MERZHEKOVSKY, Dmitrij Sergeevich. — Russian poet, writer, and essayist, b. in St. Petersburg on 14 Aug. 1865, d. in Paris on 15 Dec. 1941. Of notable historical and cultural importance for the influence he exerted on the literature of his country between 1893 and 1905; decadent in taste and tone, he is nonetheless to 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*, revealing himself as a disciple of Nason, but in 1892, in a second collection of verse, *Simboli*, he already foreshadowed the poetics that he later codified in the essay *On the Causes of the Decline and on the New Trends in Contemporary Russian Literature* (1893). In opposition to the “useful utilitarian realism” of positivist criticism, M. proclaimed a new idealism whose principles, in art, were: symbolic style, mystical content, formal refinement. Merzhekovsky’s mystical conception is based on a renewal of Christian religion through a syncretism of paganism and Christianity. It contemplates an eschatological cycle of three phases or kingdoms: that of the Father (Old Testament), in which truth is revealed as the power of God; that of the Son (New Testament), in which truth manifests itself as love; and that of the Holy Spirit (Third Testament), in which truth is to be realized as freedom. Between the three kingdoms of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Liberator lies the interregnum of the Antichrist: the Advent of Ham, the “triumph of Smerdyakov” or 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* (1895, Eng. trans. Milan 1901), *The Resurrection of the Gods: Leonardo da Vinci* (1902, Eng. trans. 1913), *The Antichrist: Peter and Alexis* (1905, Eng. trans. Turin 1932), whose protagonists, as in every work by M., are emblematic figures embodying theses and antitheses. A second trilogy consists of the drama *Paul I* (1908, Eng. trans. Milan 1921) and the novels *Alexander I* (1911) and *December 14* (1917). Both the architectural construction and the psychological and stylistic elements in M. rest on a principle of polarity, of emphatic opposition of contraries, on antitheses and antinomies. Even in his critical investigations M. brought his mystical conceptions to bear, seeing in Lermontov the Forerunner, the Baptist; in Pushkin the reconciliation of the pagan and Christian spirits; in Gogol the eternal struggle with the devil; in Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, respectively, the “hidden revealer of the flesh” and the “hidden revealer of the spirit.” The essay *Tolstoy and Dostoevsky* (1901) is perhaps M.’s most enduring work.
In addition to his works, a journal that he edited, *Novy Put’* (*The New Path*), and a circle of philosophical-religious meetings that he founded in St. Petersburg with his wife (the poetess Z. Hippius), contributed to the dissemination of his thought. V. Rozanov, N. Minsky, and D. Filosofov. After the disturbances of 1905 he abandoned his stance as a supporter of the tsar, “one of the Lord’s,” to move to bourgeois opposition, arguing that “autocracy comes from the Antichrist”; but from 1909 onward, alarmed by the direction taken by progressive currents, he shifted to the right. The year 1917 found him an irreconcilable opponent of communism, the “kingdom of the Antichrist.” Having gone into exile, 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).
MERZHEKOVSKY FROM THE CATHOLIC POINT OF VIEW. — For a better assessment of M.’s thought from a Catholic perspective, his two works are useful: *Jesus Unknown* (Eng. trans., Florence 1943) and *Three Saints: Paul, Augustine, and Francis of Assisi* (Eng. trans., Milan 1936).
From these there always emerges the concept of the “third kingdom,” that of the Holy Spirit (in which he is rather linked with Joachim of Fiore [d. 1202], Tertullian, and Montanus), so that M. does not envisage a Christianity that is either orthodox, traditional, or historical; but a future one, yet to come, entirely subjective; for this reason he proclaims that Jesus is still unknown in his true aspect or misunderstood. He attempts to demonstrate this with arbitrary and strange antitheses and comparisons (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 assertions contrary to Catholic truths (Jesus was begotten by Joseph; the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and all of Jesus’ childhood are nothing but myth or mystery, in any case not historical fact; Thomas Didymus is Jesus’ twin brother, etc.; Jesus never conferred primacy upon Peter, etc.). As for Paul, Augustine, and Francis of Assisi, the strength of his study lies in presenting them as severed from the Catholic Church, especially from its doctrines, and following only a Word revealed to them personally, so that rather than being Christians in the sense intended by Catholics, they are disciples of Christ but prior to Christianity; those living in the Church have only a servile and external knowledge of the Gospel, whereas Paul, Augustine, and Francis understand the Gospel as an interior and free science, dictated directly by Christ. This is equivalent to the concept expressed by M. that it is not the Church that comes from Christ, but Christ from the Church, which has shaped the Gospel. Not to mention the belief in a third Church, that of the Holy Spirit, which is contrary to the doctrine of the indefectibility of the one, holy, and true Church of Jesus Christ. Even from a moral point of view some reservations are in order. G. Florovsky (op. cit. in bibl.) observes that M. not only sought to sanctify and transfigure the flesh, but also to “sanctify untransfigured flesh.”
Celestino Testore — Bernardo Schultz
MÉRIDA — Church of St. Martin (16th cent.) — Trujillo near M.