Dmitry Merezhkovsky

Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky (; – 9 December 1941) was a Russian novelist, poet, religious thinker, and literary critic. A seminal figure of the Silver Age of Russian Poetry, regarded as a co-founder of the Symbolist movement, Merezhkovsky – with his wife, the poet Zinaida Gippius – was twice forced into political exile. During his second exile (1918–1941), he continued publishing successful novels and gained recognition as a critic of the Soviet Union. Known both as a self-styled religious prophet with his own slant on apocalyptic Christianity, and as the author of philosophical historical novels which combined fervent idealism with literary innovation, Merezhkovsky was nominated nine times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he came closest to winning in 1933. However, due to contested claims that he expressed regard for Fascism as a lesser evil than Communism during the outbreak of war between Germany and the USSR shortly prior to his death, his work largely fell into neglect after World War II

Biography Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky was born on , in Saint Petersburg, the sixth son in his family. His father, Sergey Ivanovich Merezhkovsky, served as a senior official in several Russian local governors' cabinets (including that of in Orenburg) before entering Emperor Alexander II's court office as a Privy Councillor. His mother Varvara Vasilyevna Merezhkovskaya (née Chesnokova) was a daughter of a senior Saint Petersburg security official. Fond of arts and literature, she was what Dmitry Merezhkovsky later remembered as the guiding light of his rather lonely childhood (despite the presence of his five brothers and three sisters). There were only three people Merezhkovsky had any affinity with in his whole lifetime, and his mother, a woman "of rare beauty and angelic nature" according to biographer Yuri Zobnin, was the first and the most important of those.

Early years Dmitry Merezhkovsky spent his early years on the Yelagin Island in Saint Petersburg, in a palace-like cottage which served as a summer dacha for the family. In the city the family occupied an old house facing the Summer Gardens, near . The Merezhkovskys also owned a large estate in Crimea, near a road leading to the Uchan-Su waterfall. "Fabulous Oreanda palace, now in ruins, will stay with me forever. White marble pylons against the blue sea... for me it's a timeless symbol of Ancient Greece," Merezhkovsky wrote years later. Sergey Merezhkovsky, although a man of means, led an ascetic life, keeping his household 'lean and thrifty'. He saw this also as 'moral prophylactics' for his children, regarding luxury-seeking and reckless spending as the two deadliest sins. The parents traveled a lot, and an old German housekeeper, Amalia Khristianovna, spent much time with the children, amusing them with Russian fairytales and Biblical stories. It was her recounting of saints' lives that helped Dmitry to develop fervent religious feelings in his early teens.

In 1876 Dmitry Merezhkovsky joined an élite grammar school, the . His years spent there he described later in one word, "murderous", remembering just one teacher as a decent person – "Kessler the Latinist; well-meaning he surely never was, but at least had a kindly look." At thirteen Dmitry started writing poetry, rather in the vein of Pushkin's "Bakhchisarai Fountain", as he later remembered. He became fascinated with the works of Molière to such an extent as to form a Molière Circle in the Gymnasium. The group had nothing political in its agenda, but still aroused the interest of the secret police. Each of its members were summoned one by one to the Third Department's headquarters by the Politzeisky Bridge to be questioned. It is believed that only Sergey Merezhkovsky's efforts prevented his son from being expelled from the school. Somewhat different was young Merezhkovsky's encounter with another luminary, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, again staged by his well-connected father. As the boy started reciting his work, nervous to the point of stuttering, the famous novelist listened rather impatiently, then said: "Poor, very poor. To write well, one has to suffer. Suffer!" – "Oh no, I'd rather he won't – either suffer, or write well!", the appalled father exclaimed. The boy left Dostoyevsky's house much frustrated by the great man's verdict.

