It was a remarkable period of Russian culture, rich in talents and geniuses. And if you try to determine its color, then it often appears romantically dark. Passion for antiquity, reflections of Poe and Baudelaire, "Black Square" in place of the icon. Death of Annensky at the station amid the roar of trains. "Flight of Faust and Mephistopheles", written by Vrubel. And the madness of this artist - four orderlies could not hold him back. The world is on the eve of a catastrophe - a revolution, and Blok writes: “Behind the city hum, I hear some other hum …" The Silver Age keeps many secrets and legends. Here are just a few of them.
Duel
She is thin, red-haired, pale and limps slightly. A Spanish woman, a Catholic, was brought up in a monastery. Name is Cherubina de Gabriac. Such information was reported by a wonderful voice about herself on the phone by one person who for some time kept the editorial office of the Apollo magazine in suspense, intriguing her utterly.
It all started with the fact that poems came to Apollo that everyone liked, but their author - Cherubina de Gabriac - was in no hurry to show up. They did not know anything about her, except that she said about herself in a telephone conversation. Her persona was surrounded by mystery, and a mystery in the style of Dumas or Maturin: as many admitted, swords, duels, insidious Catholic monks, Melmot the Wanderer, sultry Spanish nights, palace conspiracies and mustachioed cavaliers in camisoles were mixed with her. In a word, the image of Cherubina intrigued. The entire editorial staff admired her, and some even fell in love. Konstantin Somov, Baron Nikolai Wrangel and Maximilian Voloshin were among her most ardent admirers.
And the poems continued to come - on purple paper, in envelopes with fragrant herbs. And so, when it seemed that it was time to tear the veils off the secret, it turned out that it was all a hoax. Its author was Voloshin, and Cherubina - the poet Elizaveta Ivanovna Dmitrieva. Of course, no monasteries, no Spain. From Cherubina in her there was only a charming voice and a limp. She - so editor Makovsky asserted - was very ugly.
This harmless prank had an unexpected continuation and could cost the lives of two great poets. In bohemian circles, there was a rumor that Nikolai Gumilyov claimed that he had an affair with
Cherubina. Voloshin stood up for her honor. He slapped Gumilyov in public, and a duel was appointed. It happened at the Black River, close to the place of the duel between Pushkin and Dantes, and there were no casualties. Nobody got a single scratch.
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The only damage was suffered by Max Voloshin. They began to call him Vaks Kaloshin - supposedly he owned a galosh left in a snowdrift at the site of the duel.
Fire Angel
That was the name of Valery Bryusov's novel. It was first published in Libra in 1907. This interesting work, which takes place in medieval Germany, is crammed with magic, necromancy and astrology. Faust, Agrippa and legions of demons march through its pages; letters form words, and words form images of people from the other world and participants in the Sabbath. Moreover, it is written in wonderful language, and the life of the Middle Ages appears very vividly.
In the story, Ruprecht, the main character, meets a woman named Renata. She, imbued with confidence in him, says that since childhood she has been the fiery angel Madiel, and that she is in love with Henry, who is the earthly embodiment of the angel. The main character, in various magical ways, tries to return her lover to her, he, in turn, inflamed with passion for her.
In general, a classic love triangle looms, and it turned out that he passed into a fiction novel from real life.
Her name was Nina Petrovskaya, and she largely followed the customs of the environment in which she revolved. That is, from time to time she wrote prose, sometimes she used drugs. Her first hobby was Konstantin Balmont, then Andrei Bely. She was inflamed with a serious passion for him, but the poet fled from her, and then she rushed to Bryusov. This man at that time was fond of occultism, magic, spiritualism. They spent time together, but Nina always loved Bely.
One day Nina came to Bely's lecture and shot him, but Browning misfired.
All these relationships served as a working material for Valery Bryusov. Renata turned out to be Nina, Heinrich - Andrei Bely, and Ruprecht - Bryusov himself.
It all ended very badly for Nina. She went abroad, where she slowly faded away. Maps, morphine, wine, poverty. In 1913, she threw herself out of a hotel window, but only broke her leg.
Converted to Catholicism. “My new and secret name in the indelible San Pietro scrolls is Renata” - this is how she wrote to VF Khodasevich.
On February 23, 1928, in Paris, she turned on the gas and committed suicide.
Bryusov and the black man
Once the poet Valery Bryusov received a man in whom the mood and fashion of the century were expressed, and they went to the extreme in him. His name was Alexander Dobrolyubov, and he came to the poet's house to offer him cooperation. At the time, he looked very impressive. A black suit, with black gloves, a hydrangea in a buttonhole, his whole appearance gave off a sick languor. In a conversation with Bryusov, he quoted French "damned" poets and Oscar Wilde.
As it turned out, this young man preached the cult of beauty and death. I tried in every possible way to touch the latter. He loved walks in cemeteries, and inclined young schoolgirls to commit suicide. The room in which he lived made an indelible impression on his friends. The walls are covered with black velvet and the ceiling is painted black. Dobrolyubov fumigated his room with incense, and kept a skull on the table. In addition, he often smoked opium.
Natura Naturans; Natura Naturata "(" Nature generates; nature generated ") - this was the title of his collection of poems. He published it and then disappeared.
The next time he came to Bryusov, he was surprised to find that nothing - at least outwardly - remained of the elegant decadent. Before Bryusov appeared a man covered with road dust in peasant clothes. His speech changed, and he kept interrupting the conversation with the phrase: "Well, brother, let's keep quiet!"
Then this person disappeared again. For a short time he became a novice in a monastery. Then Dobrolyubov seemed to take part in the peasant revolt. He was arrested, and he was saved from prison only by the fact that he was declared insane. Soon he created a kind of sect …
“In my opinion, it was also a kind of decadence,” wrote Zinaida Gippius about him.
This person appeared suddenly and just as suddenly disappeared. In 1943 he disappeared completely.
What does the devil look like?
It was a strange time. The devil gazed at him intently, like in a mirror, trying to find his reflection. And it was - everywhere and nowhere. Among creative people, decadents, rumors spread that Satan himself appeared in Moscow and walks among people. Its appearance happened in 1906, long before the appearance on the Patriarch's Ponds. This is how it happened.
The literary magazine "Golden Fleece" was famous in the bohemian world, it was a Symbolist publication. As Avril Payman wrote, "… thanks to the specific selection of prose and poetry that appeared on its pages, the magazine influenced the perception of readers, coloring the atmosphere of that time in a kind of demonic halftones."
And now the Golden Fleece announces an extremely strange competition. It is proposed to depict and describe the devil in verse and prose, brush on canvas. It was also said that a “special jury” would be involved in reading and choosing the winners. Indeed, some people saw how one day, when dark clouds gathered over the city and lightning flashed, a black carriage drove up to the building where the editorial office of the magazine was located. The members of the jury in black coats and hats - there were three of them - emerged from it and disappeared into the building. Several people crossed themselves - again the gentlemen are flirting with the forces of evil, and this trinity clearly rushed straight from the underworld. However, it was Bryusov, Blok and Vyacheslav Ivanov - they were the ones who were going to find out what the devil looks like.
A lot of works came to the competition, but the jury members were annoyed. According to Bryusov, none of them coped with the task - the appearance of Satan remained unclear. But since it was necessary to identify the winners, the prizes went to the most worthy: M. Kuzmin, A. Remizov and A. Kondratyev.
… This is how the many-sided Silver Age appears - framed by skulls and pale asphodels, with the smell of sulfur.
Konstantin Golovaty
