Abstract
Merezhkovsky’s years in exile (1919–1941) were marked by extensive anti-Soviet activity and continued religious search. Having long considered Bolshevism a secular religion, he argued that inevitably messianic zeal would impel it toward world conquest. “Our age,” he predicted, will witness the mortal combat of a “great religious truth with a great religious lie;” the forces of Christ will defeat the forces of Anti-Christ on the field of Armageddon.1
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References
Taina trekh, p. 9.
Pachmuss, Zinaida Hippius, pp. 205-13; Gippius, Merezhkovsky, p. 295, “Varshavskii dnevnik” pp. 71-76; Merezhkovsky, Jozef Pilsudski (London, 1921)
Mark Vishniak, interview, June 30, 1968.
The Nobel Prize Committee had asked the emigre community for a nominee. Merezhkovsky and Bunin were the obvious choices. A substantial amount of “politics” went on behind the scenes and in 1933 the prize was awarded to Bunin. For more information see Bunin’s Vospominaiia (Paris, 1950); Galina Kuznetsova, Grasskii dnevnik (Washington D.C., 1967), p. 35, 196, 260, 277; M. Grin, “Pis’ma M. Aldanova k I. A. i V. N. Buninym,” Novyi Zhurnal, no. 80 (1965), pp. 258-87; Mark Vishniak, Sovremennye Zapiski (Indiana, 1957), p. 134.
The Merezhkovskys’ abrasive personalities added to their isolation; Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, considered them, especially Hippius, “evil, evil like ghosts.” Until they worked out an arrangement with Sovremennye Zapiski, which was committed to being above party, they had some difficulty publishing in the emigre press. See Y. Terapiano, Vstrechi (New York, 1953), p. 25, Marina Tsvetaeva, Pis’ma k Anne Teskova (Prague, 1967), p. 107, and Vishniak, p. 133.
Merezhkovsky, Life of Napoleon, C. Zvegintsov, trans. (New York, 1929), and Napoleon the Man (New York, 1928).
As quoted by Lev Liubimov in “Na chuzhbine,” Novyi Mir, 1957, no. 3 (April), p. 166.
Pachmuss, Zinaida Hippius, p. 283; Gleb Strove, Russkaia literatura v izgnanii (New York, 1956), pp. 85-93; Vishniak, pp. 130, 226-27. Hippius sent her writings to Vozrozhdenie which was outspokenly anti-Soviet and benevolently neutral toward Hitler.
Merezhkovsky, Litsa sviatykh ot liususa k nam: “Pavel, Avgustin,” (Berlin, Petropolis, 1937), “Frantsisk Assizkii,” (Berlin, Petropolis, 1938), “Zhanna d Ark,” (Berlin, Petropolis, 1939).
Merezhkovsky, Dante (Zurich, 1939), Calvin [Paris] 1941, Luther [Paris] 1941, Pascal [Paris] 1931, all translated into French by C. Andronikoff.
Jesus Manifest, op. cit. Jesus the Unknown, trans. C. Matheson (New York, 1933).
Jesus the Unknown, p. 5.
N. Berberova, The Italics are Mine (New York, 1969), p. 427.
The New York Times, May 16, 1969, p. 3:5; May 26, 1969, p. 49:1.
Secret of the West, pp. 54-55, 167, 193.
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© 1975 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Rosenthal, B.G. (1975). Epilogue. In: Dmitri Sergeevich Merezhkovsky and the Silver Age. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9036-7_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9036-7_10
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