevich discovers the French Symbolists - Verlaine, Baudelaire, Mallarmé. Admiring the work of Verlaine, he creates the drama “Decadents. (End of the century) ". Positioning himself as the founder of Russian Symbolism, in 1894 - 1895 Valery Yakovlevich published three collections "Russian Symbolists".

In 1895, the first collection of Bryusov's poems "Masterpieces" ("Chefs d'oeuvre") was published, which caused a wide resonance among literary critics. In 1897, the poet's second collection, Me eum esse (This is me), was published.

Mature creativity

After graduating from the university in 1899 with a 1st degree diploma, Bryusov got a job at P. Bartenev's magazine "Russian Archive". The poet is actively involved in literary activities. In 1900, Bryusov's third collection "Tertia Vigilia" ("The Third Guard") was published, which brought him literary fame.

Bryusov becomes one of the founders of the Scorpio publishing house. Since 1903 he has been collaborating with the New Way magazine. In the same year, the poet's collection "Urbi et Orbi" ("To the City and the World") was published.

In 1901 - 1905 Bryusov took part in the creation of the anthology "Northern Flowers". From 1904 to 1909 he was the de facto editor of the Russian Symbolist magazine Vesy. Since 1908, Valery Bryusov, whose biography was full of new acquaintances with young writers, became the director of the Moscow literary and artistic circle.

The poet's creativity between two revolutions

Bryusov's reaction to the mood and events of the 1905-1907 revolution was the drama "Earth" and the collection "Wreath" (1905). In 1907 his prose collection of short stories "The Earth's Axis" was published, in 1909 a collection of poetry "All tunes" was published. In the post-revolutionary years, Valery Yakovlevich created the novel "The Altar of Victory" (1911 - 1912), a collection of stories "Nights and Days" (1913).

In 1914, during the First World War, Bryusov went to the front as a war correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti. In 1916 he published the collection Seven Colors of the Rainbow.

last years of life

With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, in 1917-1919, Valeria Yakovlevich held the post of head of the Press Registration Committee. In 1919 - 1921 he was appointed chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets. With the organization of the Higher Literary and Art Institute in 1921, Bryusov became its rector and professor.

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov died on October 9, 1924 from pneumonia. The poet was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. In memory of the life and work of Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov, a monument with a portrait is installed on his grave.

In his adolescence, Bryusov was fond of Nekrasov's work, considering him his idol.
The third collection "Tertia Vigilia" Bryusov dedicated to his friend Konstantin Balmont, whom he met during his university years.
At 24, Bryusov married Ioanna Runt, with whom he lived until the end of his life.
A brief biography of Bryusov would be incomplete without mentioning his merits as a translator. Valery Yakovlevich opened E. Verharn to domestic readers, was engaged in translations of P. Verlaine, E. Poe, M. Maeterlinck, Byron, V. Hugo, O. Wald and many others.
For the collection of translations of Armenian poets "The Poetry of Armenia from Ancient Times to the Present Day" Bryusov was awarded the title of People's Poet of Armenia.

Biography and career

Childhood

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 a letter to the editor, written by his son, to the magazine "Heartfelt Word", describing the summer vacation of the Bryusov family; The "letter" was published (No. 16, 1884).

Carried away by the races, the father squandered his entire fortune on the tote; he was also interested in horse racing and his son, whose first independent publication (in the magazine "Russian Sport" in 1889) is an article in defense of the sweepstakes. The parents did little to educate Valery, and the boy was left to himself; much attention in the Bryusov family was paid to "the principles of materialism and atheism", therefore Valery was strictly forbidden to read religious literature ("I was zealously protected from fairy tales, from any 'devilry'. But I learned about Darwin's ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply" , - recalled Bryusov); but at the same time other restrictions on the reading circle of the young man were not imposed, therefore among the "friends" of his early years there were both literature on natural science and "French tabloid novels", books by Jules Verne and Main Read and scientific articles - the word "everything that came across arm in arm. " At the same time, the future poet received a good education - he studied at two Moscow gymnasiums (from 1889 - at the private classical gymnasium of F.I. Polivanov; the latter - an excellent teacher - had a significant influence on the young poet); in his last school years, Bryusov was fond of mathematics.

Entering the literature. "Decadence" of the 1890s

Young Bryusov

Already at the age of 13, Bryusov linked his future with poetry. The earliest known experiments in poetry by Bryusov date back to 1881; somewhat later, his first (rather unsophisticated) stories appeared. During his studies at the Kreyman gymnasium, Bryusov wrote poetry and published a handwritten magazine. In adolescence, Bryusov considered Nekrasov to be his literary idol, then he was fascinated by Nadson's poetry.

By the early 1890s, the time had come for Bryusov's enthusiasm for the works of French Symbolists - Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé. “Acquaintance in the early 90s with the poetry of Verlaine and Mallarmé, and soon Baudelaire, opened a new world for me. My poems that first appeared in print were inspired by their creativity, ”recalls Bryusov. In 1893, he wrote a letter (the first known to us) to Verlaine, in which he spoke of his mission to spread symbolism in Russia and presents himself as the founder of this new literary movement for Russia. Admiring Verlaine, Bryusov at the end of 1893 created the drama “Decadents. (End of the century) ", which tells about the short-lived happiness of the famous French symbolist with Matilda Mothe and touches upon the relationship between Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

In the 1890s, Bryusov wrote several articles about French poets. Between 1895 and 1895, he published (under the pseudonym Valery Maslov) three collections "Russian Symbolists", which included many of his own poems (including under various pseudonyms); most of them were written under the undoubted influence of the French Symbolists; In addition to Bryusov's poems, the collections included poems by A. A. Miropolsky (Lang), a friend of Bryusov, and A. Dobrolyubov, a mystic poet. In the third issue of "Russian Symbolists" was placed Bryusov's one-line poem "O close your pale legs", which quickly gained fame, providing aversion to criticism and 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 - "literary knee" (in the words of S. A. Vengerov). Vladimir Solovyov reacted with irony to the first works of Russian decadents, who wrote a witty review of the collection for the "Vestnik Evropy" (Solovyov also owns several well-known parodies of the style of the "Russian Symbolists"). However, later Bryusov himself spoke about these first collections of his:

I also remember these books
Like a half-asleep recent day
We were insolent, there were children
Everything seemed to us in a bright light.
Now there is silence and shadow in my soul.
The first step is far away
Five runaway years are like five centuries.

