“Scythians”: Old and New (to the Publication of the Reprint of the Literary and Political Almanac “Scythians”, 1917—1918)

Abstract

In 2018, for the first time in 101 years in Russia, two issues of the literary and political almanac “Scythians” were reissued under the same cover (1917 — 1st issue; 1918 — 2nd issue). The ideological inspirer of “Scythians” was I. V. Ivanov-Razumnik (1878—1946). Combining on its pages the ideas of outstanding representatives of the Silver age (L. Shestov, V. Bryusov, N. Klyuyev, A. Bely, E. Zamyatin, etc.), the almanac became the quintessence of the “scythianism” ideology. This ideology regarded the Russian revolution as a national anti-bourgeois movement with messianic significance for the whole world. The new reissue of the book was initiated by the writer, Director of the “Lev Gumilev Center” and the leader of the “New Scythians” movement — Pavel Zarifullin. This article is a review of the new reissue of “Scythians”, which includes two literary and political manifestos of generations — the past (old “Scythians”) and the present (“New Scythians”).