Valery is a Brusov-fired angel. Valery Brusov - fiery angel

Year of writing:

1907

Reading time:

Description of the work:

Fiery Angel is the first novel in the work of Valery Bryusov. The novel was written in 1905. Later, an opera with the same name was staged based on the novel.

Fire Angel is a historical novel. The preface to this novel even included historical context. There were many notes as well. But by and large, this was all just misleading readers.

Read below for a summary of the novel “Fire Angel.”

Summary of the novel
Fire Angel

Ruprecht met Renata in the spring of 1534, returning from ten years of service as a landsknecht in Europe and the New World. Before dark he reached Cologne, where he had once studied at the university and not far from which was his native village of Losheim, and spent the night in an old house standing alone in the forest. At night, he was awakened by a woman’s screams behind the wall, and he burst into the next room and found a woman struggling in terrible convulsions. Having driven away the devil with prayer and the cross, Ruprecht listened to the lady who had come to her senses, who told him about the incident that had become fatal for her.

When she was eight years old, an angel began to appear to her, all as if on fire. He called himself Madiel and was cheerful and kind. Later, he announced to her that she would be a saint, and adjured her to lead a strict life, to despise the carnal. In those days, Renata’s gift for working miracles was revealed, and in the area she was known as pleasing to the Lord. But, having reached the age of love, the girl wanted to unite with Madiel physically, but the angel turned into a pillar of fire and disappeared, and in response to her desperate pleas he promised to appear before her in the form of a man.

Soon Renata actually met Count Heinrich von Otterheim, who looked like an angel with his white clothes, blue eyes and golden curls.

For two years they were incredibly happy, but then the count left Renata alone with the demons. True, kind patron spirits encouraged her with the message that she would soon meet Ruprecht, who would protect her.

Having told all this, the woman behaved as if Ruprecht had accepted a vow to serve her, and they went to look for Heinrich, turning to the famous sorceress, who only said: “Where you are going, go there.” However, she immediately screamed in horror: “And blood flows and smells!” This, however, did not dissuade them from continuing their journey.

At night, Renata, fearing demons, kept Ruprecht with her, but did not allow any liberties and talked to him endlessly about Henry.

Upon arrival in Cologne, she ran around the city in vain in search of the count, and Ruprecht witnessed a new attack of obsession, giving way to deep melancholy. Yet the day came when Renata perked up and demanded to confirm her love for her by going to the Sabbath to find out something about Henry. Having rubbed himself with the greenish ointment that she gave him, Ruprecht was transported somewhere far away, where naked witches introduced him to “Master Leonard,” who forced him to renounce the Lord and kiss his black stinking ass, but only repeated the words of the sorceress: where you go, go there .

Upon returning to Renata, he had no choice but to turn to the study of black magic in order to become the master of those to whom he was a petitioner. Renata helped in studying the works of Albertus Magnus, Rogerius Bacon, Sprenger and Institoris, and Agrippa of Nottesheim, who made a particularly strong impression on him.

Alas, the attempt to summon spirits, despite careful preparations and scrupulous adherence to the advice of warlocks, almost ended in the death of novice magicians. There was something that should have been known, apparently directly from the teachers, and Ruprecht went to Bonn to see Dr. Agrippa of Nottesheim. But the great renounced his writings and advised him to move from fortune-telling to the true source of knowledge. Meanwhile, Renata met with Heinrich and he said that he did not want to see her anymore, that their love was an abomination and a sin. The count was a member of a secret society that sought to bind Christians together more than the church, and hoped to lead it, but Renata forced him to break his vow of celibacy. Having told all this to Ruprecht, she promised to become his wife if he killed Heinrich, who was posing as someone else, superior. That same night, their first connection with Ruprecht took place, and the next day the former landsknecht found a reason to challenge the count to a duel. However, Renata demanded that he not dare shed Henry’s blood, and the knight, forced only to defend himself, was seriously wounded and wandered for a long time between life and death. It was at this time that the woman suddenly said that she loved him, and had loved him for a long time, only him, and no one else. They spent the whole of December as newlyweds, but soon Madiel appeared to Renate, saying that her sins were serious and that she needed to repent. Renata devoted herself to prayer and fasting.

The day came, and Ruprecht found Renata’s room empty, having experienced what she had once experienced while looking for her Heinrich on the streets of Cologne. Doctor Faustus, a tester of the elements, and the monk who accompanied him, nicknamed Mephistopheles, were invited to travel together. On the way to Trier, while visiting the castle of Count von Wallen, Ruprecht accepted the owner’s offer to become his secretary and accompany him to the monastery of St. Olav, where a new heresy appeared and where he was going as part of the mission of Archbishop John of Trier.

In his eminence’s retinue was the Dominican brother Thomas, his holiness’s inquisitor, known for his tenacity in the persecution of witches. He was determined about the source of the troubles in the monastery - Sister Mary, whom some considered a saint, others - possessed by demons. When the unfortunate nun was brought into the courtroom, Ruprecht, who was called upon to take the minutes, recognized Renata. She admitted to witchcraft, cohabitation with the devil, participation in the black mass, Sabbaths and other crimes against faith and fellow citizens, but refused to name her accomplices. Brother Thomas insisted on torture and then a death sentence. On the night before the fire, Ruprecht, with the assistance of the count, entered the dungeon where the condemned woman was kept, but she refused to escape, insisting that she longed for martyrdom, that Madiel, the fiery angel, would forgive her, the great sinner. When Ruprecht tried to take her away, Renata screamed, began to desperately fight back, but suddenly fell silent and whispered:

“Ruprecht! It’s so good that you are with me!” - and died.

After all these events that shocked him, Ruprecht went to his native Aozheim, but only from a distance looked at his father and mother, already hunched over old people, basking in the sun in front of the house. He also turned to Doctor Agrippa, but found him at his last breath. This death again troubled his soul. A huge black dog, from whom the teacher, with a weakening hand, removed the collar with magical inscriptions, after the words: “Go away, damned one! All my misfortunes come from you!” - with his tail between his legs and his head bowed, he ran out of the house, ran into the waters of the river and never reappeared on the surface. At that same moment, the teacher breathed his last and left this world. There was nothing left that would prevent Ruprecht from rushing to search for happiness overseas, to New Spain.

You have read the summary of the novel "Fire Angel". We also invite you to visit the Summary section to read the summaries of other popular writers.