In 1893, Bryusov entered the Faculty of History and Philology of Moscow University, where, by the way, he studied together with another famous classmate - literary historian Vladimir Savodnik. The main circle of his interests in his student years is history, philosophy, literature, art, languages. ("... If I had lived a hundred lives, they would not have sated 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 Natalya Alexandrovna Daruzes (performed on stage under the name Raevskaya), who soon became the poet's beloved (Bryusov's first love, Elena Kraskova, suddenly died 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 1895, the first collection of exclusively Bryusov's poems was published - "Chefs d'oeuvre" ("Masterpieces"); press attacks were caused by the very name of the collection, 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 declares: “When I publish my book these days, I do not expect it to be correctly appraised either from critics or from the public. I will not bequeath this book to my contemporaries and not even to humanity, but to eternity and art. " Both for "Chefs d'oeuvre", and in general for Bryusov's early work, the theme of the struggle with the decrepit, obsolete world of patriarchal merchants, the desire to get away from "everyday reality" - to a new world, depicted for him in the works of the French Symbolists, is characteristic. The principle of "art for art", detachment from the "outside world", characteristic of all of Bryusov's lyrics, were 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 reaches 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
Sways in a dream
Like blades of patching
On an enamel wall.
Purple hands
On an enamel wall
Sounds half asleep
In the ringing 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",) Bryusov slightly progressed in comparison with "Chefs d'oeuvre"; in "Me eum esse" the author is still seen by us as a cold dreamer, detached from the "external" world, dirty, insignificant, hated by the poet. The period "Chefs d'oeuvre" and "Me eum esse" Bryusov himself later called "decadent" (see also:). The most famous poem "Me eum esse" - "To the Young Poet"; it also opens the collection.

In his youth, Bryusov was already developing the theory of symbolism ("A new trend in poetry is organically connected with the previous ones. It's just that new wine requires new wineskins," he wrote to the young poet F. Ye. Zarin (Talin) in 1894).

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; soon it turned into a friendship that 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 later collections, mythological themes gradually fade away, giving way to the ideas of urbanism - Bryusov glorifies the pace of life of a big city, its social contradictions, the urban landscape, even the bells of trams 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 home”; the environment that raised him has been destroyed, and now shining cities of the present and the future("The dream of the prison will dissipate in the light, and the world will reach the foretold paradise"). One of the first Russian poets, Bryusov fully disclosed the urban theme (although elements of "urban lyrics" can be found long before Bryusov - for example, in Pushkin's "Bronze Horseman", in some poems by N. A. Nekrasov). Even poems about nature, of which there are few in the collection, are heard “from the mouth of a city dweller” (“Monthly light electric”, etc.). The Third Guard also contains several translations of Verharn's poems, whose admiration for his work followed his admiration for the music and “fuzzy images” of Verlaine's poetry.

At this time, Bryusov was already preparing a whole book of translations of Verharn's lyrics - "Poems about the Present". The poet is fascinated not only by the growth of the city: he is worried about the very presentiment of impending changes, the emergence of a new culture - the culture of the City; the latter must become "the king of the Universe" - and the poet is already bowing before him, ready to "fall to the ground" in order to open the "path to victories." This is the key theme of the collection "Tertia Vigilia".

From this period, a characteristic feature of Bryusov's poetics became stylized inclusiveness, encyclopedism and experimentation, he was a connoisseur of all types of poetry (he visited "KK Sluchevsky's Fridays"), a collector of "all tunes" (the name of one of his collections). He speaks about this in the preface to Tertia Vigilia: “I equally love the correct reflections of visible nature in Pushkin or Maykov, and the impulses to express the supersensible, the supermundane in Tyutchev or Fet, and Baratynsky's thoughts, and the passionate speeches of a civil poet, say, Nekrasov ". Stylizations of a wide variety of poetic manners, Russian and foreign (up to the "songs of Australian savages") - Bryusov's favorite pastime, he even prepared an anthology "Dreams of Mankind", which is a stylization (or translations) of poetic styles of all eras. This feature of Bryusov's creativity evoked the most polarizing responses of criticism; his supporters (primarily Symbolists, but also such acmeist students of Bryusov as Nikolai Gumilyov) saw in this a "Pushkin" trait, "proteism", a sign of erudition and poetic power, critics (Julius Eichenwald, Vladislav Khodasevich) criticized such stylizations as a sign “Omnivorousness”, “soullessness” and “cold experimentation”.

"Urbi et Orbi"

Valery Yakovlevich lived in this house (Moscow, Prospect Mira, 30) in 1910-1924. Now there is a literary museum

Consciousness of loneliness, contempt for humanity, a premonition of imminent oblivion (characteristic poems - "In the days of desolation" (1899), "Like shadows from outside" (1900)) were reflected in the collection "Urbi et Orbi" ("City and Peace"), published in 1903; Bryusov is no longer inspired by synthetic images: more and more often the poet turns to the "civil" theme. A classic example of civic lyrics (and perhaps the most famous in the collection) is the poem "The Bricklayer". For himself, Bryusov chooses among all the paths of life "the path of labor, as a different path" in order to learn the secrets of "a wise and simple life." Interest in reality - knowing suffering and need - is expressed in the "urban folk" "ditties" presented in the "Songs" section. "Songs" are written in a vital way, in a "popular print" form; they attracted a lot of attention from critics, who, however, were mostly skeptical about these works, calling Bryusov's “pseudo-folk ditties” “falsification”. The urbanistic theme is more developed here in comparison with "Tertia Vigilia"; the poet draws individual strokes of 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 it sees your icon lamp”), and the true experiences of the inhabitant of “the house with with a little red flashlight. "

In a few poems, contrived self-adoration is visible ("Both the maidens and the young men stood up, meeting and crowning me like a king"), in others - erotomania, voluptuousness (such poems are largely filled in the "Ballads" section). The theme of love gets a remarkable development in the "Elegies" section; love becomes a sacred rite, a "religious sacrament" (see, for example, the poem "To Damascus"). If in all the previous collections Bryusov took only timid steps along the path of New Poetry, then in the collection "Urbi et Orbi" he is for us already found his calling, having determined his path as a master; 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 "Horse Bled". In it, the reader is presented with the full of anxiety, the tense life of the city. The city with its “rumbles” and “delirium” erases the impending face of death, of the end from its streets - and continues to live with the former furious, “noisy” tension.

Themes and moods in the work of this period

The great-power mood of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (the poems "To fellow citizens", "To the Pacific Ocean") gave way to Bryusov's period of belief in the inevitable death of the urban world, the decline of the arts, and the onset of the "era of damage." Bryusov sees in the future only the times of "the last days", "the last desolations." These sentiments reached their peak during the First Russian Revolution; they are clearly expressed in Bryusov's drama "Earth" (included in the collection "Earth's Axis"), which describes the future death of all mankind; then - in the poem "The Coming Huns" (); in 1906, Bryusov wrote a short story "The Last Martyrs", describing the last days of the life of the Russian intelligentsia, participating in an insane erotic orgy in the face of death. The mood of "Earth" (works of "extremely high", as defined by Blok) is generally pessimistic. The future of our planet, the era of the completed capitalist world, where there is no connection with the earth, with the vastness of nature, and where humanity is steadily degenerating under the "artificial light" of the "world of machines" is presented. The only way out for humanity in this situation is collective suicide, which is the final of the drama. Despite the tragic ending, hopeful notes are occasionally encountered in the play; thus, in the final scene, a young man who believes in the "rebirth of mankind" and in the New Life appears; according to him, only true humanity is entrusted with the life of the earth, and people who have decided to die “a proud death” are only a “unfortunate crowd” lost in life, a branch cut off from their tree. However, the decadent mood only intensified in the subsequent years of the poet's life. Periods of complete dispassion are replaced by Bryusov's lyric poetry of unsatisfied painful passions ("I love in the eyes of the swollen ones"; "In a gambling house", 1905; "In a brothel", 1905, and many others).

