Литературный факт (Nov 2018)
“The Village of Vinci” by D.S. Merezhkovsky: from the creative history of the novel about Leonardo
Abstract
Among the publications of D.S. Merezhkovsky, which the author did not include in his books and collected works, is a little-known essay «The Village of Vinci», written during the author's joint travel with Z.N. Gippius and A.L. Volynsky “in the footsteps of Leonardo da Vinci” in 1896. It occupies an intermediate position between the writer's artistic texts (whose autobiographical potential is really great, but its extraction in each case requires caution) and its documentary heritage (mostly epistolary). But the main thing is that this text was never reprinted or supplied with a scientific reference apparatus. It is valuable not only from the biographical point of view (if it is compared with other ego documents, among which are memories of the trip of Merezhkovsky's satellites, significant discrepancies, inaccuracies, varying degrees of detail are detected), but also in the textual aspect, to study the creative history of the second part of the trilogy “Christ and Antichrist”. “The Village of Vinci” is printed in the first and only edition: Cosmopolis, 1897, no. 2, pp. 94–106. With the subtitle “From the travel diary” and the editorial note: “This excerpt from the diary refers to the author’s preparatory work for the future of his novel, from the life of Leonardo da Vinci. He gives the tone of the picture, which should depict the youth of this hero of the Renaissance”. The published essay and notes to it will be included in the small academic “Collected Works” by D.S. Merezhkovsky in 20 volumes.
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