Abstract
The goals of the Mir iskusstva were to bring about a renaissance of Russian literature and art, and to initiate a dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church. Some members of Mir iskusstva were interested only in the artistic and literary endeavors of the Symbolist movement, while other members wanted to focus on the literary, artistic and religious aspects of the proposed renaissance. Ultimately, this paper will show that the monolithic title of Mir iskusstva or even the term "Silver Age" blankets significant divisions between two major threads of discourse. Sometimes these divisions intermeshed, but they are still distinctive from one another and should be defined and discussed within the larger context of Silver Age culture. Mir iskusstva contributed to Silver Age culture throughout Russia and Western Europe long after the journal shut down publication in 1904. This paper will seek to explain the emergence of the Mir iskusstva as an important forum for the Symbolist artists and writers after the 1898 closure of the journal Severnyj vestnik forced them to establish their own, "truly Symbolist" journal. A comparison between the two distinct lines of artistic pursuit deserves exploration and discussion. Each laid the foundation for what is currently thought of as "Silver Age Culture." This technical term encompasses a very compelling time in Russian culture and history, and its components should be defined and examined in current scholarship.
Highlights
The goals of the Mir iskusstva were to bring about a renaissance of Russian literature and art, and to initiate a dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church
Most scholars date the advent of Russian Symbolism at 1894, but I contend that the Russian Symbolist movement began in 1892, when the literary journal Severnyi Vestnik (The Northern Herald) first published poems by Gippius and Feodor Sologub under the editorship of Akim Vloynsky
Mikhailovskii‟s ideas regarding the differences between France and Russia are enlightening to scholars of Russian Symbolism due the nature of his approach
Summary
The goals of the Mir iskusstva were to bring about a renaissance of Russian literature and art, and to initiate a dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church. Most scholars date the advent of Russian Symbolism at 1894, but I contend that the Russian Symbolist movement began in 1892, when the literary journal Severnyi Vestnik (The Northern Herald) first published poems by Gippius and Feodor Sologub under the editorship of Akim Vloynsky. Merezhkovskii read in public on the seventh and fourteenth of December in St. Petersburg his famous lecture entitled О причинакх упадка и о новыкх теченииакх современнои русскои литературы (On the Causes and the Decline and on New Trends in Contemporary Literature), which has long been accepted as the Russian Symbolist manifesto.
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