In autumn 1882 Merezhkovsky attended one of the first of Semyon Nadson's public readings and, deeply impressed, wrote him a letter. Soon Nadson became Merezhkovsky's closest friend – in fact, the only one, apart from his mother. Later researchers suggested there was some mystery shared by the two young men, something to do with "fatal illness, fear of death and longing for faith as an antidote to such fear". Nadson died in 1887, Varvara Vasilyevna two years later; feeling that he had lost everything he'd ever had in this world, Merezhkovsky submerged into deep depression.

In January 1883 Otechestvennye Zapiski published two more of Merezhkovsky's poems. "Sakya Muni", the best known of his earlier works, entered popular poetry-recital compilations of the time and made the author almost famous. By 1896 Merezhkovsky was rated as "a well-known poet" by the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. Years later, having gained fame as a novelist, he felt embarrassed by his poetry and, when compiling his first Complete series in the late 1900s, cut the poetry section down by several pieces.

University years From 1884 to 1889 Merezhkovsky studied history and philology at the University of Saint Petersburg where his PhD thesis was on Montaigne. He learned several foreign languages and developed strong interests in French literature, the philosophy of positivism, and the theories of John Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin. Still, his student years were joyless. "University gave me no more than a Gymnasium did. I've never had proper – either family, or education," he wrote in his 1913 autobiography.

In 1884 Merezhkovsky (along with Nadson) joined the Saint Petersburg's Literary Society, on Aleksey Pleshcheyev's recommendation. The latter introduced the young poet to the family of Karl Davydov, head of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Davydov's wife became Merezhkovsky's publisher in the 1890s; their daughter Lidia became his first (strong, even if fleeting) romantic interest. In Davydov's circle Merezhkovsky mixed with well-established literary figures of the time – Ivan Goncharov, Apollon Maykov, Yakov Polonsky, but also Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and Gleb Uspensky, two prominent narodniks whom he regarded later as his first real teachers.

It was under the guidance of the latter that Merezhkovsky, while still a university student, embarked upon an extensive journey through the Russian provinces where he met many people, notably religious cult leaders. He stayed for some time in the village of Chudovo where Uspensky lived, and both men spent many sleepless nights discussing things like "life's religious meaning," "a common man's cosmic vision" and "the power of the land". At the time Merezhkovsky was seriously considering leaving the capital to settle down in some far-out country place and to become a teacher.

In early 1888 Merezhkovsky graduated from the University and embarked upon a tour through southern Russia, starting in Odessa. In Borjomi he met 19-year-old poet Zinaida Gippius. The two fell in love and on January 18, 1889, married in Tiflis, making arguably the most prolific and influential couple in the history of Russian literature. Soon husband and wife moved into their new Saint Petersburg house, Merezkovsky's mother's wedding-present.

Late 1880s to early 1890s Merezhkovsky's major literary debut came with the publication of Poems (1883–1887) in 1888. It brought the author into the focus of the most favourable critical attention, but – even coupled with Protopop Avvacum, a poetry epic released the same year, could not solve the young family's financial problems. Helpfully, Gippius reinvented herself as a prolific fiction-writer, producing novels and novelettes with such ease that she later struggled to remember their names. Sergey Merezhkovsky's occasional hand-outs also helped the husband and wife to keep their meagre budget afloat.

Having by this time lost interest in poetry, Dmitry Merezhkovsky developed a strong affinity to Greek drama and published translations of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in Vestnik Evropy. These translations from Ancient Greek, including his later work on Daphnis and Chloe (prose version, 1896), though largely overlooked by contemporary critics, later came to be regarded as "the pride of the Russian school of classical translation", according to biographer Yuri Zobnin.

