“Disintegration of the Atom” and later poems of Georgy Ivanov in the context of European modernism

Abstract

This article is dedicated to comprehension of aesthetic concept of the Russian poet Georgy Ivanov, reflected in “Disintegration of the Atom” and his poems of later period. “Disintegration of the Atom” is perceived as an attempt of creating the manifest of Russian modernism that in a lyrical form interprets views of the poet upon the crisis of art of the early XX century and way of overcoming it. Unlike José Ortega y Gasset, who formulated the key principle of art in Western modernism as “dehumanization”, i.e. renunciation of mimesis, and huts the meaning (article “Dehumanization of Art), Georgy Ivanov sees the only opportunity for overcoming the crisis of art in preservation of human content therein. The scientific novelty of this work consists in carrying out the first within Russian aesthetics analysis of Georgy Ivanov’s “Disintegration of the Atom” in the context of Western modernism, as well as in outlining his aesthetic concept that is based on synthesis of the ironic and lyrical beginnings, in other word, reflection about the form, rationalized thoughts of the artist on the existence.