«Στεφανος»

Title page of the collection "Στεφανος"

Bryusov's next collection was Στεφανος (Wreath), written during the most violent revolutionary events of 1905 (published in December 1905); the poet himself considered it to be the pinnacle of his poetic creativity (“The Wreath completed my poetry, put a truly“ wreath ”on it,” writes Bryusov). Bryusov's civic lyrics flourish in him, which began to appear in the collection "Urbi et Orbi". 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 world of his day, that this world is doomed and that he, the poet, is an integral part of it. Bryusov, who came from the Russian peasantry, which was under the "lordly oppression", 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 a motive of "flight" from the noisy streets to the bosom of nature. Man is free only in nature - in the city he only feels himself 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, not the Chinese who are beaten in Tianjin will come, but those more terrible, trampled into mines and squeezed into factories ... I call them, because they are inevitable,” the poet writes to four Symbolists in 1900, after “Three Conversations” by Vladimir Solovyov ... The divergence of views on revolution among the Symbolists thus began already at the turn of the century. Bryusov himself feels himself a slave of the 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 "Bricklayer". The poem "Rowers of the Trireme" (1905) is similar in spirit to "Bricklayer". The poems "Dagger" (1903), "Satisfied" (1905) - poems of the "songwriter" of the growing revolution, ready to greet its overthrow with a "welcome hymn".

Leader of Symbolism

The organizational role of Bryusov in Russian symbolism and in Russian modernism in general is very significant. The "Libra" headed by him became the most careful in the selection of material and an authoritative modernist magazine (opposed to the eclectic and did not have a clear program "Pass" and "Golden Fleece"). Bryusov influenced by advice and criticism on the work of very many younger poets, 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, etc.). Literary critic Mikhail Gasparov assesses the role of Bryusov in Russian modernist culture as the role of a “defeated teacher of victorious pupils” who influenced the creativity of an entire generation. Bryusov was not devoid of a feeling of "jealousy" for the new generation of Symbolists (see the poem "Younger": "They see Her! They hear Her! ...", 1903).

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 magazine "New Way" (in 1903, became the editorial secretary).

1910s

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

The years 1910-1914 and, in particular, 1914-1916 are considered by many researchers to be the period of the poet's spiritual and, as a consequence, creative crisis. Already the collections of the late 1900s - "The Earth's Axis" (a prose collection of stories,), "All tunes" () - were judged by critics as weaker than "Stephanos", they basically repeat the previous "tunes"; thoughts about the frailty of all things intensify, the poet's spiritual fatigue is manifested (poems "The Dying Fire"; "The Demon of Suicide",). In the collections “Mirror of Shadows” (), “Seven Colors of the Rainbow” (), author's appeals to oneself to “continue”, “move on” and so on, which stand out for this crisis, are not uncommon; images of a hero, a worker, appear occasionally. In 1916, Bryusov published a stylized continuation of Pushkin's poem "Egyptian Nights", which caused an extremely controversial reaction from critics. Reviews of 1916-1917 (who wrote under the pseudonym Andrei Polyanin Sofia Parnok, Georgy Ivanov and others) note in the "Seven Colors of the Rainbow" self-repetition, breakdowns of poetic technique and taste, hyperbolized self-praise ("Monument", etc.), come to the conclusion that exhaustion of Bryusov's talent.

Bryusov in the 1910s

With an attempt to get out of the crisis and find a new style, the researchers of Bryusov's work associate such an interesting experiment of the poet as a literary hoax - the collection "Nelly's Poems" dedicated to Nadezhda Lvova (1913) and the continuation of it "Nelly's New Poems" (1914-1916, remained unpublished at life of the author). These poems were written on behalf of the "chic" urban courtesan, carried away by fashion trends, a kind of feminine correspondence of the lyric 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 the Severyanin and futurism, to the emergence of which Bryusov belongs with interest.

Bryusov and the revolution

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

Later creativity

Poet in the last years of his life

After the revolution, Bryusov continued his active creative activity. In October, the poet saw the banner of a new, transformed world, capable of destroying the bourgeois-capitalist culture, of which the poet had previously considered himself a "slave"; now he can "revive life." Some post-revolutionary poems are ecstatic hymns to the "dazzling October"; in some of his poems, he glorifies the revolution in one voice with the Marxist poets (see, for example, the poems of the collection "In such days" () - in particular, "Work", "Responses", "Brothers-intellectuals", "Only Russian" ). Becoming the ancestor of the "Russian literary Leniniana", Bryusov neglected the "precepts" set forth by him in 1896 in the poem "The Young Poet" - "do not live in the present," "worship art."

Bryusov's grave at the Novodevichy cemetery

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

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 "intimate pleasures of artificial edens"). And the main character in Bryusov's poetry is either a brave, courageous fighter, or a person desperate in life, who sees no other path than the path to death (such are, in particular, the already mentioned "Nelly'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, then again goes back to the time-tested forms of the classics. Despite the desire for classical forms, Bryusov's work is still not Empire style, but modern style, which has absorbed contradictory qualities. In it we see a fusion of difficult-to-combine qualities. According to the description of Andrei Bely, Valery Bryusov is a "poet of marble and bronze"; at the same time, SA Vengerov considered Bryusov a poet of "solemnity predominantly". According to L. Kamenev, Bryusov is a “hammer and jeweler”.

Verse composition of Bryusov

Valery Bryusov made a great contribution to the development of the verse form, actively used inaccurate rhymes, "free verse" in the spirit of Verharne, developed "long" meter (12-foot iambic 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 a caesura in" Bled Horse ":" The street was like a storm. Crowds passed // As if they were pursued by an inevitable Rock ... "), Used alternating lines of different meters (the so-called" lowercase logaeda ":" My lips are approaching // To your lips ... "). These experiments were fruitfully received by 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 in 1918), but, unlike Gippius and later Blok, he gave little memorable samples and later to this verse 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 pose creative tasks and was specially devoted to the most diverse experiments in the field of verse (extra-long line endings, figure 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 "The Altar of Victory", which describes the life and customs of Rome in the IV century AD. e., and - especially - "Fiery Angel". The latter perfectly reflects the psychology of the described time (Germany of the 16th century), accurately conveys the mood of the era; based on The Fiery Angel, Sergei Prokofiev wrote an opera. The motives of the Bryusov 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 stopped in thought before the arrival of a new world, supported by fresh, revitalizing forces. Bryusov's novellas describing modern life ("Nights and Days", the collection "The Earth's Axis",) are much weaker than the novels; in them Bryusov gives himself up to the "philosophy of the moment," "the religion of passion." 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 significant criticism.