Ruprecht met Renata in the spring of 1534, returning from ten years of service as a landsknecht in Europe and the New World. Before dark he reached Cologne, where he once studied at the university and not far from which was his native village of Losheim, and spent the night in an old house standing alone in the middle of the forest. At night, he was awakened by a woman’s screams behind the wall, and he burst into the next room and found a woman struggling in terrible convulsions. Having driven away the devil with prayer and the cross, Ruprecht listened to the lady who had come to her senses, who told him about the incident that had become fatal for her.

When she was eight years old, an angel began to appear to her, all as if on fire. He called himself Madiel and was cheerful and kind. Later, he announced to her that she would be a saint, and adjured her to lead a strict life, to despise the carnal. In those days, Renata’s gift for working miracles was revealed, and in the area she was known as pleasing to the Lord. But, having reached the age of love, the girl wanted to unite with Madiel physically, but the angel turned into a pillar of fire and disappeared, and in response to her desperate pleas he promised to appear before her in the form of a man.

Soon Renata actually met Count Heinrich von Otterheim, who looked like an angel with his white clothes, blue eyes and golden curls.

For two years they were incredibly happy, but then the count left Renata alone with the demons. True, the kind patron spirits encouraged her with the message that she would soon meet Ruprecht, who would protect her.

Having told all this, the woman behaved as if Ruprecht had accepted a vow to serve her, and they went to look for Heinrich, turning to the famous sorceress, who only said: “Where you are going, go there.” However, she immediately screamed in horror: “And blood flows and smells!” This, however, did not dissuade them from continuing their journey.

At night, Renata, fearing demons, kept Ruprecht with her, but did not allow any liberties and talked to him endlessly about Henry.

Upon arrival in Cologne, she ran around the city in vain in search of the count, and Ruprecht witnessed a new attack of obsession, giving way to deep melancholy. Yet the day came when Renata perked up and demanded to confirm her love for her by going to the Sabbath to find out something about Henry. Having rubbed himself with the greenish ointment that she gave him, Ruprecht was transported somewhere far away, where the naked witches introduced him to “Master Leonard,” who forced him to renounce the Lord and kiss his black stinking ass, but only repeated the words of the sorceress: where you go, go there .

Upon returning to Renata, he had no choice but to turn to the study of black magic in order to become the ruler of those to whom he was a petitioner. Renata helped in studying the works of Albertus Magnus, Rogerius Bacon, Sprenger and Institoris, and Agrippa of Nottesheim, who made a particularly strong impression on him.

Alas, the attempt to summon spirits, despite careful preparations and scrupulous adherence to the advice of warlocks, almost ended in the death of novice magicians. There was something that should have been known, apparently directly from the teachers, and Ruprecht went to Bonn to see Dr. Agrippa of Nottesheim. But the great renounced his writings and advised him to move from fortune-telling to the true source of knowledge. Meanwhile, Renata met with Heinrich and he said that he did not want to see her anymore, that their love was an abomination and a sin. The count was a member of a secret society that sought to bind Christians together more than the church, and hoped to lead it, but Renata forced him to break his vow of celibacy. Having told all this to Ruprecht, she promised to become his wife if he killed Heinrich, who was posing as someone else, superior. That same night, their first connection with Ruprecht took place, and the next day the former landsknecht found a reason to challenge the count to a duel. However, Renata demanded that he not dare shed Henry’s blood, and the knight, forced only to defend himself, was seriously wounded and wandered for a long time between life and death. It was at this time that the woman suddenly said that she loved him, and had loved him for a long time, only him, and no one else. They spent the whole of December as newlyweds, but soon Madiel appeared to Renata, saying that her sins were serious and that she needed to repent. Renata devoted herself to prayer and fasting.

The day came, and Ruprecht found Renata’s room empty, having experienced what she had once experienced while looking for her Heinrich on the streets of Cologne. Doctor Faustus, a tester of the elements, and the monk who accompanied him, nicknamed Mephistopheles, were invited to travel together. On the way to Trier, while visiting the castle of Count von Wallen, Ruprecht accepted the owner’s offer to become his secretary and accompany him to the monastery of St. Olav, where a new heresy appeared and where he was going as part of the mission of Archbishop John of Trier.

In his eminence’s retinue was the Dominican brother Thomas, his holiness’s inquisitor, known for his tenacity in the persecution of witches. He was determined about the source of the troubles in the monastery - Sister Mary, whom some considered a saint, others - possessed by demons. When the unfortunate nun was brought into the courtroom, Ruprecht, who was called upon to take the minutes, recognized Renata. She admitted to witchcraft, cohabitation with the devil, participation in the black mass, Sabbaths and other crimes against faith and fellow citizens, but refused to name her accomplices. Brother Thomas insisted on torture and then a death sentence. On the night before the fire, Ruprecht, with the assistance of the count, entered the dungeon where the condemned woman was kept, but she refused to escape, insisting that she longed for martyrdom, that Madiel, the fiery angel, would forgive her, the great sinner. When Ruprecht tried to take her away, Renata screamed, began to desperately fight back, but suddenly fell silent and whispered: “Ruprecht! It’s so good that you are with me!” - and died.

After all these events that shocked him, Ruprecht went to his native Aozheim, but only from a distance looked at his father and mother, already hunched over old people, basking in the sun in front of the house. He also turned to Doctor Agrippa, but found him at his last breath. This death again troubled his soul. A huge black dog, from which the teacher with a weakening hand removed the collar with magical inscriptions, after the words: “Go away, damned one! All my misfortunes come from you!” - with his tail between his legs and his head bowed, he ran out of the house, ran into the waters of the river and never reappeared on the surface. At that same moment, the teacher breathed his last and left this world. There was nothing left that would prevent Ruprecht from rushing to search for happiness overseas, to New Spain.

Monday, November 24, 2014 14:18 + to quote book

VALERY BRYUSOV

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (December 1, 1873, Moscow - October 9, 1924, Moscow) - Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, literary critic, literary critic and historian. One of the founders of Russian symbolism. “Fire Angel” is the first novel by Valery Bryusov, published in 1907 in the magazine “Libra”. It is based on a fantastically transformed and colorful story of Bryusov’s relationship with Nina Petrovskaya and Andrei Bely. The novel served as the plot basis for the opera of the same name by Sergei Prokofiev (1919-1927).

The action takes place in the 16th century, during the transition of European civilization from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Returning from the Klein-Wenedig colony to Cologne, Landsknecht Ruprecht meets the beautiful Renata, possessed by an evil spirit. When the woman was only eight years old, a fiery angel began to appear to her at night, who called himself Madiel, he was cheerful and kind. Later, he announced to her that she would become a saint, and conjured her to a strict life and to despise carnal things. In those days, Renata acquired the gift of working miracles, and her fame spread throughout the area as being pleasing to God. But having reached age, the girl wanted to copulate with the angel. The angel turned into a pillar of fire and disappeared, and in response to her prayers, the angel promised to appear before her in the form of a man.