In the late 1880s Merezhkovsky debuted as a literary critic with an essay on Anton Chekhov entitled "A Newly-born Talent Facing the Same Old Question" and published by Severny Vestnik. Having spotted in his subject's prose "the seeds of irrational, alternative truth", Merezhkovsky inadvertently put an end to his friendship with Mikhaylovsky and amused Chekhov who, in his letter to Pleshcheev, mentioned the "disturbing lack of simplicity" as the article's major fault. Merezhkovsky continued in the same vein and thus invented (in retrospect) the whole new genre of a philosophical essay as a form of critical thesis, something unheard of in Russian literature before. Merezhkovsky's biographical pieces on Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Goncharov, Maykov, Korolenko, Pliny, and Calderon scandalized the contemporary literary establishment. Later, compiled in a volume called The Eternal Companions, these essays were pronounced modern classics, their author praised as "the subtlest and the deepest of late XIX – early XX Russian literary critics" by literary historian Arkady Dolinin. The Eternal Companions became so revered a piece of literary art in the early 1910s that the volume was officially chosen as an honorary gift for excelling grammar-school graduates.

In May 1890 Liubov Gurevich, the new head of the revamped Severny Vestnik, turned a former narodnik's safe haven into the exciting club for members of the rising experimental-literature scene, labeled "decadent" by detractors. Merezhkovsky's new drama Sylvio was published there, the translation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" followed suit. Other journals became interested in the young author too: Russkaya Mysl published his poem Vera (later included in his The Symbols compilation), hailed as one of Russian Symbolism's early masterpieces, its colourful mysticism providing a healthy antidote to narodniks' "reflections" of the social life. Bryusov "absolutely fell in love with it," and Pyotr Pertsov years later admitted: "For my young mind Merezhkovsky's Vera sounded so much superior to this dull and old-fashioned Pushkin".

Russkaya Mysl released The Family Idyll (Semeynaya idillia, 1890); a year later another symbolic poem, Death (Smert), appeared in Severny Vestnik. In 1891 Merezhkovsky and Gippius first travelled to Western Europe together, staying mostly in Italy and France; the poem End of the Century inspired by the European trip, came out two years later. On their return home the couple stayed for a while in Gippius' dacha at Vyshny Volochyok; it was here that Merezhkovsky started working on his first novel, The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate. A year later it was finished, but by this time the situation with Severny Vestnik had changed: outraged by Akim Volynsky's intrusive editorial methods, Merezhkovsky severed ties with the magazine, at least for a while. In the late 1891 he published his translation of Sophocles' Antigone in Vestnik Evropy, part of Goethe's Faustus (in Russkoye Obozrenye) and Euripides' Hyppolite (in Vestnik Evropy again). The latter came out in 1893, after the couple's second trip to Europe where they first encountered Dmitry Filosofov. Merezhkovsky's vivid impressions of Greece and a subsequent spurt of new ideas provided the foundation for his second novel. In October 1892 Merezhkovsky's lecture "The Causes of the Decline of the Contemporary Russian Literature and the New Trends in it" was first read in public, then came out in print. Brushing aside the 'decadent' tag, the author argued that all three "streaks of Modern art" – "Mystic essence, Symbolic language and Impressionism" – could be traced back to the works of Lev Tolstoy or of Dostoyevsky, making Russian Modernism, therefore, a continuation of Russian literature's classic tradition. Coupled with Symbols, the lecture was widely accepted as Russian symbolism's early manifesto. The general reaction to it was mostly negative. The author found himself between two fires: liberals condemned his ideas as "the new obscurantism", members of posh literary salons treated his revelations with scorn. Only one small group of people greeted "The Causes" unanimously, and that was the staff of Severny Vestnik, which welcomed him back.

In 1893–1894 Merezhkovsky published numerous books (the play The Storm is Over and the translation of Sophocles' Oedipus the King among them), but the money all this hard work brought were scant. Now writing his second novel, he had to accept whatever work was offered to him. In the late 1893 Merezhkovskys settled in Saint Petersburg again. Here they frequented the Shakespearean Circle, the Polonsky's Fridays and the Literary Fund gatherings. Then the pair started their own home salon with Filosofov and Akim Volynsky becoming habitués. All of a sudden Merezhkovsky found that his debut novel was to be published in Severny Vestnik after all. What he didn't realise was that this came as a result of a Gippius' tumultuous secret love affair with Akim Volynsky, one of this magazine's chiefs.