Translations

As a translator, Bryusov did a lot for Russian literature. He opened the works of the famous Belgian urban poet Emile Verharn to the Russian reader, was the first translator of Paul Verlaine's poems. There are known Bryusov translations of works by Edgar Poe (poem), Romain Rolland (Lilyuli), Maurice Maeterlinck (Pelleas and Melezande, Beating of the Babies), Victor Hugo, Racine, Avsonius, Moliere (Amphitrion), Byron, Oscar Wilde (The Duchess of Padua, Ballad of Reading Prison). Bryusov completely translated Goethe's Faust, Virgil's Aeneid. In the 1910s, Bryusov was fascinated by the poetry of Armenia, translated many poems of Armenian poets and compiled a 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, the Yerevan Linguistic University bears his name.

Bryusov was a translation theorist; some of his ideas are still relevant today (see, for example, the preface to the translations of Verlaine (), the review "Verhaern on the Procrustean bed" (), etc.).

Criticism and literary criticism

As a literary critic, Valery Bryusov began to appear in 1893, when he was selecting the poems of novice poets (the same, however, like himself) for the first collection "Russian Symbolists". The most complete collection of Bryusov's critical articles is Distant and Close. 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, for it is a craft that has an important educational value. According to Bryusov, a disconnect from reality is destructive for the artist. Bryusov's works on versification are interesting ("Foundations of poetry", 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 the Bryusov literary works, the most famous are his works dedicated to the biography and work of Alexander Pushkin (works on the versification of Pushkin, "Letters from Pushkin to Pushkin", "Pushkin in the Crimea", "Pushkin's relations with the government", "Lyceum poetry of Pushkin." the work contains newly discovered and restored texts of Pushkin-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 discovered the work of this talented poet for Russian society), Alexei Tolstoy.

Bryusov-journalist

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

Later, Bryusov became the main character in the journal Vesy (1904-1909), the main organ of Russian Symbolism. Bryusov put all his energy into editorial work. Bryusov was both the main author and editor of Libra. In addition to him, Andrei Bely, Konstantin Balmont, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Maximilian Voloshin, Mikhail Kuzmin were published there. Bryusov also directed the Scorpion publishing house and participated in the publication of the Severnye Tsvety almanac of this publishing house (published in 1911 and 1911).

The experience of Bryusov as editor was taken into account by Struve when he invited the poet to edit the literary department of the oldest Moscow magazine "Russian Thought" in 1910. Bryusov saw his mission as a literary editor in the continuation of the Libra traditions. Soon Bryusov, in addition to fiction, began to supervise the bibliography and criticism of the journal. With the arrival of a new literary editor, Alexey Tolstoy, Andrey Bely, Alexander Blok, Alexander Grin, Alexey Remizov, Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov appear on the pages of the magazine. Contemporaries sarcastically that Struve's monthly was published as if it were “jubilee issues of Russian symbolism”. However, tensions soon began to emerge between Struve and Bryusov: the December issue of Russian Thought in 1910 was arrested for pornography. The reason is Bryusov's story "The Last Pages from a Woman's Diary." The end of Bryusov's editorship took place at the end of 1912. One of the reasons was Struve's refusal to publish Andrei Bely's novel Petersburg, who considered the novel a creative failure - Bryusov insisted on printing the novel. Bryusov remained an employee of the magazine as a critic until 1914.

Bryusov's pseudonyms

When working on the collections "Russian Symbolists" (1894-1895), Bryusov used many pseudonyms. The function of the pseudonym here is not to conceal the author's true surname, but to mystify the reader. The poet, as the editor of the collections, strove to create the impression of a large number of his like-minded people and followers, allegedly in these editions, and, thus, to increase their public importance. This is the uniqueness of the use of pseudonyms by Bryusov.

Bryusov and philately

Bryusov on the stamp of Armenia

Selected quotes

Brother - A. Ya. Bryusov - professor of art history, employee of the Historical Museum, participant in the search for the Amber Room.

Essays

“Decadents. (End of the century) ". Drama, 1893
"Juvenilia" - "Youthful", 1894
"Chefs d'oeuvre" - "Masterpieces", M., 1895; 2nd ed. M., 1896
"Me eum esse" - "This is me", 1897
"About art", M., 1899
Tertia Vigilia - The Third Guard, 1900
"Urbi et Orbi" - "City and Peace", 1903
Stephanos - Wreath, 1906
"The Earth's Axis", M., 1907; 2nd ed. - M., 1910
The Fiery Angel (historical novel), 1908
"Incinerated", M., 1909
"All tunes", 1909 This collection includes poems:
To the poet (December 18, 1907)
Twilight (May 5, 1906)
Century after century January (1907)
Fatigue (1907)
Meeting (1906, 1907)
Early Autumn (21 August 1905)
Cold (October 13, 1906)
Monk (March 31, 1906)
City (January 1907)
Evening Tide (April - December 1906)
Praise to the Man (December 1, 1906)
Daedalus and Icarus (April 1, 1908)
To the Bronze Horseman (January 24-25, 1906)
Again in Venice (August 1, 1908)
At the Forum (August 1908)
Servant of the Muses (September 1, 1907)
Floreal (3 years 29 January 1907)
Spirit of the Earth (July 5, 1907)
Our Demon (1908)
Someone (September 2, 1908)
Beginner (1906)
The Sower (1907)

Meetings

The complete works and translations - only vols 1-4, 12, 13, 15, 21 - were published in St. Petersburg in 1913-1914 (Musaget publishing house).
Selected works in 3 volumes - Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1926.
Selected works in 2 volumes - Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1955.
Collected works in 7 volumes - M., 1973-1975 (the most complete at the moment).
Unpublished poems. - M .: GIHL, 1935.
Poems and poems. - L .: Soviet writer, 1961.

Translations

"Romances without words" (translations of Verlaine's poems). - M., 1895.

Notes (edit)