Soon the girl met Count Heinrich von Otterheim, who looked very much like a fiery angel with his white clothes and golden curls. For two years Renata was happy and lived in perfect harmony with the count, until he abandoned her and left her with the demons. The good spirits gave her a message that she would soon meet a man named Ruprecht who would protect her.

Renata draws Ruprecht, who is in love with her, first into the search for Heinrich, and then into the study of treatises on demonology and philosophical debates. He meets Doctor Faustus, Mephistopheles, and the occultist Agrippa of Nettesheim. It is told about summoning the devil and about the night flight to the Sabbath. In the end, the possessed Renata pushes Ruprecht to kill Count Heinrich. During the fight, Ruprecht is wounded and Renata leaves him.

Time passes. Ruprecht, as part of the retinue of the Archbishop of Trier, arrives at the monastery of St. Ulfa, where some kind of heresy started. The source of the trouble is a nun named Maria, either possessed by a demon or a saint. Under pressure from the inquisitors, the unfortunate woman admits to cohabitation with the devil and other terrible sins. Recognizing his Renata in the nun, Ruprecht sneaks into the dungeon and invites her to escape. Rejecting this offer, Renata dies in the knight’s arms, confident that the “fiery angel” has absolved her of her sins.

book-graphics.blogspot.ru

.

Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov

"Fire Angel"

Ruprecht met Renata in the spring of 1534, returning from ten years of service as a landsknecht in Europe and the New World. Before dark he reached Cologne, where he once studied at the university and not far from which was his native village of Losheim, and spent the night in an old house standing alone in the middle of the forest. At night, he was awakened by a woman’s screams behind the wall, and he burst into the next room and found a woman struggling in terrible convulsions. Having driven away the devil with prayer and the cross, Ruprecht listened to the lady who had come to her senses, who told him about the incident that had become fatal for her.

When she was eight years old, an angel began to appear to her, all as if on fire. He called himself Madiel and was cheerful and kind. Later, he announced to her that she would be a saint, and adjured her to lead a strict life, to despise the carnal. In those days, Renata’s gift for working miracles was revealed, and in the area she was known as pleasing to the Lord. But, having reached the age of love, the girl wanted to unite with Madiel physically, but the angel turned into a pillar of fire and disappeared, and in response to her desperate pleas he promised to appear before her in the form of a man.

Soon Renata actually met Count Heinrich von Otterheim, who looked like an angel with his white clothes, blue eyes and golden curls.

For two years they were incredibly happy, but then the count left Renata alone with the demons. True, the kind patron spirits encouraged her with the message that she would soon meet Ruprecht, who would protect her.

Having told all this, the woman behaved as if Ruprecht had accepted a vow to serve her, and they went to look for Heinrich, turning to the famous sorceress, who only said: “Where you are going, go there.” However, she immediately screamed in horror: “And blood flows and smells!” This, however, did not dissuade them from continuing their journey.

At night, Renata, fearing demons, kept Ruprecht with her, but did not allow any liberties and talked to him endlessly about Henry.

Upon arrival in Cologne, she ran around the city in vain in search of the count, and Ruprecht witnessed a new attack of obsession, giving way to deep melancholy. Yet the day came when Renata perked up and demanded to confirm her love for her by going to the Sabbath to find out something about Henry. Having rubbed himself with the greenish ointment that she gave him, Ruprecht was transported somewhere far away, where the naked witches introduced him to “Master Leonard,” who forced him to renounce the Lord and kiss his black stinking ass, but only repeated the words of the sorceress: where you go, go there .

Upon returning to Renata, he had no choice but to turn to the study of black magic in order to become the ruler of those to whom he was a petitioner. Renata helped in studying the works of Albertus Magnus, Rogerius Bacon, Sprenger and Institoris, and Agrippa of Nottesheim, who made a particularly strong impression on him.

Alas, the attempt to summon spirits, despite careful preparations and scrupulous adherence to the advice of warlocks, almost ended in the death of novice magicians. There was something that should have been known, apparently directly from the teachers, and Ruprecht went to Bonn to see Dr. Agrippa of Nottesheim. But the great renounced his writings and advised him to move from fortune-telling to the true source of knowledge. Meanwhile, Renata met with Heinrich and he said that he did not want to see her anymore, that their love was an abomination and a sin. The count was a member of a secret society that sought to bind Christians together more than the church, and hoped to lead it, but Renata forced him to break his vow of celibacy. Having told all this to Ruprecht, she promised to become his wife if he killed Heinrich, who was posing as someone else, superior. That same night, their first connection with Ruprecht took place, and the next day the former landsknecht found a reason to challenge the count to a duel. However, Renata demanded that he not dare shed Henry’s blood, and the knight, forced only to defend himself, was seriously wounded and wandered for a long time between life and death. It was at this time that the woman suddenly said that she loved him, and had loved him for a long time, only him, and no one else. They spent the whole of December as newlyweds, but soon Madiel appeared to Renata, saying that her sins were serious and that she needed to repent. Renata devoted herself to prayer and fasting.

The day came, and Ruprecht found Renata’s room empty, having experienced what she had once experienced while looking for her Heinrich on the streets of Cologne. Doctor Faustus, a tester of the elements, and the monk who accompanied him, nicknamed Mephistopheles, were invited to travel together. On the way to Trier, while visiting the castle of Count von Wallen, Ruprecht accepted the owner’s offer to become his secretary and accompany him to the monastery of St. Olav, where a new heresy appeared and where he was going as part of the mission of Archbishop John of Trier.

In his eminence’s retinue was the Dominican brother Thomas, his holiness’s inquisitor, known for his tenacity in the persecution of witches. He was decisive about the source of the troubles in the monastery - Sister Mary, whom some considered a saint, others - possessed by demons. When the unfortunate nun was brought into the courtroom, Ruprecht, who was called upon to take the minutes, recognized Renata. She admitted to witchcraft, cohabitation with the devil, participation in the black mass, Sabbaths and other crimes against faith and fellow citizens, but refused to name her accomplices. Brother Thomas insisted on torture and then a death sentence. On the night before the fire, Ruprecht, with the assistance of the count, entered the dungeon where the condemned woman was kept, but she refused to escape, insisting that she longed for martyrdom, that Madiel, the fiery angel, would forgive her, the great sinner. When Ruprecht tried to take her away, Renata screamed, began to desperately fight back, but suddenly fell silent and whispered: “Ruprecht! It’s so good that you are with me!” - and died.

