(1866-1941) Russian prose writer, poet, critic, translator

For a long time, the name of Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky was little known to the Russian reader, despite the fact that he wrote several great novels, many poems and critical articles. However, there is nothing strange about this. Merezhkovsky was mainly concerned with moral and religious problems, which Soviet authority recognized as frivolous.

It cannot be said, however, that the works of Dmitry Merezhkovsky were especially popular before. They are mainly intended for an educated reader who is able to understand their complex symbolism. Merezhkovsky’s personality itself caused a lot of complaints in literary circles. Many writers were very critical of him.

Perhaps the reason for such cool relations was that Dmitry Merezhkovsky himself did not particularly strive to get close to people. Obviously, his special position in literature was explained by the deep personal loneliness that haunted the writer from early childhood until his death.

But Merezhkovsky’s isolation and external aloofness in no way detract from his extraordinary talent and enormous erudition. The writer was even called the commander of quotations, since a rare philologist could compare with him in erudition. In addition, he had an excellent memory and in conversations constantly cited excerpts from the works he read.

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky was born in rich family and was the youngest of six sons of the court chief. He was afraid and did not love his father, but he adored his mother. Dmitry got along with her special relationship trusting friendship that remained until her death.

In his “Autobiographical Note,” Dmitry Merezhkovsky recalled his childhood years: “I was born on August 2, 1866 in St. Petersburg, on Elagin Island, in one of the palace buildings where our family spent the summer in the country. In winter, we lived in the old, old, from Peter’s times, Bauer’s house, on the corner of the Neva and Fontanka, at the Laundry Bridge, opposite the Summer Garden: on the one hand - the Summer Palace of Peter I, on the other - his own house and the oldest wooden Trinity in St. Petersburg Cathedral".

So from early childhood, Merezhkovsky was surrounded by the atmosphere of past centuries; he lived in the world of antiquity and saw how kings lived. Perhaps that is why he began to write historical novels about the lives of Russian rulers.

The future writer received an excellent education, first at a classical gymnasium, and then at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. As a child, Dmitry Merezhkovsky was fond of Pushkin's poetry and, imitating him, wrote poetry. One day he showed them to Dostoevsky, and the famous writer pronounced his verdict: “Weak... bad... no good... to write well, you have to suffer, suffer!” Then, already as a student, Merezhkovsky became interested in religious philosophy, and this passion determined his further work.

In the spring of 1888, while in Tiflis, he met his future wife, Zinaida Gippius, also the daughter of a major official. They soon got married and moved to St. Petersburg, where, with the help of his mother, Merezhkovsky rented an apartment.

His literary fate was determined by a meeting in 1891 with the most famous Russian poet of that time, S. Nadson, who noticed the gifted young man and introduced him to other famous writers, poets and artists.

Soon the Merezhkovskys' house became one of the recognized literary salons in the city, and after they moved to Liteiny Prospekt, their house became a permanent place where the Russian literary intelligentsia gathered. Major writers and philologists visited there - Andrei Bely, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Konstantin Balmont, Ivan Bunin. However, despite such a wide circle of friends, Merezhkovsky and Gippius hung out with few people. true friendship. Many said that their family was a “little church” and could only be joined by those who unconditionally accepted their ideas in literature. As the Russian religious philosopher Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev later wrote, “they had a sectarian lust for power.”

However, Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky himself was still in a creative search. He is more and more concerned about religious problems, and in the 90s he experiences a real religious revolution. At this time, a new direction appeared in Russian literature - symbolism, which was close in spirit to Merezhkovsky, and he immediately accepted it. However, he also accepts it in his own way. In 1892 he published his poetry collection called "Symbols", and on next year his famous series of lectures “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature” appears.

Since then critical articles Dmitry Merezhkovsky is published regularly, and each of them becomes an event. His books are no less interesting. In his first historical novel, “Julian the Apostate,” Merezhkovsky tried to take a completely new look at biblical story. Perhaps that is why all popular magazines refused to publish this novel, and Dmitry Merezhkovsky was forced to release it immediately in book form.