Latyshev M. Ways and crossroads of Valery Bryusov // Bryusov V. Ya. Hour of memories: Favorites. - M.: Yauza, 1996.
The house has been preserved, modern address: Tsvetnoy Boulevard, 22
Yakov Kuzmich Bryusov on the RGALI website. (unavailable link - history) Retrieved April 30, 2009.
Cm.: memories of Vladislav Khodasevich Bryusov. Archived
... Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. - M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002 .-- P. 164.
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. - M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002 .-- S. 19-25
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. - M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002 .-- S. 227-229
This handwritten magazine - "Beginning" - Bryusov published together with classmate VK Stanyukovich; see for example: biography of Bryusov. Archived
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002.S. 232
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002.S. 169
See: Literary heritage. T. 98. Book 1.P. 613
Yu. N. Tynyanov. Valery Bryusov // Problem of poetic language. Articles. - M .: 1965 .-- S. 265.
See the biography of Bryusov, written by S.A. Vengerov: Biography of Bryusov. Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved May 8, 2009.
For the attitude of Solovyov to collections, see, for example: V. Solovyov. More about the Symbolists // Literary criticism. - M .: 1990 .-- S. 152-153.
Quoted from: V. Ya.Bryusov. Favorites. - M .: True, 1982.
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. - M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002.S. 30
Valery Bryusov. Poet's craft. - M .: "Contemporary", 1981. - S. 24.
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. - M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002 .-- P. 29.
See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. - M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002 .-- S. 50.
Quoted from: Valery Bryusov. Poems. - M .: Children's literature, 1971.
See: Literary heritage. T. 98. Book 1. - Moscow: Nauka, 1991. - P. 623.
See: Russian writers of the XX century. Biographical Dictionary. T. 2. - M .: Education, 1998 .-- S. 215.
The poem "I know" (1898). Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
Emile Verhaarn. Poems about modernity, translated by Valery Bryusov. Moscow: 1906.
The poem "Factory". Archived, written June 29, 1901
Poem . Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved May 18, 2009. dates back to August 1901.
Letter to Vyacheslav Ivanov dated June 5, 1906. See: Valery Bryusov. Diaries. Autobiographical prose. Letters. M .: OLMA-PRESS, 2002.S. 307
M. L. Gapsparov. Academic avant-garde: nature and culture in the late Bryusov. - M .: RGGU, 1995.
Poem "Younger" (1903). Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved May 24, 2009.
Litvin E.S. Bryusov. - M .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Inst rus. lit. (Pushkin House), 1954. - T. X: Literature 1890-1917. - (History of Russian Literature: In 10 vols).
Evgeny Evtushenko. Nadezhda Lvova: Predicting Tsvetaeva. ??? (June 29, 2007). Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved June 24, 2009.
A. A. Volkov. Russian literature of the XX century. Pre-October period. - M .: Education, 1964.
M.L. Gasparov. Bryusov the poet and Bryusov the poet // Selected articles. - M., 1995 .-- S. 103.
Sofia Parnok. Regarding the latest works of Valery Bryusov. ??? (January 1917). (unavailable link - history) Retrieved July 24, 2009.
Georgy Ivanov. Creativity and craft. ??? (1917). Archived
Vladislav Khodasevich. Poems by Nelly. ???. Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved July 24, 2009.
History of the publishing house "Great Russian Encyclopedia". ???. Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved July 22, 2009.
Memories of Marina Tsvetaeva
Early morning, 1907, Љ 27, 19 December
Gasparov M.L. Russian poems of the 1890s - 1925s in the comments. - M .: Higher school, 1993 .-- 272 p.
Bryusov repeatedly addressed the themes of the ancient world in his prose works. The first prosaic experiments, mainly describing Ancient Rome, date back to the gymnasium period - for example, the story "At the Maecenas", published in volume 85 of the "Literary Heritage"; of the works about Ancient Rome, written in mature years, in addition to the "Altar of Victory" should be called the novel "Jupiter Defeated" and the story "Rhea Sylvia".
V. S. Gavrilova. To the question of the specifics of the genre of S. Prokofiev's opera "The Fiery Angel". ??? (???). (unavailable link - history) Retrieved July 22, 2009.

Biography

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (December 1, 1873, Moscow - October 9, 1924, ibid.) - Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, literary critic, literary critic and historian. One of the founders of Russian symbolism.

Childhood

Valery Bryusov was born on December 1 (13), 1873 in Moscow, into a merchant family. The future master of symbolism was on the maternal side the grandson of the poet-fabulist A. Ya. Bakulin, who published in the 1840s. the collection "Fables of a Provincial" (with the name of his grandfather, Bryusov signed some of his works); having received his freedom, he started a trade business in Moscow.

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

Carried away by the races, the father squandered his entire fortune on the tote; he was also interested in horse racing and his son, whose first independent publication (in the magazine "Russian Sport" in 1889) is an article in defense of the sweepstakes. The parents did little to educate Valery, and the boy was left to himself; great attention in the family Bryusovs paid to "the principles of materialism and atheism", so Valery was strictly forbidden to read religious literature ("I was zealously guarded from fairy tales, from any 'devilry'. But I learned about Darwin's ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply," Bryusov recalled) ; but at the same time other restrictions on the reading circle of the young man were not imposed, therefore among the "friends" of his early years there were both literature on natural science and "French tabloid novels", books by Jules Verne and Main Read and scientific articles - the word "everything that came across arm in 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. I. Polivanov; the latter - an excellent teacher - had a significant impact on the young poet); in his last school years, Bryusov was fond of mathematics.

Entering the literature. "Decadence" of the 1890s

By the early 1890s, the time had come for Bryusov's enthusiasm for the works of French Symbolists - Baudelaire, Verlaine, Mallarmé. “Acquaintance in the early 90s with the poetry of Verlaine and Mallarmé, and soon Baudelaire, opened a new world for me. Under the impression of their work, those poems of mine that first appeared in print were created, ”recalls Bryusov. In 1893, he wrote a letter (the first known to us) to Verlaine, in which he spoke of his mission to spread symbolism in Russia and presents himself as the founder of this new literary movement for Russia. Admiring Verlaine, Bryusov at the end of 1893 created the drama “Decadents. (End of the century) ", which tells about the short-lived happiness of the famous French symbolist with Matilda Mothe and touches upon the relationship between Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud.

In the 1890s, Bryusov wrote several articles about French poets. In the period from 1894 to 1895, he published (under the pseudonym Valery Maslov) three collections "Russian Symbolists", which included many of his own poems (including under various pseudonyms); most of them were written under the undoubted influence of the French Symbolists; in addition to Bryusov's poems, the collections included poems by A. A. Miropolsky (Lang), a friend of Bryusov, and A. Dobrolyubov, a mystic poet. In the third issue of "Russian Symbolists" was placed Bryusov's one-line poem "O close your pale legs", which quickly gained fame, providing aversion to criticism and 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 - a "literary knee" (in the words of SA Vengerov). Vladimir Solovyov reacted with irony to the first works of Russian decadents, who wrote a witty review of the collection for the Vestnik Evropy (Solovyov also owns several famous parodies of the style of the Russian Symbolists). However, later Bryusov himself spoke about these first collections of his:

I also remember these books
Like a half-asleep recent day
We were insolent, there were children
Everything seemed to us in a bright light.
Now in the soul and silence and shadow.
The first step is far away
Five runaway years are like five centuries.
- Collection "Tertia Vigilia", 1900

In 1895, the first collection of exclusively Bryusov's poems was published - "Chefs d'oeuvre" ("Masterpieces"); press attacks were caused by the very name of the collection, 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 declares: “When I publish my book these days, I do not expect it to be properly assessed either from critics or from the public. I will not bequeath this book to contemporaries and not even to humanity, but to eternity and art. " Both for "Chefs d'oeuvre" and in general for Bryusov's early work, the theme of the struggle against the decrepit, obsolete world of patriarchal merchants, the desire to get away from "everyday reality" - to a new world, depicted for him in the works of the French Symbolists, is characteristic. The principle of "art for art", detachment from the "outside world", characteristic of all of Bryusov's lyrics, were 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 reaches those of suicide, "the last verses." At the same time, Bryusov is constantly looking for new forms of verse, creates exotic rhymes, unusual images

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 slightly progressed in comparison with "Chefs d'oeuvre"; in "Me eum esse" the author is still seen by us as a cold dreamer, detached from the "external" world, dirty, insignificant, hated by the poet. The period "Chefs d'oeuvre" and "Me eum esse" Bryusov himself later called "decadent" (see also: # Selected quotes). The most famous poem "Me eum esse" - "To the Young Poet"; it also opens the collection.

