It is Necessary for the Century. Review of: Cherashnyaya, D. I. (Comp.). (2017). “Kakaia svetlaia stezia…”. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo Nelli Millior [“What a Light Path…”. The Life and Creative Work of Nelli Millior]. Izhevsk: Alkid. 534 p.

Abstract

The collection reviewed is devoted to the life and creative activity of Elena Aleksandrovna Millior, a renowned historian of antiquity, a writer, and a student of Vyacheslav Ivanov. The reviewer considers the content and structure of the collection which does not only include E. Millior’s memoirs but also her own works, the main of which are Reflections on M. Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita , and her novel With Sword and Word. Memories of Dion, Son of Hipponicus, a Cadmean . Referring to private correspondence (letters by M. Millior, D. Kovalevsky, L. Ivanova, V. Manuylova, V. Bianki, A. Dovatur, etc.) and memoirs of the contemporaries (N. Sakharova, S. Averintseva, N. Safonova, O. Shatunovskaya, etc.), D. Cherashnyaya manages to describe the spiritual search of the Russian intelligentsia of the 20 th century. The book focuses on the issues of death and immortality, faith and absence of faith, freedom and servitude, reality and myth. Additionally, the book outlines the dramatic lives of remarkable representatives of culture of the 20 th century, such as B. Yarkho, A. Dovatur, Ya. Godin, and E. Bulgakova. Furthermore, the author pays close attention to texts written by N. Millior herself. It is demonstrated that her ideas about Bulgakov’s novel were the first research attempts to enter a text and laid the foundations for other methodological approaches (thoughts about the mystery play character of The Master and Margarita , and it combining satyr play and pathetic element). The novel Dion published for the first time is regarded as a text constructing an alternate reality. Writing it provided Millior with spiritual freedom and helped her disconnect from imperfect reality. The review emphasises the relevance of the book for contemporary philology which is gradually losing its humanistic component.