“It was a joke”: On Zinaida Gippius’ scandalous publication in “Severnye tsvety”

Abstract

The paper deals with historic and literary case related to Z.N. Gippius’s short story “Mass (Decal)”, its publication and response in press and epistolary documents. The paper presents reviews to it, among them little-known and gives the literary and cultural context of the publication. The author presents her hypothesis about Gippius’s revaluation of her short story in later period.

Keywords

• z.n. gippius
• v.ia. briusov
• “severnye tsvety” almanac
• symbolist prose
• archives
• epistolary heritage