From Decadent Aestheticism to Religious-Mystical Dialectics: The Axiology of Early Russian Symbolism

Abstract

The article examines the specificity of the artistic development of the motif of good and evil in the poetry of early Russian Symbolism. It analyzes the main axiological models characteristic of the “decadent” (“diabolical”) stage of Symbolism, associated with the aestheticization and relativization of ethical categories, as well as the subsequent tendency toward their religious and mystical reinterpretation. The research material comprises poetic texts by V. Bryusov, K. Balmont, F. Sologub, N. Minsky, Z. Gippius, and A. Blok. The analysis draws on the most representative texts, which, on the one hand, make it possible to trace the main directions of the artistic interpretation of the problem of good and evil in early Russian Symbolism, and, on the other hand, reveal the specificity of each poet’s individual artistic world. The focus is on the dynamics of the transition from aesthetically motivated ambivalence of values to attempts at their dialectical overcoming within the framework of religious-philosophical models of synthesis. The material under study is interpreted in the context of Symbolist aesthetics oriented toward the rethinking of traditional Christian axiology and the formation of alternative models of value thinking characteristic of the poetic culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Special attention is paid to the functioning of stable image-motif structures associated with the figures of God and the Devil. As a result of the analysis, both general tendencies and individual authorial strategies of artistic representation of the motif of good and evil in early Russian Symbolism are identified.