Fyodor Sologub’s Lecture Russia in Dreams and Expectations in the Urals (1916): With Reference to Archival Materials and Regional Press

Abstract

In 1916, Fyodor Sologub visited the Urals as part of a tour with the lecture Russia in Dreams and Expectations . He came to Ufa and Chelyabinsk in February and to Yekaterinburg and Perm in October. The enthusiastic and patriotic lecture was dedicated to the providential role of symbolism in world history. It claimed that the existence of symbolism was essential and necessary, however, in view of the circumstances of war, the emphasis shifted towards emotional reflection on Russian messianism. This article restores the details of the tour, the organisation of local performances, and analyses the reaction of the provincial press to the lecture (newspapers Ufimskaia Zhizn’ , Zauralski Kray , Golos Priural’ia , Permskaia Zhizn’ , etc.). These materials are supplemented by documents kept in the Sologub archive of the Institute of Russian Literature of the RAS (letters, postcards, telegrams, lecture notes, and manuscripts of poems). Special attention is paid to newspaper articles, feuilletons, and detailed reactions to Sologub’s performances. Most of the authors considered Sologub’s thoughts to be untimely, irrelevant, and not related to military and pre-revolutionary reality. The lecture was an opportunity for them to explain their own points of view on “dreams and expectations” of Russia. The article contains previously unpublished excerpts from letters to Sologub from Sergey Vinogradov and Ivan Ushakin. In addition, it is established that one of Sologub’s poems was written in the Urals.