After this, he begins to work on the next book, dedicated to the greatest Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. Using his example, Merezhkovsky wanted to show that fate creative personality This is not easy in any society and under any government. After all, Leonardo da Vinci, despite the fact that he was a great scientist, artist and thinker, had to experience different things in his life - years of triumph, exile and loneliness.

To work on the book, Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky had to commit big Adventure in Italy. And yet, many perceived the writer as an armchair scientist who takes material only from books. During the trip, he gave lectures at various universities in Italy, preaching a new literary movement - symbolism. Merezhkovsky had a brilliant command of almost all European languages.

After returning to Russia, he was completely immersed in religious issues. Now in his salon, along with writers, you can see the greatest religious philosophers Nikolai Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, V. Rozanov. Together with Z. Gippius he organizes the so-called Religious

philosophical meetings in which prominent theologians, philosophers, and representatives of the clergy take part. In particular, Metropolitan Anthony of St. Petersburg spoke there.

At the same time, Dmitry Merezhkovsky became one of the main authors of the World of Art magazine. However, the Religious and Philosophical Assemblies did not last long. Their participants spoke rather harshly about traditional Orthodox Church, proposed to combine Orthodoxy with Catholicism, developed the ideas of a “religious community”, a kind of Christian socialism. The Synod considered all these ideas dangerous, and on April 5, 1903, the authorities banned meetings. Almost simultaneously with this, Merezhkovsky’s new work was published - the book “Dostoevsky and Tolstoy”, and after it the novel “Peter and Alexei”, which completed the trilogy “Christ and Antichrist”.

Despite an outwardly prosperous and even prosperous life, Dmitry Merezhkovsky is constantly in intense spiritual search; he meets people of the most different views and directions. For example, his acquaintance with Maxim Gorky and Leonid Andreev gave him a lot. By the way, Merezhkovsky inspired his wife to write a work about Gorky, where Gorky’s real place in Russian literature was shown for the first time.

In 1904, Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky again went abroad, to Germany, and on the way from St. Petersburg he made a special stop at Yasnaya Polyana to meet Leo Tolstoy. Like other representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, Merezhkovsky paid tribute to the great writer and at one time was carried away by his ideas. Their meeting made a strong impression on Dmitry Merezhkovsky, and he remembered it all his life.

The writer treated Fyodor Dostoevsky with the same immense respect, to whom he devoted a detailed critical study. The writer's widow gave the notebooks to Merezhkovsky, and he published them.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky could not accept the changes in society that occurred after the first Russian revolution in 1905. He left Russia. Together with Z. Gippius, they settled in Paris, where they lived until 1914, regularly coming to Russia. In emigration, the special, romantic relationship that Merezhkovsky and Gippius had from the very beginning emerged even more fully. They lived in marriage for fifty-two years, “without being separated,” as Gippius later wrote, “from the day of our wedding in Tiflis, not once, not for a single day.”

As always, my stay in Paris was filled with everyday work. Merezhkovsky and Gippius begin to comprehend Catholicism more deeply, become interested in modernism and become closer to the Socialist Revolutionary Party. They met and became friends with the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries, the famous Boris Savinkov, who inclined them towards a religious justification of political terror, and also asked for advice in his work on the novel “The Pale Horse”. Dmitry Merezhkovsky did not abandon his own creativity: at this time he wrote two novels - “Paul I” and “Alexander I”.

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky perceived the beginning of the First World War as a misfortune for Russia. It is clear that he could not accept the revolution of 1917, since he did not see a place for himself in the new world. Back in 1907, the collective collection “The Tsar and the Revolution” was published in Paris, for which Merezhkovsky wrote an article entitled “Revolution and Religion.” Discussing the historical roots of the Russian monarchy and the church, he writes that in the depths of the people's element, the revolutionary tornado will acquire all-crushing force, and predicts that along with the collapse of the Russian church and the Russian kingdom, the death of Russia will come. At that time, no one took these prophecies seriously; they seemed empty and abstract. However, ten years later, Dmitry Merezhkovsky’s prophecies began to come true. After the October Revolution old Russia really died. Already in the summer of 1919, Merezhkovsky and Gippius left their homeland again, still, of course, not knowing that they would never return here. Through Poland they managed to get to Paris, where they lived until their death.

