Ivanov, Vyacheslav Ivanovič

IVANOV, VYACHESLAV IVANOVIČ. - Russian poet, philosopher and philologist, b. in Moscow on 16 (28)

Feb. 1866, d. in Rome on 16 July 1949. Described by N. Berdyaev as "the most refined and universal representative not only of Russian culture of the 20th century, but perhaps of all Russian culture in general," I. was, together with his master Vladimir Solovyov, among the greatest thinkers of his country, who, without renouncing any of the mystical and ritual values of the Eastern Church, wished, by becoming Catholics, to return to the primitive unity of the universal Church.

I.'s poetic work has secured him a place of the first rank among the Russian poets of his time, that is, among the "symbolists." His works of philosophy, aesthetics and criticism, his researches into the historical and religious nature of pre-Dionysian cults, his philosophical and religious interpretation of Dostoevsky, are gradually entering into the common treasure of European civilization. In his poetry and in his essays, I. traced the broad outlines of a system which, inspired by the Platonic doctrine of anamnesis, by a profound knowledge of the classical heritage and by constant meditation on Christian Revelation, lies at the basis of his Christian humanism, or rather of the "docta pietas" for which he hoped. "Christianity alone (writes I., in Il Convegno), being the absolute religion, has the power to revive the ontological memory of the civilizations which it replaces... Universal anamnesis in Christ - this, then, is the aim of Christian humanistic culture...".

A pupil of Mommsen in Berlin, he abandoned after a few years his studies of Roman history to turn toward Greece, philology and the history of religions. He travelled for many years in Italy, France, Germany, England, Greece, Egypt and Palestine. In 1905 he settled in St. Petersburg, where his house (the "Tower") soon became a centre of art and thought. Having left Russia in 1924, I. settled in Italy. In 1926, at St. Peter's, he pronounced the formula of adherence to the Catholic Church. According to the wish of Pius XI, he assumed at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and at the Russian College the chair of Russian and Old Slavonic language and literature.

Among his principal works: the poetry collections, The Pilot Stars (1903); Cor ardens (2 vols., 1909); the tragedies Tantalos (1905; German translation Dessau, 1940); Prometheus (1919); Man (1915-18; Italian trans. Milan 1946). Aesthetic and critical works: Vigil of the Stars (1909); Furrows and Boundaries (1916); Things Partial and Universal (1918); The Correspondence from One Corner to Another (correspondence on the problems of culture with the historian M. Gershenzon, Moscow 1920; translated into various languages, Italian ed. Lanciano 1932); Dionysus and the Pre-Dionysian Cults (Baku 1923); Dostojevskij, Tragödie, Mythos, Mystik (Tübingen 1932, in German); Die russische Idee (Tübingen 1930, in German); important essays in the journal Corona (Zurich-Munich, years 1931-38); in the journal Hochland (Munich, years 1934, 1937-38); in the journal Il Convegno (Milan 1934).

Bernardo Schultze