After all these events that shocked him, Ruprecht went to his native Aozheim, but only from a distance looked at his father and mother, already hunched over old people, basking in the sun in front of the house. He also turned to Doctor Agrippa, but found him at his last breath. This death again troubled his soul. A huge black dog, from which the teacher with a weakening hand removed the collar with magical inscriptions, after the words: “Go away, damned one! All my misfortunes come from you!” - with his tail between his legs and his head bowed, he ran out of the house, ran into the waters of the river and never reappeared on the surface. At that same moment, the teacher breathed his last and left this world. There was nothing left that would prevent Ruprecht from rushing to search for happiness overseas, to New Spain.

In the spring of 1534, Landsknecht Ruprecht returned to Cologne after 10 years of service. On the way, he stopped for the night in a lonely house located in the thicket of the forest. At night, he woke up from women's screams and found a woman in the next room, convulsing. Having come to her senses, the lady, whose name was Renata, told him her story.

When she was eight years old, a fiery angel began to appear to her. He told her that she would be a saint and adjured her to lead a strict lifestyle. Having matured, the girl wanted to unite with the angel physically, but he refused her and disappeared.

Soon Renata met Count Heinrich von Otterheim, in whom, as it seemed to her, her angel was embodied.

They were happy for two years, but then the count left his demon-possessed lover. Now Renata was trying to find Heinrich. After listening to Renata's story, Ruprecht, who fell in love with her, agreed to help her find the count. Together they went to Cologne. Here the woman involved her admirer in the study of black magic in the hope that Ruprecht could defeat the demons in whose power she was.

At her insistence, Ruprecht flew to the Sabbath. After an unsuccessful attempt to summon the devil, he went to Bonn to seek advice from the occultist Agrippa. Meanwhile, Renata finally found Heinrich, but he said that he did not even want to see his former lover, and that their love was a sin.

Then Renata promised Ruprecht to marry him if he killed the count. The former landsknecht found a reason to challenge Heinrich to a duel, and was seriously wounded. For a long time he balanced between life and death. Then Renata admitted to him that she loved him. They lived as newlyweds for a whole month, but soon a fiery angel appeared to Renata and announced that her sins were serious and she needed to repent.

The woman left Ruprecht, and he went in search of her. On the way, he met Doctor Faustus and Mephistopheles, who invited him to travel together. After some time, Ruprecht, as part of the archbishop's retinue, ended up in the monastery of St. Olav, where heresy manifested itself. The source of the trouble was the possessed nun Maria.

In the unfortunate Maria, Ruprecht recognized Renata. Under pressure from the inquisitors, she confessed to witchcraft and was sentenced to be burned at the stake. Ruprecht managed to get into her dungeon. The woman refused to run away with him, saying that she wanted to accept martyrdom, and died in the arms of her lover.

Returning home, Ruprecht discovered that his parents had turned into frail old men. Then he went to visit the teacher Agrippa, but he died before his eyes. Ruprecht rushed in search of happiness overseas, to New Spain.

Essays

PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE

Provocation of magic: "Fire Angel" by Bryusov

in the context of the Silver Age

In Russian thought the 19th century ended and the 20th opened - Vl. Soloviev. The intuition of Sophia as the female soul of the world is fully compatible with the idea of ​​“eternal femininity”, Ewig weibliche, especially since Solovyov’s definitions on this matter are not very sharp. The Dantean and Goethean line in this topic is obvious. It is worth recalling his 1898 poem "Das Ewig-Weibliche":

In his work, Sophia and eternal femininity are almost indistinguishable, and the eschatological story about the Antichrist, with which he began the 20th century, depicted the appearance of the enemy of the human race and was accompanied by the entry into the historical arena of a great magician, certain demonic-magical forces supporting the Antichrist, and the fear that in the eternal femininity can be possessed by devils, i.e. also antichrist's comrades.

If all symbolists considered Solovyov their teacher, the early Blok wrote “Poems about the Beautiful Lady” in the context of Solovyov’s intuitions, then Bryusov, as is known, did not like Solovyov. Soloviev expressed himself very sharply about Bryusov’s poem “Golden Fairies”: “Despite the “icy alleys in the satin garden,” the plot of these poems is as clear as it is reprehensible. Carried away by the “flight of fantasy,” the author gazed into the plank baths where the faces of women bathed sexes, whom he calls "fairies" and "naiads". But is it possible to make amends for vile actions with pompous words? And this is what symbolism leads to in conclusion! Let us at least hope that the "jealous boards" turned out to be at the height of their calling.<…>It is impossible to make a general judgment about Mr. Valery Bryusov without knowing his age. If he is no more than 14 years old, then he may turn out to be a decent poet, or he may not turn out to be anything. If this is an adult, then, of course, any literary hopes are inappropriate." 1 The article was published in 1895. Bryusov was 21 years old, that is, by the standards of that time, a fully mature adult.

Bryusov could not forgive himself for mocking himself. Let me remind you of the words of N. Valentinov, a very good observer and analyst of symbolism: “He acutely hated Solovyov and everything that related to him” 2. And he is the first, contrary to Sophia’s insights of Solovyov, who compared the “wife clothed in the sun” with the world soul, to paint a woman in the guise of a bearer of the devilish principle (his best novel is “The Fiery Angel”). She leads the hero not to heaven, like Beatrice, but to the devil’s Sabbath, where Mephistopheles took Faust. And then we can recall Ellis’s verse “The Rose of Hell” (1911):

I pray to you, Holy Rose of Hell,
The face of a demon is yours in every petal.

Then there are the poems of Mayakovsky, who depicted his beloved Lilya Brik as a she-devil who emerged “from the inferno depths” 3 , and then there is the appearance of Katka in the devilish blizzard whirlwind in “The Twelve” by Blok.

Soloviev largely followed Goethe in his Sophia insights. Goethe's theme turned out to be important in the era of Russian modernism. Bryusov even made Faust a passing character in his famous novel. In the history of culture, there are eternal images, in relation to which, one way or another, all subsequent spiritual quests are built. Goethe set the theme of Ewig weibliche as the problem of the formation of human existence, building a certain vertical - from man to God upward, but also a vertical leading to the underground regions of the devil. The magical component in the spiritual quest of the early twentieth century was strong. And Goethe was rethought here very seriously. Not to mention the fact that the whole of Faust is permeated with the search for magical powers and demonic images (just remember “Walpurgis Night”). But for him this is something alien to the human norm. I will refer to the recent research of Professor Kemper: “The “demonic” does not appear in Goethe as a concept participating in the self-description of the mind, but is a kind of cipher denoting something perceived per definitionem as an incomprehensible principle, opposed to rationalistic discourse and neither reason nor understanding accessible" 4.

