Studies on A.M. Remizov’s Creative Biography: 1926–1927. Part 1. “Aesthete-Degenerateˮ

Abstract

The biographical essay is dedicated to the literary situation with Alexei Remizov in 1926 connected with his activities for the new journals — Blagonamerenny and Versty. Based on previously unknown materials from Remizov’s personal archive, correspondence and memoirs of his contemporaries involved in the events, the paper interprets Remizov’s position as an active participant of literary process. The paper describes the writer’s creative tasks that were realized in the above-mentioned periodicals, and his mission as a promoter of young talents in Soviet Russia and in emigration. Detailed analysis of the critical articles that accused the editors of both journals as well as their co-worker Remizov of destroying the Russian literary diaspora ideological integrity and aesthetic canons, allows to define the main contradictions in the émigré literary life that had accumulated by 1926. The essay also reconstructs previously unknown episodes in the history of Blagonamerenny and Versty using letters of Remizov, D.A. Shakhovskoy, L. Shestov, N. Berberova that are being introduced into scholarly discourse.

Keywords

• emigration
• literary criticism
• eurasianism
• journal blagonamerenny
• journal versty
• a.m. remizov
• literary personality
• ideology
• literary conservatism