Abstract
Merezhkovsky and the revolutionary mentality he represented and fostered constitute both a symptom and an indirect cause of the uprootedness that led to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. The revolution in art and thought known as the Silver Age was also the product of alienation; it is more than coincident that in 1917 the two revolutions merged.
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References
Fritz Stern, The Politics of Cultural Despair (New York, 1965).
The literature is large and growing rapidly. See Nolte, Three Faces of Fascism; J. S. McClelland, ed., The French Right (New York, 1970); Graham Hough, The Last Romantics (New York, 1960); John R. Harrison, The Reactionaries (New York, 1967).
Hoskins, p. 196. Leopold Haimson in his “The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia 1905-1917,” in Cherniavsky, pp. 341-380 considers the revival of masonry evidence of confusion and frustration among the educated classes; see p. 369.
Adam Ulam, The Unfinished Revolution (New York, 1960), p. 188. Bulgakov had argued in Vekhi that should the intelligentsia succeed in revolution, the most apocalyptic of its parties would prevail; he also criticized pedocracy (rule by the young) as a sign of the spiritual weakness of Russian society.
N. Valentinov, Dva goda s simvolistami (Stanford, 1968), p. 123.
Haimson, “The Problem of Social Stability,” esp. pp. 349-60 where he discusses the spread of an atmosphere of elemental revolt which he calls buntarstvo that the moderates did not know how to handle. See also his “The Parties and the State: The Evolution of Political Attitudes,” also in Cherniavsky, pp. 309-40, esp. pp. 332-33.
Kerensky frequently accompanied Hippius to rehearsals of her play “The Green Ring” as did Blok and Bely. See Pachmuss, Zinaida Hippius, pp. 189, 191.
N. N. Sukhanov, Zapiski o revoliutsii (Berlin, 1922-23) VII, 90–92.
Treadgold, The West in Russia, p. 221.
Zernov, pp. 31, 285-87, 291; Billington, pp. 5-8.
For a discussion of the traditional importance of bell and icon see Billington pp. 30-41 and Zernov pp. 62, 77-78.
Zernov, p. 37.
Billington, pp. 21, 311, 351, 515-16.
Besançon retells the well-known anecdote of Chagall as Commissar of Fine Arts in Vitebsk preparing for a revolutionary procession by decorating the town with hovering cows and horses in green, blue, and various unlikely colors. According to Besançon, even Chagall’s friends protested and he had to leave town. In Cherniavsky, p. 404.
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© 1975 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Rosenthal, B.G. (1975). Conclusion. In: Dmitri Sergeevich Merezhkovsky and the Silver Age. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9036-7_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9036-7_11
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