And to take away the power of reason, as Kant wrote back in 1786, means to deny God, to open the doors to underground chthonic monsters, to various human evils: “So, if reason, in relation to supersensible objects, for example, God and the future world, the right of the first vote will be contested, then a wide door will be opened to all mysticism, superstition and even atheism" 5 .

However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, reason gave way to magic. The masses who were still living in the magical paradigm entered the historical arena and could not help but infect the spiritual elite with their worldview. The inhabitants of the beginning of the century, including those who found themselves at the epicenter of Steinerism and the occult, saw a positive aspect in magic. The famous Ellis, seemingly even a fan of Goethe, in this context quite naturally perceived Nietzsche’s work as a magical message: “The magically living images of Zarathustra, Apollo and Dionysus in their dazzling reality, chaotically combining, gave birth in him to the image of a superman, a magician of ancient cultures, a priest ancient mysteries, a mediator between people and gods; the priest-magician Zoroaster merged with the hero-fighter of Hellas, the mystery was embodied in a myth, the myth became an ideal" 6. According to him, religious art was replaced in this era by “magical” 7. And in the leader of Russian symbolism, Bryusov, Ellis sees “absolute alienation to Christianity,” “something unclean, cosmic-erotic” 8.

In an era when, after Solovyov, Russian literature spoke about eternal femininity, about “a wife clothed in the sun,” about a “beautiful lady,” Bryusov writes the novel “The Fiery Angel” (1908), in which he meaningfully calls the heroine Renata.

Bryusov, a poet of the Silver Age, which, as is known, was called the Russian religious Renaissance, in parallel to it, describes in the novel the German Renaissance and Reformation, for there are archetypal features that Bryusov reports at the very beginning of the novel: “As strange as it may seem to us, but it was precisely during the Renaissance that the intensive development of magical teachings began, which lasted throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The vague witchcraft and fortune-telling of the Middle Ages were in the 16th century reworked into a coherent discipline of sciences, of which scientists numbered over twenty (see, for example, the work of Agrippa " De speciebus magiae"). The spirit of the century, striving to rationalize everything, managed to make magic a certain rational doctrine, introduced meaningfulness and logic into fortune-telling, scientifically substantiated flights to the Sabbath, etc. Believing in the reality of magical phenomena, the author of the "Tale" only followed the best minds of his time. Thus, Jean Bodin, the famous author of the treatise “De republica”, whom Buckle recognized as one of the most remarkable historians, at the same time the author of the book “La DХmonomanie des sorciers”, which examines in detail pacts with the devil and flights to the Sabbath; Ambroise Pare, a reformer of surgery, described the nature of demons and types of possession; Kepler defended his mother against the accusation of witchcraft, without objecting to the accusation itself; the nephew of the famous Pico, Giovanni Francesco della Mirandola, wrote the dialogue “The Witch” in order to convince educated, non-believing people in the existence of witches; according to him, one can rather doubt the existence of America, etc. Popes issued special bulls against witches.

The action of the novel, its chronotope, is Germany (Cologne, to be precise) in the 16th century. The story is told on behalf of a certain Ruprecht, born in the Electorate of Trier, the son of a physician, not the last person in his corporation, who studied at the University of Cologne (where the main action of the novel later develops), well-educated, but at the same time, which is typical, and an adventurer. But Germany in the era of Luther and Doctor Faustus was described so thoroughly that the Germans for a long time did not believe that the author of the novel was Russian. And it is significant that the setting of the Russian novel is medieval Germany, with which in that era they felt an almost mystical connection. New translations by Jacob Boehme and Meister Eckhardt were sold in Russia, and serious Russian thinkers wrote about them. And mysticism and magic became the central semantic theme of this novel about tragic love, where magic determines the type of love. Love is given through magic. Bely ironically said that by depicting Germany, Cologne, Bryusov, in essence, depicted merchant Moscow, Arbat and Prechistenka. And the prototypes were Russian people.

The prototype of Renata was Nina Petrovskaya, who committed suicide in Paris after the revolution, the ex-wife of S. Sokolov (who wrote under the pseudonym S. Krechetov), ​​owner of the Grif publishing house, who brought to life not only Bryusov’s novel, but also one of the best poems by Khodasevich and his same essay "The End of Renata". The essay seemed to draw a line under the Russian Renaissance, the “New Middle Ages” began (N. Berdyaev). Even her real surname could be symbolic for the end of the Petrine period of Russian culture. There is a rhyme between eras in history, and this is what Bryusov guessed. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of his "Doctor Faustus", summing up the new Middle Ages - the Hitler era, Thomas Mann reports that ghosts and visions of the real medieval era seem to be hovering in the German air. The novel essentially begins with this reminder.

It is worth recalling Bryusov’s 1911 poem dedicated to Nina Petrovskaya:

Who is the magic of the shadowy power
Poured into her approach?
Who is the poison of tormenting passion
Hugs made her drunk?

As you can see, this is not “The Wife Clothed in the Sun”, not Blok’s “beautiful lady” with a hint of involvement in the “blue flower” of Novalis. No. In Bryusov, the poet’s beloved woman becomes the bearer of evil magic. This is how Renata is depicted in the novel “Fire Angel”. The duality of his attitude towards the prototype fully affected the image of the heroine of the novel. But this is not the only example of his uncertainty in matters of morality. In general, Bryusov shows duality in many of his texts. Here is what a modern researcher writes about “The Fiery Angel”: “It is extremely important that, while affirming the truth of the devil’s path in the novel, Bryusov at the same time does not deny the objectivity of the divine truth. As if mocking the reader, the author never gives a direct answer to the question: who above - God or the devil? And in the final lines of the novel, having condemned through the lips of Ruprecht the insanity of demonic experiments, the master does not at all deny the possibility of their repetition" 9 .

There is great reason for this if we recall the quite textbook lines of the poet:

I want her to swim everywhere
Free boat,
Both Lord and Devil
I want to glorify.

