Rivals in Symbolism

Abstract

The article examines the reception of Western European modernism in Russia in the late 19 th — early 20th centuries, with the emphasis on the phenomenon of the “crooked mirror” of a different nation perception, which not only endows the work of a foreign author with new functions, but sometimes also gives it a new scale (as with Byron, Zola, some of whose novels were published in Russian translation earlier than in the original in France, the Parnassian poet Jose Maria de Heredia, who received real fame in Russia, in contrast to the very short recognition in his homeland). The subject of the analysis is the texts that are maximally indicative and convincing for the stated topic, above all the translations from Paul Verlaine by Fyodor Sologub, who, along with Bryusov, opened the French poet to the Russian reader, and his original poems, created in the course of and largely as a result of work on translations. The systematization of observations on specific texts makes it possible to conclude that Russian Symbolists, adhering to sometimes opposite views on art, relying on the authority of Baudelaire and Verlaine who are perceived in France more as predecessors of Symbolism than its representatives, walked alongside them, never meeting along the way, but recognizing the “other” as “equal”.

Keywords

• russian symbolism
• french symbolism
• intercultural ties
• literary translation
• fyodor sologub
• paul verlaine