Nikolai Klyuev’s early works as the poetry of “social Christianity”

Abstract

This paper analyzes the early poetry of Nikolai Klyuev—its social and political motives are studied in the context of the poet’s biography and in terms of the essay Modern Slavery, written by Hugues-Felicite Robert de Lamennais, the French Catholic philosopher and forerunner of social Christianity. This paper identifies two stages in Klyuev’s assimilation of the philosophy of social Christianity. Klyuev’s poetry initially reproduced the main message of Lamennais’s essay—the rejection of “slavery” as a “heritage” by recognizing the human dignity of “today’s slave” and rebelling against the existing socio-historical tradition. In the second stage, the most important categories of Lamennais’s works—brotherhood, cooperation and sacrifice—find their full meaning in Klyuev’s poems. Work “for brethren’s sake” becomes a form of co-operation with God, while experiencing severities and hardships on the revolutionary path is a form of spiritual co-crucifixion with Christ.