In his youth, Bryusov was already developing a theory of symbolism: “The new trend in poetry is organically linked with the previous ones. It's just that new wine requires new wineskins, ”he wrote to the young poet F. Ye. Zarin (Talin) in 1894.

After graduating from the university in 1899, Bryusov devoted himself entirely to literature. For several years he worked in the journal of PI Bartenev "Russian Archive".

In the second half of the 1890s, Bryusov became close with symbolist poets, in particular, with K.D.Balmont (acquaintance with him dates back to 1894; soon it turned into a friendship that 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 Ioanna Runt. She was a companion and closest assistant to the poet until his death.

1900s

"Tertia Vigilia"

In 1900, the collection "Tertia Vigilia" ("The Third Guard") was published in "Scorpio", which opened a new - "urban" stage of Bryusov's work. The collection is dedicated to KD Balmont, whom the author endowed with "the gaze of a convict" and noted: "But I love you - that you are all a lie." Historical and mythological poetry occupies a significant place in the collection; Bryusov's inspirers were, as SA Vengerov notes, "the Scythians, the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, Ramses II, Orpheus, Kassandra, Alexander the Great, Amalthea, Cleopatra, Dante, Bayazet, the Vikings, the Big Dipper."

In later collections, mythological themes gradually fade away, giving way to the ideas of urbanism - Bryusov glorifies the pace of life of a big city, its social contradictions, the cityscape, even the bells of trams 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 home”; the environment that raised him has been destroyed, and now shining cities of the present and the future are growing in place of the “half-dark shops and barns” (“The dream of a prison will dissipate in the light, and the world will reach the predicted paradise”). One of the first Russian poets, Bryusov fully disclosed the urban theme (although elements of "urban lyrics" can be found long before Bryusov - for example, in Pushkin's "Bronze Horseman", in some poems by N. A. Nekrasov). Even poems about nature, of which there are few in the collection, are heard “from the mouth of a city dweller” (“Monthly light electric”, etc.). The Third Guard also contains several translations of Verharn's poems, whose admiration for his work followed his admiration for the music and "fuzzy images" of Verlaine's poetry.

From this period, a characteristic feature of Bryusov's poetics became stylized inclusiveness, encyclopedism and experimentation, he was a connoisseur of all types of poetry (he was visited by KK Sluchevsky's Fridays), a collector of “all tunes” (the name of one of his collections). He speaks about this in the preface to Tertia Vigilia: “I equally love the correct reflections of visible nature in Pushkin or Maykov, and the impulses to express the supersensible, the supermundane in Tyutchev or Fet, and Baratynsky's thoughts, and the passionate speeches of a civil poet, say, Nekrasov ". Stylization of a wide variety of poetic manners, Russian and foreign (up to the "songs of Australian savages") - Bryusov's favorite pastime, he even prepared an anthology "Dreams of Mankind", which is a stylization (or translations) of poetic styles of all eras. This feature of Bryusov's creativity evoked the most polarizing responses of criticism; his supporters (primarily Symbolists, but also such acmeist students of Bryusov as Nikolai Gumilyov) saw in this a "Pushkin" trait, "proteism", a sign of erudition and poetic power, critics (Julius Eichenwald, Vladislav Khodasevich) criticized such stylizations as a sign "Omnivorous", "soullessness" and "cold experimentation".

"Urbi et Orbi"

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

In a few poems, contrived self-adoration is visible ("Both the maidens and the young men stood up, meeting and crowning me like a king"), in others - erotomania, voluptuousness (such poems are largely filled in the "Ballads" section). The theme of love gets a remarkable development in the "Elegies" section; love becomes a sacred rite, a "religious sacrament" (see, for example, the poem "To Damascus"). If in all previous collections Bryusov made only timid steps along the path of New Poetry, then in the collection "Urbi et Orbi" he is for us already found his vocation, having determined his path as a master; 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.

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") gave way to Bryusov's period of belief in the inevitable death of the urban world, the decline of the arts, and the onset of the "era of damage." Bryusov sees in the future only the times of "the last days", "the last desolations." These sentiments reached their peak during the First Russian Revolution; they are clearly expressed in Bryusov's drama 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 a short story "The Last Martyrs", describing the last days of the life of the Russian intelligentsia, participating in an insane erotic orgy in the face of death. The mood of "Earth" (works of "extremely high", as defined by Blok) is generally pessimistic. The future of our planet, the era of the completed capitalist world, where there is no connection with the earth, with the vastness of nature, and where humanity is steadily degenerating under the "artificial light" of the "world of machines" is presented. The only way out for humanity in this situation is collective suicide, which is the final of the drama. Despite the tragic ending, hopeful notes are occasionally encountered in the play; thus, in the final scene, a young man who believes in the "rebirth of mankind" and in the New Life appears; according to him, only true humanity is entrusted with the life of the earth, and people who have decided to die “a proud death” are only a “unfortunate crowd” lost in life, a branch torn off from their tree. However, the decadent mood only intensified in the subsequent years of the poet's life. Periods of complete dispassion are replaced by Bryusov's lyric poetry of unsatiated painful passions (I love in the eyes of the swollen ones, 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 (published in December 1905); the poet himself considered it to be the pinnacle of his poetic creativity (“'The Wreath' completed my poetry, put a truly 'wreath' on it,” writes Bryusov). Bryusov's civic lyrics flourish in him, which began to appear in the collection "Urbi et Orbi". 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 world of his day, that this world is doomed and that he, the poet, is an integral part of it. Bryusov, who came from the Russian peasantry, which was under the "lordly oppression", 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 a motive of "flight" from the noisy streets to the bosom of nature. A person is free only in nature - in the city he only feels himself 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, not the Chinese who are beaten in Tianjin will come, but those more terrible, trampled into mines and squeezed into factories ... I call them because they are inevitable,” the poet writes to four Symbolists in 1900, after Three Conversations by Vladimir Solovyov ... The divergence of views on revolution among the Symbolists thus began already at the turn of the century. Bryusov himself feels himself a slave of the 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 "Bricklayer". The poem "Rowers of the Trireme" (1905) is similar in spirit to "Bricklayer". The poems "Dagger" (1903), "Satisfied" (1905) are poems by the "songwriter" of the growing revolution, ready to greet its overthrow with a "welcome hymn".

Leader of Symbolism

The organizational role of Bryusov in Russian symbolism and in Russian modernism in general is very significant. The "Libra" headed by him became the most careful in the selection of material and an authoritative modernist magazine (opposed to the eclectic and did not have a clear program "Pass" and "Golden Fleece"). Bryusov influenced by advice and criticism on the work of very many younger poets, 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, etc.). Literary critic Mikhail Gasparov assesses the role of Bryusov in Russian modernist culture as the role of the “defeated teacher of the victorious pupils” who influenced the creativity of an entire generation. Bryusov was not devoid of a feeling of "jealousy" for the new generation of Symbolists (see the poem "Younger": "They see Her! They hear Her! ...", 1903).

