Текстологические заметки к «Невоенному дневнику. 1914–1916» Д.С. Мережковского (по архивным материалам из РО ИРЛИ)

Abstract

The author of the article for the first time produces a detailed textual analysis of the collection of D.S. Merezhkovsky “Non-War Diary. 1914–1916” (1917), relying on archival materials from the RO IRLI (Pushkin House). For most of the articles that made up this book, various documents have been preserved: preparatory notes and extracts, draft and white manuscripts, typescripts, newspaper clippings. Their value is determined not only by the tasks of textual criticism, but also by the history of literature and interpretive poetics. As a result, it became possible to outline in more detail the pre-press history of a number of articles and fill in the gaps in our understanding of them. On specific examples, we were able to characterize the logic of finalizing texts by a writer (from a manuscript to a newspaper publication and then to a collection); clarify ideas on the problem of distinguishing between censored / editorial and author’s excluded fragments in Merezhkovsky’s articles; expand knowledge of the sources he used. Documentary evidence of the author’s direct participation in the compositional organization of the book is given, and the dynamics of structural solutions is revealed. Thanks to additional facts, we supported the conclusion about the creative nature of the changes introduced in the preparation of the “Non-War Diary. 1914–1916” taking into account the changing socio-political background and “fluctuations” in the views of Merezhkovsky. Finally, the analytical review of archival materials from the RO IRLI helped expand the historical and literary context of Merezhkovsky’s speeches and reveal the writer’s hidden polemics with his contemporaries.