GEOPOETICS OF THE ART NOUVEAU ERA: SOUTHERN ITALY THROUGH THE EYES OF RUSSIAN AUTHORS OF THE LATE 19TH - EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

The article dwells on the semantically integral system of Southern Italy Russian reception in the heyday of Belle époque. Its connection with the European context dating back to Goethe and purely national features are shown. Based on Berdyaev’s relevant texts, the imagological constants of the Silver Age ‘Russian Italy’ are reconstructed. Three different models of it are demonstrated, opposing the aesthetic line of Italy reflection in the mirrors of the arts, embodied by P.P. Muratov (Images of Italy, 1912): in the works of D.S. Merezhkovsky, M.A. Osorgin and I.A. Bunin. It is proved that they are united by an unexpected in the depiction of the bright Italian South antirhetoric, expressive asceticism, opposition to decorative redundancy and polemic in relation to the romantic apology of the ‘Mediterranean Arcadia’. In the case of Merezhkovsky, this even laid the foundation for a special potential type of alternative poetics, which could but never managed to reach the center of the writer’s artistic system.