He tried to appear involved in arcane knowledge and the highest meanings of existence, which for him were hidden in demonism. The attitude of his contemporaries towards him was rather negative. A copy of the first edition of “The Fiery Angel” has survived, all with notes from Tsvetaeva, who was close to the German theme. (She simply hated Bryusov as a poet and a person, which is clear from her essay “Hero of Labor”). Boris Zaitsev recalled about Bryusov: “Dislike surrounded him with a wall; there was really nothing to love him for. A sad figure of a strong-willed, outstanding writer, but more of a “doer,” an organizer and a candidate for leader. He was feared, groveled and hated. Flatterers compared him to Dante ". He himself dreamed that in the history of world literature there would be at least two lines about him. Appearing to be a magician, performing in a black frock coat with his arms crossed on his chest “like Lucifer” gave him great pleasure." Bryusov built his family mythology, tracing his origins to the famous warlock of the Peter the Great era - Yakov Bruce, although he was only the son of a merchant who had become a serf.

In 1903, Andrei Bely dedicated a poem to Bryusov entitled “The Magician.”

At the same time, Bryusov was outwardly far from the appearance of a magician: “I met Bryusov through Bely in 1907. Instead of a “magnificent man,” I saw a bearded, high-cheekboned man who had nothing distingue, who reminded me of Lenin and Gorky - a type of Volga man, where on The anthropology of the Slav was left indelibly stamped by the Tatars, Chuvash, Cheremis, Kalmyks, Bashkirs, etc.” eleven . But this perception of Bryusov fit well into the worldview of Bely himself, about whom one of the smartest people of the beginning of the century, David Steinberg, recalled: “Bely’s worldview was of a magical nature.<…>We can say that anthroposophy for Bely was the science of the supernatural, knowledge not of the theoretical, but of the supernatural - direct and living knowledge.<…>For him, his own attitude to the supernatural and magical merged with anthroposophical teaching." 12. The cruelly ironic Bunin is skeptical in his description of Bryusov: "He was<…>invariably pompous no less than Kozma Prutkov, he pretended to be a demon, a magician." 13 And then he adds something similar to what Ellis wrote about Bryusov: "a morphine addict and a sadistic erotomaniac Bryusov" 14.

What touched the modern reader so much in Bryusov’s novel? Here we need to look at the reality of the era. A woman becomes at the beginning of the twentieth century. more active both socially and sexually. And this frightens men, who begin to see in a woman something evil and antisocial, 15 returning to medieval ideas about a woman, coming from the image of Eve, as a “vessel of sin.” The Bryusov novel evoked different reactions - from sexual interest in the forbidden fruit, almost pornography, to an understanding of the devilish role of women.

Valentinov writes: “Some of my Muscovite acquaintances saw pure pornography in the novel and therefore read it diligently. The main person in the novel is the unfortunate Renata with a vision of the angel Madiel sunk into her soul. He appeared before her in a ray of sunshine, in snow-white clothes, his face his eyes were as blue as the sky, and his hair seemed to be made of thin golden threads.<…>Count Heinrich vowed to remain a virgin for the rest of his life, Renata seduced him, and he fled from her in horror and disgust." 16 What is the novel about?

What are its real prototypes, what does it have to do with the situation of the Silver Age? Almost all editions of the novel contain the same untitled annotation: “The novel is destined to have a long life for two good reasons (at least). Firstly, a reflection of a love triangle from life: Andrei Bely (“Count Heinrich”) - Nina Petrovskaya (“Renata” ") – and Bryusov himself. Secondly, Sergei Prokofiev immortalized him with his opera ▒ Fiery Angel ' "There really was a triangle, everyone wrote about it, most extensively Vladislav Khodasevich. He spoke about Nina Petrovskaya, that this wife of a famous book publisher was first the mistress of Balmont, then Bely, then Bryusov and a number of other poets (from the hints one can understand that he himself Khodasevich). This is quite clear from his poem SANCTUS AMOR of 1907, dedicated to Nina Petrovskaya:

But truly tragic love, tightly connected with the feeling of the magic of life and era, happened to Bely and Bryusov. I will allow myself a few excerpts from Khodasevich’s memoirs: “Oh, if in those days they could love simply, in the name of the one you love, and in the name of yourself! But you had to love in the name of some kind of abstraction and against the background of it. Nina obliged in this case, to love Andrei Bely in the name of his mystical calling, which both she and he forced themselves to believe in. And he had to appear before her only in the brilliance of his radiance - I’m not saying fake, but... symbolic. They dressed up the small truth, their human, just human love, in the clothes of an immeasurably greater truth. On Nina Petrovskaya’s black dress appeared a black thread of wooden rosary and a large black cross. Andrei Bely also wore such a cross..."

Bely left Nina for Blok's wife. In retaliation, she got along with Bryusov: “Bryusov at that time was engaged in occultism, spiritualism, black magic - not believing, probably, in all of this in essence, but believing in the activities themselves, as in a gesture expressing a certain spiritual movement. I think that and Nina felt the same way about it. She hardly believed that her magical experiments under the guidance of Bryusov would actually return Bely’s love to her. But she experienced it as a genuine union with the devil. She wanted to believe in her witchcraft. She was hysterical, and this, perhaps, especially attracted Bryusov: from the latest scientific sources (he always respected science), he knew that in the “great age of witchcraft" witches were revered and revered themselves - hysterics. If the witches of the 16th century "in the light of science" turned out to be hysterics, then in the 20th century Bryusov should have tried to turn a hysterical woman into a witch." And finally, such a novel collision ended in a work of art, a novel, which became a classic of Russian literature: “What for Nina became the focus of life was for Bryusov another series of “moments.” When all the emotions arising from this situation were extracted, he was drawn to Peru. In the novel "Fire Angel", with a certain convention, he depicted the whole story, presenting Andrei Bely under the name of Count Heinrich, Nina Petrovskaya under the name of Renata, and himself under the name of Ruprecht" 17 .