All subsequent years, Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky continued to work hard. Unlike many other emigrants, he did not live in poverty and was mainly engaged in literary creativity. This was made possible thanks to financial support which he received Serbian king Alexander. However, during this period he encountered other difficulties. His works were not in demand. The time of Merezhkovsky's historical novels, designed for an elite, educated reader, has passed. The last surge in the writer’s popularity was in newspaper publications, when he, along with I. Bunin and Ivan Shmelev, was nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Having experienced his fame, Dmitry Merezhkovsky did not always adequately assess what was happening. It is known, in particular, that he considered the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Bunin unfair; he could not or did not even want to hide his wounded pride.

Until the end of his life, Merezhkovsky hated communism. His homeland did not evoke his sympathy even during the war. Even then he gave preference Hitler's Germany. Many emigrants stopped knowing him when 76-year-old Dmitry Merezhkovsky spoke on the radio and compared Hitler to Joan of Arc, although in conversations with acquaintances he called him “a vile, ignorant nonentity, half-crazed to boot.” As he said about his speech Merezhkovsky himself, he did it “out of meanness." But, obviously, there were other reasons. He saw in the dictator that strong personality, which Nietzsche once sang. The writer was fascinated by these ideas in his youth, and his life ended with them.

It is curious that in Everyday life Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky was a man of habits. He got up late, read or worked at the table, then went for a walk and had lunch, after lunch he most often slept, and then everything was repeated all over again. Regulars of Parisian cafes are accustomed to seeing at the same time this always elegantly dressed gentleman and his incredibly theatrically painted lady, his companion. So, even in old age, Merezhkovsky and Gippius did not lose their sense of chosenness and did not want to destroy their “little church”, which they built for themselves in their youth.

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky died on December 9, 1941, just six months after his ill-fated radio speech in support of Hitler, for which other emigrants did not forgive him even after his death. So take the writer to last way only a few people came.

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky is an outstanding Russian poet, writer, philosopher, historian, translator, critic and public figure. One of the founders of the movement of Russian symbolism and the founder of the genre of the historiosophical novel, a prominent representative of poetry Silver Age. Merezhkovsky was repeatedly nominated for Nobel Prize on literature.

Dmitry Merezhkovsky was born in 1866 in St. Petersburg into the family of a minor palace official. Dmitry began writing poetry at the age of thirteen, and in 1888 he released his debut collection “Poems”. Future poet and the religious thinker then studied at Moscow and St. Petersburg universities at the faculties of history and philology. Acquaintance with the poetry of Vladimir Solovyov and European symbolism largely determined Merezhkovsky’s views and was reflected in his first literary works.

In 1889, Dmitry Sergeevich married the poetess Zinaida Gippius, with whom he lived together for fifty-two years, without parting for a day. In the nineties, the couple traveled a lot around Europe - during these trips Merezhkovsky was engaged in translations of ancient tragedies from Greek and Latin. These works, practically unclaimed during the author’s lifetime, were highly appreciated by modern linguists and called them the pride of the Russian school of literary translation.

In 1892, Dmitry Sergeevich published a collection of poems “Symbols”, which gave the name to a new poetic direction, and in Merezhkovsky’s lecture “On the causes of decline and new trends in modern Russian literature” the first theoretical basis symbolism. For many years, the poet became the generally recognized leader of this literary movement.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Merezhkovsky began researching Christianity and conciliarity and created a religious and philosophical society for open discussion of issues of culture and the church. Influenced by ideas about the need to establish a new Christianity expressed at society meetings, Dmitry Sergeevich created in 1896-1905 a trilogy of the first historical symbolist novels in Russia, “Christ and Antichrist”: “The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate", "Resurrected Gods. Leonardo da Vinci" and "Antichrist. Peter and Alexey." A worthy heir to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as the English press called him, Merezhkovsky presented in his trilogy a completely new historical novel, nothing like the works of this genre of the 19th century.

