THE STATUE OF VENUS IN THE RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE 1880-1890s (D. MEREZHKOVSKY AND G. USPENSKY)

Abstract

The article for the first time poses the question about the influence of the poetics and ideology of G. Uspensky on the works of D. Merezhkovsky. The comparative analysis of Uspensky’s essay “Выпрямила” (“She Straightened Out”, 1885) and the corpus of the texts of Merezhkovsky, written in 1890-1900s (the poem “The End of the Century” and the trilogy “Christ and the Antichrist”) discovers that one of the central images of Merezhkovsky, the statue of Venus, was born in creative competition with Uspensky. The study, carried out in the framework of the historical-literary method, allows to establish the continuity between the late literary populism and the symbolist art of the Silver Age. The article is addressed to all those interested in the Russian literature and the history of the Russian intelligentsia.