With this feeling of the vitality of the novel it is worth comparing the view of Yu. Aikhenvald, an observer who tried to separate himself from modern vanity: “He is a writer who reads. He is too obvious an owner and inhabitant of books, a poet-librarian, with them he extinguishes the last spark of spontaneity. his poetry, and in prose. In the latter area, the largest thing he composed was “The Fiery Angel.” But just as Bryusov in general, before writing, must first read, so here the entire structure is erected on a foundation of books. Everything is composed , adjusted one to the other; there are separate happy passages and scenes - but all the time the white threads of historical information and references catch the eye. How much has been spent, how little has been gained! The results do not correspond to the efforts. People have no soul and time has no spirit. External prevails over the internal, and the heroes seem to look at themselves through the eyes of their descendants-historians: they are drawn not as they seemed to themselves, but as they seem to us.They came out more belonging to the 16th century than they really belonged to it; at the will of the author, they emphasize their century: as if in the foresight of Bryusov, who will describe them, they themselves carefully distinguish themselves from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Renata is possessed by the devil, but her soul is not depicted in such a way that this devil is obligatory for her. There is a witch, but there is no witch psychology. And her relationship with Ruprecht, conceived as true love, which, however, is hindered by some evil force, did not turn out to be like love. Our author's stylization added nothing to the essence of the matter; in itself, she suffers from that common and grave sin that she lacks creativity and does not create something new: this exactly suits the uncreative and mediocre Bryusov. Stylization – stop; she takes the old as old, precisely in this quality. She accepts the external and rejects the eternal. For the eternal does not need stylization and does not lend itself to it. By stylizing, the artist attaches exorbitant importance to what is unimportant, and he himself voluntarily abandons the supertemporal. The victory of time over eternity, the small over the great - this is what stylization is in general and in Bryusov in particular." 18 Obviously, something fair can be found in this point of view if we abandon the living perception of the era, imbued with literary and philosophical reminiscences and stylizations.

And yet, if the dignity of this novel was determined only by the depiction of a love conflict, even one that happened in the era of the Silver Age, it is unlikely that the novel would be of interest today as a novel. Memoirs and gossip on this topic would be much more interesting and entertaining. Several decades later, Stepun wrote with irony about the “aesthetic-demonic illusionism of Valery Bryusov” 19. Meanwhile, the problem of magic was too serious for the artists and thinkers of the Silver Age. Bryusov was not one of the last; his influence on his contemporaries in this regard was considerable. At the same time, as Khodasevich and N. Valentinov noted, for Bryusov the magician’s mask was precisely a mask, a game 20, because his upbringing and culture were completely different. And he highlights this in his memoirs: “They zealously protected me from fairy tales, from any “devilishness.” But I learned about Darwin’s ideas and the principles of materialism before I learned to multiply. Needless to say, there was no mention of religion in our house was: belief in God seemed to me the same prejudice as belief in brownies and mermaids" 21.

It is curious that many noted this disbelief of Bryusov, although it was a lack of faith in a higher power: “Bryusov was deprived of a direct religious feeling, just as there are people who are completely deprived of a direct musical feeling” 22. But it is all the more interesting that it was he, one of the largest intellectuals of the Silver Age, the master and leader of symbolism, and at the same time a rationalist, who presented himself as a magician and depicted the riot of magical forces. Strictly speaking, Bryusov in his novel depicted one of the options for entering the magical world, but who opens the gates there? The answer is clear: a woman.

The Silver Age suddenly began to see in a woman a creature associated with the underground elements. Vyach. Ivanov, in his article “On the Dignity of a Woman,” so named in the spirit of seemingly new ideas of equality, nevertheless speaks of the dark mystical powers of a woman: “It is precisely due to the greater wealth of her mental powers that a woman seemed in ancient times and appears to male impressionability to this day as a mysterious creature and unexplored to its last depths.There is, as it were, an agreement of all men - consensus omnium virorum - in this perception of a woman as an unconscious keeper of some superpersonal, natural secret.<…>Maintaining constant access through the secret of her sex to the subconscious sphere of life, a woman is recognized by almost everyone as predominantly gifted with those abilities that are rooted in the subconscious and become impoverished as individual self-awareness grows - the forces of instinct and clairvoyance" 23.

In the fourth chapter of the novel, unambiguously entitled “How we lived in Cologne, what Renata demanded of me and what I saw at the Sabbath,” the narrator, and through him the author, shows a woman as a bearer of demonic elements. She begins with verbal seduction, appealing to the feelings that the hero experiences for her. Renata persuades the hero to go to the Sabbath with the Devil: “Ruprecht! What does the salvation of the soul mean if you love me? Shouldn’t love be above everything, and shouldn’t everything be sacrificed to it, even Heavenly bliss? Do what I want, for me". And then it turns out that all the witch’s techniques are very familiar to her: “From the very morning, Renata began to prepare me for the task I had taken on and gradually, as if by chance mentioning one thing or another, acquainted me with the black essence of everything that I "had to fulfill and about which I knew only very vaguely. Not without embarrassment, I learned in detail what blasphemous words I would have to utter, what ungodly offenses I would commit and what kind of visions generally awaited me at that festival."

So, the magical power possessed by the woman leads the hero to the Sabbath with the Devil. What follows from this? A very simple but extremely significant conclusion. A woman who was perceived in medieval Europe, and from the 19th century in Russia, as a bearer of light, overcoming darkness with her closeness to the Virgin Mary, a man’s spiritual guide to the light (like Beatrice, like Gretchen), as a “wife clothed in the sun,” etc. d., turns out to be the bearer of darkness. From this it is clear that that amulet of humanity from evil, which was proclaimed in the idea of ​​\u200b\u200b"eternal femininity", has disappeared, or at least was disappearing.

The cruelty of Russian revolutionaries and Nazi wardens in Germany spoke of a dramatically changed composition of the female psyche, as the composition of the world had changed. And now, saving her lover, the woman turns not to God, but to Satan (Margarita in Bulgakov’s novel).

Moreover, this rollback from rationality, from reason, as a conquest of European culture, occurred almost everywhere. In Austria, Hofmannsthal wrote the poem “Terzins” in 1894 and “opened,” according to a domestic researcher, “the theme of the magical transformation of life” 24, and forty years later, in the 1930 report “German Speech. A Call to Reason,” Thomas Mann , recording the “refusal (Abkehr) of faith in reason,” the failure into an almost prehistoric past, wrote: “If you think about what it cost humanity<…>rise from the cult of nature, from barbarously refined Gnostics and sexually charged excesses in the service of Molech-Baal-Astarte to more spiritual worship, then you are surprised at the ease with which today<…>I welcome the unsteady, almost ephemeral, and essentially meaningless rejection of humanism" 25.

Due to a number of personal circumstances (dislike for Vl. Solovyov, who proclaimed the idea of ​​“eternal femininity”, his gloomy sexual experience, for his lovers went into the darkness, committing suicide), and the sharpness of socio-cultural vision and scientific sobriety of the Bryusov’s mind guessed the appearance in the world of the twentieth century of magical forces that are capable of controlling the rebel masses who were still living in the pagan-magical past, who had not been trained in Christian humanism. But the trouble is that this poet and thinker, being a man of strictly scientific make, who thought quite rationally, seemed to provoke his era, giving it, as it were, the keys to magical powers, in any case showing that magic is power. And, as you know, to overcome the norms, one is enough to show this possibility. On a European scale this was Nietzsche, in Russia this was Bryusov.