A year after the release of his third historiosophical novel, Merezhkovsky left for Paris and stayed there for two years. Here Dmitry Sergeevich began work on his other trilogy, “The Kingdom of the Beast,” dedicated to Russian history late XVIII - early XIX centuries. In all parts of the trilogy - "Paul I", "Alexander I" and "December 14" - the author criticized the official church and autocracy, as a result of which his works were subjected to severe censorship, and he himself was subject to prosecution.

Nevertheless, Merezhkovsky's prose was popular in Europe and was translated into many languages. In 1911-1913 his seventeen-volume collected works were published, and in 1914 - twenty-four volumes.

After October revolution In 1917, Merezhkovsky and Gippius emigrated to Poland, and from there to Paris. In 1927, the couple organized a religious-philosophical and literary society"Green lamp". The society played one of the leading roles in the intellectual and cultural life the first wave of emigration, and Merezhkovsky himself considered himself the spiritual leader of the Russian intelligentsia. This time was also marked by a new stage in his work. In the books “Napoleon” and “Dante” he turns to the genre of biographical essay, and in “The Birth of the Gods. Tutankamon on Crete" - to a religious and philosophical treatise.

In 1931, the Nobel Committee nominated Dmitry Sergeevich as a candidate for the prize in literature, but this highest award went to his compatriot Ivan Bunin, who enjoyed the constant support of the nominators. However, Sigurd Argell, a professor at Lund University, added Merezhkovsky to the list of applicants for the prize every year until his death in 1937. Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky died four years later in Paris without receiving the award.

Merezhkovsky, Dmitry Sergeevich - writer (August 14, 1865, St. Petersburg - December 9, 1941, Paris). Born into the family of a minor palace official from the Ukrainian noble family. In 1884-89 he studied at the historical and philological faculties of Moscow and St. Petersburg universities.

Merezhkovsky's first poem was published in 1881, and collections of poems were published in 1888-1904. In 1889 Merezhkovsky married Zinaida Gippius. In the 1890s, he translated Greek tragedies and traveled to Greece. The extensive religious and philosophical work he began in the form of a novel in 1896-1905 turned into a novel trilogy Christ and Antichrist. His collection of articles received wide recognition Eternal companions(1896) and extensive research Tolstoy and Dostoevsky(1901). The second part of the novel-trilogy - Resurrected gods. Leonardo da Vinci(1901) brought him fame as a writer in Western Europe.

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky, photo 1890-1900

In 1905-12 Merezhkovsky lived in Paris, his works were still published in Russia. His collected works were published: in 1911-13 - 17 volumes, in 1914 - 24 volumes.

Merezhkovsky Dmitry Sergeevich
Born: August 2 (14), 1865.
Died: December 9, 1941 (76 years old).

Biography

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (August 2, 1865, St. Petersburg - December 9, 1941, Paris) - Russian writer, poet, literary critic, translator, historian, religious philosopher, public figure. Husband of the poetess Zinaida Gippius.

D. S. Merezhkovsky, a bright representative of the Silver Age, went down in history as one of the founders of Russian symbolism, the founder of the new genre of the historiosophical novel for Russian literature, one of the pioneers of the religious and philosophical approach to the analysis of literature, an outstanding essayist and literary critic. Merezhkovsky (since 1914, when academician N.A. Kotlyarevsky nominated him) was nominated 10 times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Philosophical ideas and radical Political Views D. S. Merezhkovsky evoked sharply ambiguous responses, but even his opponents recognized him as an outstanding writer, a genre innovator and one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century.

Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky was born into a noble family of the untitled Merezhkovsky family. Father, Sergei Ivanovich Merezhkovsky (1823-1908), served with the Orenburg governor Talyzin, then with the chief marshal Count Shuvalov, and finally in the Palace Office under Alexander II as head of the clerk; he retired in 1881 with the rank of Privy Councilor.

