Hellman, Ben: Poets of Hope and Despair

Hellman, Ben. Poets of Hope and Despair: The Russian Symbolists in War and Revolution (1914-1918).

The aim of the present study is to describe and analyse the attitudes of the symbolists to the events of the period from 1914 to 1918. Detailed attention is given to the eight principal Russian symbolists, namely Konstantin Bal’mont, Andrei Belyi, Aleksandr Blok, Valerii Briusov, Zinaida Gippius, Viacheslav Ivanov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, and Fedor Sologub. Minor symbolists,or writ-ers who were only in brief contact with the movement, have not been included in our study, as their role during this period was insignificant.The study con-centrates on the immediate reactions of the symbolists to the First World War and the revolutions of 1917, on their image of Russia and its allies and ene-mies, and also on their various concepts of the role of art in times of crisis. Use is made of material drawn from the fiction and literary journalism of the period, in which the issues of war and revolution ar eexplicitly discussed.The sources also include published biographical material like interviews, diaries and letters.