B. Ber and A. Sheller-Mikhailov: The history of a creative dialogue

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of a creative dialogue between the poet and translator B. Ber and his literary patron A. Sheller-Mikhailov. The correspondence between the two writers, which began in 1895, continued until 1900 when the latter died. The surviving part of the epistolary genre (letters from A. Sheller-Mikhailov to B. Ber) contains about twenty documents; B. Ber’s response letters have not been found yet. Based on the analysis of their correspondence, the history of their acquaintance, the literary ties and cooperation between the two artists of the realistic and pre-modernist trends is restored, the main motives of their correspondence are revealed, which, on the one hand, is the evidence of the acquaintance and communication of representatives of different literary generations; on the other hand, it is a curious epistolary text that actualizes such meanings as “old” and “young”, “capital” and “province”, “craft” and “inspiration”. Particular attention is paid to literary masks and game strategies used by the addressee and the sender of the letters, framing the epistolary dialogue as an aesthetic phenomenon and an artistic act. The study of the creative dialogue between B. Ber and A. Sheller-Mikhailov is interesting as it enables to characterize each of the participants in the correspondence and to understand the nature of pre-modernist aesthetics, which was formed in the conditions of simultaneous assimilation and rejection of classical traditions.