The writer’s mother, Varvara Vasilievna Merezhkovskaya, née Chesnokova, the daughter of the manager of the office of the St. Petersburg chief of police (it is known that the Kurbsky princes were among her ancestors), possessed (according to the biography of Yu. V. Zobnin) “rare beauty and angelic character”, skillfully managing a dry, selfish (but at the same time idolizing her) husband and, if possible, indulging the children, to whom he refused any manifestations of affection and warmth: 14.

Great-grandfather, Fyodor Merezhki served as a military foreman in Glukhov. Grandfather, Ivan Fedorovich, in recent years XVIII century, during the reign of Emperor Paul I, he came to St. Petersburg and, as a nobleman, entered the Izmailovsky regiment as a junior rank. “It was then, probably, that he changed his Little Russian surname Merezhko to the Russian one - Merezhkovsky,” Merezhkovsky wrote about his grandfather. From St. Petersburg, Ivan Fedorovich was transferred to Moscow and took part in the War of 1812. The Merezhkovsky family had six sons and three daughters. Dmitry, the youngest of the sons, maintained close relations only with Konstantin, later a famous biologist:17.

Childhood

“I was born on August 2, 1865 in St. Petersburg, on Elagin Island, in one of the palace buildings where our family spent the summer at the dacha,” Merezhkovsky wrote in “Autobiographical Notes.” In St. Petersburg, the Merezhkovskys lived in an old house on the corner of the Neva and Fontanka near the Prachechny Bridge, opposite the Summer Garden. Sometimes, at his mother’s request, his father took Dmitry to Crimea, where the Merezhkovskys had an estate (on the road to the Uchan-Su waterfall). “I remember the magnificent palace in Oreanda, of which now only ruins remain. White marble columns on the blue sea are an eternal symbol for me ancient Greece"- wrote Merezhkovsky years later.

The furnishings in the Merezhkovskys' house were simple, the table was not "abundant", a regime of frugality reigned in the house: the father thus weaned the children in advance from common vices - extravagance and the desire for luxury. When leaving on business trips, parents left their children in the care of an old German housekeeper, Amalia Khristyanovna, and an old nanny, who told Russian fairy tales and the lives of saints: it was subsequently suggested that she was the reason for the exalted religiosity, in early childhood manifested in the character of the future writer: 11.

It is generally accepted that S.I. Merezhkovsky treated children “...mainly as a source of noise and trouble, showing fatherly care for them only financially.” From the very early years Thus, Merezhkovsky’s lot became “...alienation burdened by luxury.” It was also noted that the “psychology of filial opposition to the father” many years later underwent “complex intellectual and spiritual development” and served as a spiritual basis for many historical works Merezhkovsky. “It seems to me now that there was a lot of good in him. But, gloomy, embittered by the heavy bureaucratic burden of the times of Nicholas, he was unable to arrange his family. There were nine of us: six sons and three daughters. In childhood, we lived quite amicably, but then we separated, because there was no real spiritual connection, always coming from our father, between us,” Merezhkovsky later wrote:16

D. S. Merezhkovsky’s sense of family was associated only with his mother, who had a noticeable influence on his spiritual development. Otherwise, since childhood, he became close to “... with the feeling of loneliness, which found innermost joy in the poetry of solitude among the swampy groves and ponds of the Elagin park, flooded with the shadows of the past.”

Studying at the gymnasium

In 1876 D. S. Merezhkovsky began his studies at the Third Classical Gymnasium of St. Petersburg. Recalling the years devoted mainly to “cramming and training,” he called the atmosphere of this institution “murderous,” and among the teachers he singled out only the Latinist Kessler (“He also did not do us any good, but at least he looked at us with kind eyes.” ). As a thirteen-year-old high school student, Merezhkovsky began writing his first poems, the style of which he later defined as an imitation of Pushkin’s “ Bakhchisarai fountain" At the gymnasium, he became interested in the work of Moliere and even organized a “Moliere circle.” The community was not political, but the Third Department became interested in it: participants were invited for interrogation to a building near the Police Bridge. It is believed that Merezhkovsky owed the successful outcome of the case solely to his father’s position. In 1881, Merezhkovsky Sr. retired, and the family settled at 33 Znamenskaya Street.