1910s

The Vesy magazine ceases to be published in 1909; by 1910 the activity of Russian symbolism as a movement was declining. In this regard, Bryusov ceases to act as an activist in the literary struggle and the leader of a specific trend, taking a more balanced, "academic" position. Since the beginning of the 1910s, he has paid considerable attention to prose (the novel "The Altar of Victory"), criticism (work in "Russian Thought", the magazine "Art in South Russia"), Pushkin studies. In 1913, the poet experiences a personal tragedy caused by a painful romance for both of them with a young poetess Nadezhda Lvova and her suicide. In 1914, with the outbreak of the First World War, Bryusov went to the front as a war correspondent for Russkiye Vedomosti. The growth of patriotic sentiments in the lyrics of Bryusov in 1914-1916 should be noted.

The years 1910-1914 and, in particular, 1914-1916 are considered by many researchers to be the period of the poet's spiritual and, as a consequence, creative crisis. Already the collections of the late 1900s - "The Earth's Axis" (prose collection of short stories, 1907), "All tunes" (1909) - were judged by critics as weaker than "Stephanos", they basically repeat the old "tunes"; thoughts about the frailty of all things intensify, the poet's spiritual fatigue manifests itself (poems "The Dying Fire", 1908; "The Demon of Suicide", 1910). In the collections Mirror of Shadows (1912) and Seven Colors of the Rainbow (1916), author's appeals to oneself to “continue,” “move on,” and so on, which stand out from this crisis, are not uncommon; images of a hero and a worker appear occasionally. In 1916, Bryusov published a stylized continuation of Pushkin's poem "Egyptian Nights", which caused an extremely controversial reaction from critics. Reviews of 1916-1917 (who wrote under the pseudonym Andrei Polyanin Sofia Parnok, Georgy Ivanov and others) note in the "Seven Colors of the Rainbow" self-repetition, breakdowns of poetic technique and taste, hyperbolized self-praise ("Monument", etc.), come to the conclusion that exhaustion of Bryusov's talent.

With an attempt to get out of the crisis and find a new style, the researchers of Bryusov's work associate such an interesting experiment of the poet as a literary hoax - the collection "Nelly's Poems" dedicated to Nadezhda Lvova (1913) and the continuation of it "Nelly's New Poems" (1914-1916, remained unpublished at life of the author). These poems are written on behalf of the "chic" urban courtesan, a kind of feminine correspondence of the lyric hero Igor Severyanin, carried away by fashion trends, poetics reveals - along with the characteristic features of the Bryusov style, thanks to which the hoax was soon exposed - the influence of the Severyanin and futurism, to the emergence of which Bryusov belongs with interest.

Bryusov and the revolution

In 1917, the poet defended Maxim Gorky, 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 true to his desire to be the first in any business started. From 1917 to 1919, he headed the Press Registration Committee (from 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 for Education; from 1919 to 1921 he was the chairman of the Presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets (as such, he directed the 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 subsection of the Department of Art Education under the People's Commissariat for Education, was a member of the State Academic Council, 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 City 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 Bryusov's death).

Later 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 the bourgeois-capitalist culture, of which the poet had previously considered himself a "slave"; now he can "revive life." Some post-revolutionary poems are ecstatic hymns to the "dazzling October"; in some of his poems, he glorifies the revolution in one voice with the Marxist poets (see, for example, the poems of the collection "In such days" (1923) - in particular, "Work", "Responses", "Brothers-intellectuals", "Only Russian "). Becoming the ancestor of the "Russian literary Leniniana", Bryusov neglected the "precepts" set forth by him in 1896 in the poem "The Young Poet" - "do not live in the present," "worship art."

Despite all his aspirations to become a part of the coming era, Bryusov could not become a "poet of the New Life". In the 1920s (in the collections "Dali" (1922), "Mea" ("Hurry!" the era of "Nelly's Poems", using the experience of futurism); Vladislav Khodasevich, who is generally critical of Bryusov, not without sympathy assesses this period as an attempt to find “new sounds” through “conscious cacophony”. These poems are saturated with social motives, the pathos of "scientific" (in the spirit of the "scientific poetry" of Rene Gil, which Bryusov was interested in even before the revolution: "The World of Electron", 1922, "World of N-Dimensions", 1924), exotic terms and proper names ( the author has provided many of them with a detailed commentary). M. L. Gasparov, who studied it in detail, called the style of the late Bryusov "academic avant-garde". In some texts, there are notes of disappointment with their past and present life, even with the revolution itself (the poem "House of Visions" is especially characteristic). In his experiment, Bryusov found himself alone: in the era of building a new, Soviet poetry, Bryusov's experiments were considered too complicated 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 croupous pneumonia. The poet was buried in the capital's Novodevichy cemetery.

The main features of Bryusov's work

Bryusov's moods are sometimes contradictory; they replace each other without transitions. In his poetry, Bryusov either strives for innovation, then again goes back to the time-tested forms of the classics. Despite the desire for classical forms, Bryusov's work is still not Empire style, but modern style, which has absorbed contradictory qualities. In it, we see a fusion of qualities that are difficult to combine. According to the description of Andrei Bely, Valery Bryusov is a "poet of marble and bronze"; at the same time, SA Vengerov considered Bryusov a poet of "solemnity for the most part." According to L. Kamenev, Bryusov is a “hammer and jeweler”.

Verse composition of Bryusov

Valery Bryusov made a great contribution to the development of the verse form, actively used inaccurate rhymes, "free verse" in the spirit of Verharne, developed "long" meter sizes (12-foot iambic 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" Horse Bled ":" 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" lowercase logaedes ":" My lips are approaching
To your lips ... "). These experiments were fruitfully received by 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 in 1918), but, unlike Gippius and later Blok, he gave little memorable samples and later to this verse 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 pose creative tasks and was specially devoted to the most diverse experiments in the field of verse (extra-long line endings, figure 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 original short stories of Bryusov, built on the principle of the two-world, 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 - the novel "Mountain of the Stars", the stories "Rise of the Machines" (1908) and "Mutiny of the Machines" (1914), the story "The First Interplanetary", the dystopia "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 significant criticism.

Translations

As a translator, Bryusov did a lot for Russian literature. He opened the works of the famous Belgian urban poet Emile Verharn to the Russian reader, was the first translator of Paul Verlaine's poems. There are known Bryusov translations of works by Edgar Poe (poem), Romain Rolland (Lilyuli), Maurice Maeterlinck (Pelleas and Melezande, Beating of the Babies), Victor Hugo, Racine, Avsonius, Moliere (Amphitrion), Byron, Oscar Wilde (The Duchess of Padua, Ballad of Reading Prison). Bryusov completely translated Goethe's Faust and Virgil's Aeneid. In the 1910s, Bryusov was fascinated by the poetry of Armenia, translated many poems of Armenian poets and compiled a fundamental collection "Poetry of Armenia from Ancient Times to the Present", for which he was awarded the title of People's Poet of Armenia in 1923, the Yerevan Linguistic University bears his name.

Bryusov was a translation theorist; some of his ideas are still relevant today (see, for example, the preface to the translations of Verlaine (1911), the review “Verhaarn on the Procrustean bed” (1923), etc.).

