Early Edition of Ellis’ Collection Cross and Lear: A Study in Reconstruction

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the last period in creative work and biography of Ellis (Lev L’vovich Kobylinsky, 1879–1947), a symbolist poet and theoretician of art. In 1930s Ellis was actively writing on various historical, literary, religious, philosophical and esoteric subjects and continued to work on his poems and translations. The article provides excerpts from the Ellis’ letters to the artist Nikolai Zaretsky, on the basis of which the stages of Ellis’ work on his third and last book of poetry and translations titled Cross and Lear during the 1930s can be clarified in some detail. In the Addendum Ellis’ poem “Death and a Knight (Old Engraving)” is published.

Keywords

• lev kobylinski-ellis
• vasilii zhukovskii
• russian symbolism
• russian emigration in switzerland
• russian diaspora in interwar czechoslovakia
• reception of the middle ages in russian literature