Poetic debut

Merezhkovsky Sr., who was interested in religion and literature, was the first to appreciate his son’s poetic exercises. In July 1879, under his patronage, Dmitry met the elderly princess E.K. Vorontsova in Alupka. In the young man’s poems, she “...caught a truly poetic quality - the extraordinary metaphysical sensitivity of the soul” and blessed him to continue his creativity:7.

In 1880, my father, taking advantage of his acquaintance with Countess S.A. Tolstoy, a friend famous writer, brought his son to F. M. Dostoevsky, to a house on Kuznechny Lane. Young Merezhkovsky (as he later recalled) read, “blushing, turning pale and stuttering”:23 Dostoevsky listened “with impatient annoyance” and then said: “Weak... weak... no good... to write well, you have to suffer, suffer.” “No, it’s better not to write, just don’t suffer!” - the father hastened to object in fear. The writer’s assessment deeply “offended and annoyed Merezhkovsky.”

In 1880, Merezhkovsky’s literary debut took place in the journal Zhivopisnoe Obozrenie, edited by A. K. Sheller-Mikhailov: the poems “Tuchka” (No. 40) and “Autumn Melody” (No. 42) were published here. A year later, the poem “Narcissus” was included in a charity literary collection for the benefit of poor students called “Response”, published under the editorship of P. F. Yakubovich (Melshin):26.

In the fall of 1882, Merezhkovsky attended the first performances of S. Ya. Nadson, then a cadet at the Pavlovsk Military School, and, impressed by what he heard, wrote him a letter: 397. This is how the two aspiring poets met, which grew into a strong friendship, sealed by deep, almost family feelings. Both, as researchers later noted, were connected by a certain personal secret related to the fear of suffering and death, the desire to “acquire an effective faith capable of overcoming this fear”:82. Two deaths - Nadson in 1887, and his mother two years later - were a severe blow for Merezhkovsky: he lost two of the people closest to him:81.

In 1883, two poems by Merezhkovsky appeared in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski (No. 1): they are considered his debut in “ great literature" One of Merezhkovsky’s first poems, “Sakya-Muni,” was included in many collections of reciters of that time and brought the author considerable popularity.

In 1896, thirty-year-old Merezhkovsky already appeared in “ Encyclopedic Dictionary"Brockhaus and Efron as " famous poet" Subsequently, many of his poems were set to music by A. T. Grechaninov, S. V. Rachmaninov, A. G. Rubinstein, P. I. Tchaikovsky and other composers.

University years

In 1884, Merezhkovsky entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. Here the future writer became interested in the philosophy of positivism (O. Comte, G. Spencer), the theories of J. S. Mill and Charles Darwin, and showed interest in modern French literature. In the same year, on the recommendation of A. N. Pleshcheev, Nadson and Merezhkovsky entered the Literary Society: 398; he also introduced the latter to the family of the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, K. Yu. Davydov, and the publisher, A. A. Davydova. In this circle, Merezhkovsky met N.K. Mikhailovsky and G.I. Uspensky, whom he later called his teachers, as well as I.A. Goncharov, A.N. Maykov and Ya.P. Polonsky.

In 1888, D. S. Merezhkovsky, having defended his diploma essay on Montaigne in the spring, graduated from the university and decided to devote himself exclusively to literary work. Years of study did not leave him with warm memories. Merezhkovsky (according to the biography of D. O. Churakov), “accustomed to the high society atmosphere” in the family since childhood, was imbued with “skepticism towards people” early on. Many years later, he spoke disparagingly about teachers (“Teachers are careerists. I can’t remember any of them well”), noting: “The university gave me little more than the gymnasium. I didn’t have a school, just like I didn’t have a family.” The only teacher who made an impression on Merezhkovsky was Professor O. F. Miller, famous historian literature, the first biographer of Dostoevsky, who gathered a literary circle in his apartment: 45.