Criticism and literary criticism

As a literary critic, Valery Bryusov began to appear as early as 1893, when he was selecting the poems of novice poets (the same, however, like himself) for the first collection "Russian Symbolists". The most complete collection of Bryusov's critical articles is Distant and Close. 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, for it is a craft that has an important educational value. According to Bryusov, a disconnect from reality is destructive for the artist. Bryusov's works on versification are interesting ("Foundations of poetry", 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".

Bryusov-journalist

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

In 1915 Maxim Gorky invited Bryusov to collaborate in the newly opened Letopis magazine.

Bryusov-editor

Bryusov was engaged in editorial activity - under his control, the publication of the collected works of Karolina Pavlova, several editions of Pushkin's works was carried out. He proceeded to edit the complete collected works of Pushkin (the work, which was cut short on the first volume, also included the addition of unfinished works).

Selected quotes

Talent, even genius, will honestly give only slow success if given. It is not enough! It is not enough for me. We must choose something else ... Find the guiding star in the fog. And I see her: this is decadence. Yes! Whatever to say, whether it is false or funny, but it goes forward, develops, and the future will belong to it, especially when it finds a worthy leader. And I will be this leader! Yes I! (March 4, 1893, 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. (Ibid, 1898).

Brother - Alexander (1885-1966) - professor of art history, employee of the Historical Museum, participant in the search for the Amber Room.
Sister - Lydia - the wife of the poet Samuel Kissin.
Sister - Nadezhda (1881-1951) - musicologist-folklorist, teacher (from 1921 to 1943) and vice-rector (1922-28) of the Moscow State Conservatory.
In the early 1910s, Bryusov, Viach. Ivanov, Andrey Bely and A.S. Petrovsky made up the ephemeral Masonic lodge Lucifer, established by the so-called. "Moscow center" (presumably the Rosicrucian chapter / Astrea /) and abolished immediately after its founding for links with anthroposophists. Probably, this kind of phenomenon cannot be fully regarded as an indicator of the belonging of the named cultural figures to the movement of free masons, nevertheless, this fact is captured in the annals of such.
In 1924, shortly before his death, Valery Bryusov posed for the young sculptor Nina Niss-Goldman. Now this portrait is in the Russian Museum of St. Petersburg in the collection of the Russian avant-garde of the 1920s.

Blok considered himself unworthy to review this genius, and even more so - to publish with him in the same journal. The fact is that the main poet of the Silver Age, having reread the work of Valery Yakovlevich, was so amazed at 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 across the waters of intricate 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 has 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", "Forgive everything", "I love", "First Snow" and other notable 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 ransomed himself and began his trading business. Thanks to perseverance and hard work, Kuzma Andreevich got out of rags to riches and acquired a two-story mansion on Tsvetnoy Boulevard in Moscow.

On the mother's side, the grandfather of the writer was Alexander Yakovlevich Bakulin, known to his contemporaries as a poet-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 controversial figure, sympathized with the ideas of the populist revolutionaries, who, driven by Herzen's socialist ideas, wanted in every way to approach the intelligentsia and find their place in the world. The head of the family was a gambling man: carried away by horse racing, Bryusov Sr. instantly squandered all his fortune on bets and almost was left penniless.

It is noteworthy that Bryusov's parents were not pious people, they were not involved in raising 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 time reading classics and tabloid novels, we can say that the young man swallowed books one after another. Even scientific articles that accidentally fell into the hands of Bryusov were not left without due attention.

Valery's favorites were the author of adventure literature, who gave the world Captain Nemo, and the writer who wrote The Headless Horseman, Thomas Mine Read. It is also known that Valery Yakovlevich received a brilliant education, he studied at two prestigious gymnasiums, and in his last years 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 Viet and, however, the young man chose a different, creative path. Having earned a certificate of maturity, the young man continued to receive his education and became a student at Moscow University. - studied at the Faculty of History and Philology.

Literature

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

Although the early poems of Bryusov were folded 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 quill, 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 to endow the protagonist with the entire spectrum of human experience. said that the emergence of this current is "the desire to forget, to be on the other side of good and evil."

Bryusov's views were preceded by passion for 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 his diploma and began to study literature intensively and develop the theory of symbolism. At about the same time, Bryusov became close to.

The acquaintance of the two poets later developed into a strong friendship, they communicated closely 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 sprout of the urbanistic stage of the writer's work: the author more and more often praises the expanses of a bustling city in his writings and scrupulously describes even the smallest details.

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

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

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

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

According to the writers, Valery Yakovlevich strove to become part of the new era under the general buzz, 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 is married only once: in 1897, the writer made a marriage proposal to a Czech-born Ioanna Runt, who agreed. The lovers lived hand in hand until their death, and Joanna was both a faithful wife and a muse, inspiring the poet for 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 sweep of her beloved, Ioanna Matveyevna published her husband's unpublished works.

Bibliography

1895 - "Chefs d'Oeuvre" ("Masterpieces")
1903 - "Urbi et orbi" ("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 IV century "
1912 - "Mirror of Shadows"
1913 - "Nights and Days"
1916 - Rhea Sylvia. Eluli, son of Eluli "
1916 - "Seven Colors of the Rainbow"
1916-1917 - "The Ninth Stone"
1917-1919 - "Last Dreams"
1922 - Dali
1924 - "Mea" ("Hurry")
1928 - "Unpublished Poems"

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov was born on December 13, 1873 in Moscow, into a merchant family. At home he received a good education, at the age of eight he began to write poetry.

The first publication of Valery Yakovlevich was in the children's magazine "Heartfelt Word" when Bryusov was only 11 years old.

From 1885 to 1893, Bryusov studied at the gymnasium, from 1893 to 1899 he studied at the Moscow University at the Faculty of History and Philology, from which he graduated with a 1st degree diploma.

Back in his student years, Bryusov published the collection "Russian Symbolists" (issues 1-3, 1894 - 1895), which consisted mainly of his own poems.

In 1899, Bryusov became one of the organizers of the Scorpion publishing house, in 1900 he published the book The Third Guard, which marks his transition to the poetry of symbolism.

From 1901 to 1905, under the leadership of Bryusov, the almanac "Northern Flowers" was created, from 1904 to 1909, Bryusov edited the journal "Libra", which was the central organ of the Symbolists. Bryusov's collections of poetry were published, such as "The City and the World" (1903), "Wreath" (1906), "All tunes" (1909). The poet also paid much attention to prose, he wrote the novel "The Altar of Victory" (1911 - 1912), the collection of stories "Nights and Days" (1913), the story "The Betrothal of Dasha" (1913) and other works. Bryusov acquired a reputation as a master of literature, he is revered as "the first poet in Russia" (A.A. Blok), "who restored the noble art of simple and correct writing, forgotten since the time of Pushkin" (N. Gumilev). Valery Bryusov met the October Revolution of 1917 as a holiday of liberation from the shackles of autocracy. In 1920, the poet joined the Bolshevik Party, headed the presidium of the All-Russian Union of Poets. Bryusov organized the Higher Literary and Art Institute, where Valery Yakovlevich became the first rector. However, Bryusov's life was short-lived; on October 9, 1924, he died in Moscow.