Merezhkovsky, Dmitry Sergeyevich

MEREZHKOVSKY, DMITRY SERGEYEVICH. - Russian poet, writer and essayist, b. in St. Petersburg on 14 [sg.] 1865, d. in Paris on 15 Dec. 1941. Of notable historical-cultural importance for the influence he exerted on the literature of his country between 1893 and 1905; decadent in the taste and intonation of his work, he must nevertheless be considered one of the initiators of Russian symbolism, to which he gave a fundamentally mystical direction.

He made his debut in 1888 with Poesie (Poems), revealing himself a disciple of Nadson, but in 1892, in a second collection of verse, Simboli (Symbols), he already foreshadowed that poetics which he later codified in the essay On the Causes of Decadence and on the New Tendencies of Contemporary Russian Literature (1893). In opposition to the "vulgar utilitarian realism" of positivist criticism, M. proclaimed a new idealism whose principles, in art, were: symbolic style, mystical content, formal refinement. M.'s mystical conception is based on a renewal of the Christian religion through a syncretism of paganism and Christianity. In it is contemplated an eschatological cycle of three phases or kingdoms: of the Father (Old Testament), in which truth was revealed as the power of God; of the Son (New Testament), in which truth manifests itself as love; of the Holy Spirit (Third Testament), in which truth must be fulfilled as freedom. Between the three kingdoms of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Liberator, there is the interregnum of the Antichrist: the Advent of Ham, the "triumph of Smerdyakov" or of vulgarity. The theory of the three kingdoms, a mystical interpretation of the Hegelian triad, is developed in Christ and Antichrist, a trilogy of historiosophical novels: The Death of the Gods: Julian the Apostate (1893, Italian trans. Milan 1901), The Resurrection of the Gods: Leonardo da Vinci (1902, Italian trans. ibid. 1913), The Antichrist: Peter and Alexis (1905, Italian trans. Turin 1932), whose protagonists, as in every work of M., are emblematic figures incarnating theses and antitheses. A second trilogy consists of the drama Paul I (1908; Italian trans. Milan 1921), and the novels Alexander I (1911) and December 24 (1917). Both the architectural construction, as well as the psychological and stylistic one, rest in M. on a principle of polarity, of emphatic contraposition of opposites, on antilogisms and antinomies. Even in critical inquiry M. brought his mystical conceptions, and saw in Lermontov the Annunciator, the Baptist; in Pushkin the reconciliation of the pagan spirit with the Christian; in Gogol the eternal struggle with the devil; in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, respectively the "cryptoseer of the flesh" and the "cryptoseer of the spirit." The essay Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (1901) is perhaps M.'s most enduring work.

To the dissemination of his thought there contributed, besides his works, a journal he directed, Novyj put' (The New Way) and a circle of Religious-Philosophical Meetings which he founded in St. Petersburg with his wife (the poetess Z. Hippius), V. Rozanov, N. Minsky and D. Filosofov. After the upheavals of 1905 he abandoned his attitude of supporter of the tsar, "anointed of the Lord," to pass over to the bourgeois opposition, maintaining that "autocracy comes from the Antichrist"; but beginning in 1909, alarmed by the direction taken by progressive currents, he fell back to the right. The year 1917 found him an irreconcilable opponent of communism, the "kingdom of the Antichrist." Having gone into emigration, he lived for a long time in France. Among his last works are the novel The Birth of the Gods (1925) and the study on Dante (1937).

Leone Pacini

MEREZHKOVSKY FROM THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW

For a better judgment on M.'s thought from the Catholic point of view, his two works are useful: Gesù sconosciuto (Italian trans., Florence 1943) and Tre santi: Paolo, Agostino e Francesco di Assisi (Italian trans., Milan 1936).

From them there always shines through the concept of the "third kingdom," that of the Holy Spirit (in which he links up rather with Joachim of Fiore [d. 1202], Tertullian and Montanus), according to which M. thinks of a Christianity that is neither orthodox nor traditional and historical, but future, yet to come, fully subjective; for this reason he proclaims that Jesus is still ignored under his true aspect or poorly understood. But he tries to demonstrate this with antitheses and arbitrary and strange juxtapositions (the Virgin Mary compared with Venus or Ishtar, the Christian cross with the Cretan one, the beauty and art of Greece with the humiliating asceticism of historical Christianity) and with affirmations contrary to Catholic truths (Jesus is begotten by Joseph; the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the whole infancy of Jesus are nothing but myth or mystery, in any case certainly not history; Thomas Didymus is the twin brother of Jesus, etc.; Jesus never conferred any primacy on St. Peter, etc.). As for Paul, Augustine and Francis of Assisi, the strength of his study consists in presenting them as torn away from the Catholic Church, especially from its doctrines, and as followers only of a Word revealed to them personally, so that rather than Christians in the sense understood by Catholics, they are disciples of Christ, but anterior to Christianity; men living in the Church have only a servile and external knowledge of the Gospel, whereas Paul, Augustine and Francis understand the Gospel as an inner and free science, dictated directly by Christ. This is equivalent to the concept expressed by M. that not the Church comes from Christ, but Christ from the Church, which has shaped the Gospel for him. Not to mention that believing in a third Church, of the Holy Spirit, is contrary to the doctrine of the indefectibility of the one, only and true Church of Jesus Christ. Also from the moral point of view some reservation is in order. G. Florovsky (op. cit. in bibl.) observes that M. sought not only to sanctify and transfigure the flesh, but also to "sanctify the flesh not transfigured."

Celestino Testore - Bernardo Schultze