Criticism of Merezhkovsky's views and creativity

Despite the fact that everyone noted the innovation, talent and depth of Merezhkovsky’s works, from his contemporaries, “both before the revolution and in emigration, he received, for the most part, very critical assessments" In the book “The Beginning of the Century,” Andrei Bely, giving a grotesque picture of Merezhkovsky’s speech in the hall of Moscow University, noted that “his revelations seemed absurd to philosophers and professors, and he himself was alien to the academic environment.”

Merezhkovsky’s prose, “saturated with cultural allusions, mythological overtones and intellectual constructions,” stylistically and formally turned out to be completely accessible to the public, and sometimes even reached the “border of purely mass literature.” However, as noted, art world the writer “always remained closed, hermetic for the uninitiated majority.” “In the struggle for his self-preservation, Merezhkovsky isolated himself from everyone and built his own personal temple, from within himself. Me and culture, me and eternity - this is his central, his the only topic...,” wrote L. Trotsky in 1911.

Critics noted the writer's inconsistency in relation to key issues modernity (Christianity, autocracy, revolution, Russia); “the split characteristic of the writer’s personality and creativity” continuously gave rise to “metaphysical oppositions” in his work and throwing from one extreme to another both in his work and in life. V. Rozanov, criticizing Merezhkovsky’s speech in 1909 at the Religious and Philosophical Society on the topic of love and death, wrote: “Merezhkovsky is a thing that constantly speaks, or rather a set of frock coat and trousers from which an eternal noise comes out... In order to be able to do more to say, every three years he completely changes, as if he changes all his linen, and in the next three years he refutes what he said in the previous one.”

N. Minsky, noting Merezhkovsky’s unsurpassed ability to use primary sources, believed that he was using his gift for narrow purposes:

Thanks to this extraordinary skill, Merezhkovsky’s critical sketches at first glance seem to be brilliant maneuvers, parades of thoughts and words, but... They lack the main advantage of criticism - the search for individual, unique, unexpected features in the writer being analyzed. Merezhkovsky, on the contrary, finds in the writer only what he is looking for, and receives his own questions turned into answers.

Religious philosophers S.N. Bulgakov, P.A. Florensky and L. Shestov had a negative attitude towards the activities of D.S. Merezhkovsky. Literary critic and formal school theorist V. B. Shklovsky considered Merezhkovsky to be a “deeply non-literary phenomenon”; critic R. V. Ivanov-Razumnik saw him as “the great dead man of Russian literature”, and K. I. Chukovsky considered Merezhkovsky to be a “scribe”, to whom “The human soul and human personality are alien to terrible limits”:80.

The loyal position of D. Merezhkovsky towards fascist dictators caused sharp rejection among the emigrants. Irina Odoevtseva, in her book “On the Banks of the Seine” (Paris, 1983), wrote: “... All his life he talked about the Antichrist, and when this Antichrist, who can be considered Hitler, appeared before him, Merezhkovsky did not see him, he overlooked him.”

Social-democratic and then Soviet criticism always had a negative attitude towards Merezhkovsky. According to the Literary Encyclopedia (1934), artistic creativity Merezhkov's emigrant period "is a shining example ideological degradation and cultural savagery of the white emigration,” and “in terms of literary heritage, creativity is reactionary from beginning to end, it certainly represents negative value». Creative heritage writer (as noted by A. Nikolyukin) - starting with L. Trotsky’s article “Merezhkovsky”, which was then included in the latter’s program book “Literature and Revolution”, and until the 1980s - was presented in caricature form.

The definition given by M. Gorky in 1928 is “Dmitry Merezhkovsky, a famous lover of God of the Christian persuasion, a little man, literary activity which is very reminiscent of the work of a typewriter: the font is easy to read, but soulless, and it’s boring to read”), - became for the Soviet literary criticism fundamental and has not changed for decades.

Not only Merezhkovsky’s work, but also his name in Soviet time was not just forgotten, but forgotten “aggressively.” The writer’s works were not republished; his very name was “under an unspoken semi-ban.” Even in university literature courses and in academic works “an adequate assessment of the role of Merezhkovsky in literary process, an objective analysis of his critical legacy were practically impossible." Interest in the writer and his work in Russia began to revive only in the early 1990s.