If you need specific examples, there are many of them. For example, accompanied throughout his life by Lilya Brik, who emerged from the “hell depths,” Mayakovsky was contacted by hellish forces that found shelter under the leather jackets of the Cheka, and was dragged to the Stavrogin depths, into suicide.

But this began back in the era of the Silver Age. Margarita Voloshina recalled: “In a house that once belonged to the Slavophile Khomyakov and preserved the furnishings of the early 19th century, a married couple returning from emigration gathered futuristic poets and artists. There I met many of them, including Vladimir Mayakovsky.<…>All these poets had no conventions or abstractions. Here the battle raged against the ideals of the past, which we had accepted from antiquity; these people perceived them as lies. The audacity of the proletarian who “threw off his shackles” did not frighten me; it could be considered something like a childhood illness. Another thing was worrying: it seemed that with this spiritual wealth the demons were playing their game. The poet’s personality did not have clear outlines, but from his poems something burst into life from primeval depths, which could bring with it something unexpected and fatal. It is known that for Mayakovsky himself this became fatal, because he committed suicide" 26.

The trouble is that, having expressed this ubiquitous thirst for magic in his work, Bryusov did not find, and did not look for, counteraction to it. Although, however, those who searched did not find it.

_______________________________________________________________________________

NOTES

1 Soloviev V.S. Russian Symbolists // Soloviev V.S. Collection Op. in 10 volumes. T. 7. St. Petersburg: Partnership "Enlightenment", b.g.

2 Valentinov N. Bryusov and Ellis // Valentinov N (N. Volsky). Two years with the Symbolists. M.: Publishing house XXI century - Consent, 2000. P. 234-235.

3 See about this my article “Eternally Feminine” and Russian Culture // October, 2003, No. 11. P. 155-176. Also published in my book “St. Petersburg: Russian Empire against Russian chaos.” M.: ROSSPEN, 2008. pp. 398-433.

4 Kemper Dirk. Goethe and the problem of individuality in the culture of the modern era. M.: Languages ​​of Slavic Culture, 2009. P.349.

5 Kant Immanuel. What does it mean to be guided in thinking? // Kant Immanuel. Treatises. Reviews. Letters / ed. L.A. Kalinikova. Kaliningrad: Publishing house of the Russian State University named after. I.Kanta, 2009. P. 21.

6 Ellis. Vigilemus! Treatise // Ellis. Unreleased and uncollected. Tomsk: Aquarius, 2000. P.251.

7 Ibid. P. 261.

8 Ibid. pp. 252, 253.

9 Slobodnyuk S.L. "Devils" of the "Silver" Age (ancient Gnosticism and Russian literature 1890-1930). St. Petersburg: 1998. P.108.

10 Zaitsev B.K. Moscow // Zaitsev B.K. St. Nicholas Street. Novels and stories. M.: Khud. lit. 1989. P. 301.

11 exquisite (French).

12 Valentinov N. Bryusov and Ellis // Valentinov N (N. Volsky). Two years with the Symbolists. M.: Publishing house XXI century - Consent, 2000. P. 227.

13 Steinberg A.Z. Literary archipelago. M.: NLO, 2009. P. 123.

14 Bunin I.A. Autobiographical notes // Bunin I.A. Damned days. M.: Soviet writer, 1990. pp. 182-183.

15 Ibid. P. 195.

16 Otto Weininger’s book “Sex and Character” was very popular in Russia in those years, where a woman was the bearer of a purely natural, extra-rational principle. The influential Berdyaev interpreted this understanding of women as follows: “A woman is the bearer of the sexual element in this world. In a man, sex is more differentiated and specialized, but in a woman it is spread throughout the entire flesh of the body, throughout the entire field of the soul. In a man, sexual desire requires more immediate satisfaction, than a woman, but he has greater independence from sex than a woman, he is a less sexual being. A man has a huge sexual dependence on a woman, there is a weakness for the female sex, a fundamental weakness, perhaps the source of all his weaknesses. And it is humiliating for In man, this is the weakness of a man towards a woman. But a man in himself is less sexual than a woman. A woman has nothing that is not sexual, she is sexy in her strength and in her weakness, sexy even in the weakness of sexual desire. A woman is a cosmic, world carrier of the sexual element , elemental in the field. The natural generic element of sex is a feminine element. The power of the race over a person is exercised through a woman" (Berdyaev N.A. The meaning of creativity // Berdyaev N.A. Philosophy of freedom. The meaning of creativity. M.: Pravda, 1990. pp. 407-408). (Valentinov N. The spirit flying around Moscow // Valentinov N (N. Volsky). Two years with the symbolists. M.: Publishing house XXI century - Consent, 2000. P. 81-82.

17 Khodasevich V.F. The end of Renata // Khodasevich V.F. In front of the mirror. M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2002. pp. 140-142.

18 Aikhenvald Yu. Valery Bryusov // Aikhenvald Yu. Silhouettes of Russian writers. M.: Republic, 1994. P. 394.

19 Stepun F.A. Post-revolutionary consciousness and tasks of emigrant literature // Stepun F.A. Life and art. Selected works / intro. article, compilation and comments by V.K. Cantora. M.: Astrel, 2009. P. 637.

20 “Other symbolists were drawn to mysticism - Bryusov, for knowledge, fun or out of curiosity, could study? Occult sciences?, Kabbalah. Black Mass - but he was infinitely far from mysticism” (Valentinov N. Two years with the symbolists. M.: Publishing House XXI century - Consent, 2000. P. 231).

21 Bryusov V.Ya. Autobiography // Bryusov V.Ya. From my life. M.: Terra-Terra, 1994. P. 66.

22 Ilyin Vladimir. Valery Bryusov. Great master of the Russian Renaissance // Ilyin Vladimir. Essay about Russian culture. St. Petersburg: Acropolis, 1997. P. 249.

23 Ivanov Vyach. On the dignity of a woman // Ivanov Vyach. By the stars. Articles and aphorisms. M.: Musaget, 1909. P. 382-383.

24 Zherebin A.I. Absolute reality. "Young Vienna" and Russian literature. M.: Languages ​​of Slavic Culture, 2009. P. 30.

25 Mann Thomas. Deutsche Ansprache. Ein Appell an das Vernunft // Mann Thomas. Sorge um Deutschland. Sechs Essays. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1957. S. 52.

26 Voloshina Margarita (M.V. Sabashnikova). Green Snake. The story of one life. M.: ENIGMA, 1993. P.262 (my italics - V.K.).