1895–1903

The Death of the Gods which came out in 1895 (Severny Vestnik, Nos.1–6) opened the Christ & Antichrist trilogy and in retrospect is regarded as the first Russian symbolist novel. Sceptics prevailed (most of them denouncing the author's alleged Nietzscheanity), but the allies were ecstatic. "A novel made for eternity," Bryusov marveled. Five years later Julian the Apostate was published in France, translated by Zinaida Vasilyeva. say it was the Merezhkovskys who withdraw their cooperation with the "Severny Vestnik" a year before the magazine shut down in 1898, along with Minsky and Sologub), made sure the major literary journals would shut the door on him and published (in 1900 ) under his own name a monograph Leonardo da Vinci, written and compiled by his adversary.

The scandal concerning plagiarism lasted for almost two years. Feeling sick and ignored, Merezhkovsky in 1897 was seriously considering leaving his country for good, being kept at home only by the lack of money. For almost three years the second novel, Resurrection of Gods. Leonardo da Vinci (The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci – in English and French) remained unpublished. It finally appeared in Autumn 1900 in Mir Bozhy under the title "The Renaissance". In retrospect these two books' "...persuasive power came from Merezhkovsky's success in catching currents then around him: strong contrasts between social life and spiritual values, fresh interest in the drama of pagan ancient Athens, and identification with general western European culture." Tolstoy invited the couple to his Yasnaya Polyana estate in 1904 and, to both parties' delight, the visit proved to be friendly. Behind the facade, there was little love lost between them; the old man confessed in his diary that, he just couldn't "force himself to love those two," and Merezhkovsky's critique of what he saw as "Tolstoy's nihilism" continued. Troyebratstvo (Gippius, Merezhkovsky and Filosofov) in the early 1910s. Caricature by Re-Mi (Nikolai Remizov) After the 22nd session, in April 1903, the Meetings of the group (by this time known as Bogoiskateli, or God-seekers) were cancelled by the procurator of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Konstantin Pobedonostsev's decree, the main reason being Merezhkovsky's frequent visits to places of mass sectarian settlements where God-seekers' radical ideas of Church 'renovation' were becoming popular.

The couple formed their own domestic "church", trying to involve miriskusniks. Of the latter, only Filosofov took the idea seriously and became the third member of the so-called Troyebratstvo (The Brotherhood of Three) built loosely upon the Holy Trinity format and having to do with the obscure 12th century idea of the Third Testament. Merezhkovsky developed it into the Church of the Holy Ghost, destined to succeed older churches – first of the Father (Old Testament), then of the Son (New Testament).

In The Forthcoming Ham (Gryadushchu Ham, 1905) Merezhkovsky explained his political stance, seeing, as usual, all things refracted into Trinities. Using the pun ("Ham" in Russian, along with a Biblical character's name, meaning 'lout', 'boor') the author described the three "faces of Ham'stvo" (son of Noah's new incarnation as kind of nasty, God-jeering scoundrel Russian): the past (Russian Orthodox Church's hypocrisy), the present (the state bureaucracy and monarchy) and the future – massive "boorish upstart rising up from society's bottom." Several years on the book was regarded as prophetic by many. In one of the articles he contributed to it, Revolution and Religion, Merezhkovsky wrote: "Now it's almost impossible to foresee what a deadly force this revolutionary tornado starting upwards from the society's bottom will turn out to be. The church will be crashed down and the monarchy too, but with them – what if Russia itself is to perish – if not the timeless soul of it, then its body, the state?" Again, what at the time was looked upon as dull political grotesque a decade later turned into grim reality.

Some argued Merezhkovsky's stance was inconsistent with his own ideas of some five years ago. After all, the Vekhi authors were trying to revitalize his own failed project of bringing the intellectual and the religious elites into collaboration. But the times had changed for Merezhkovsky and – following this (some argued, unacceptably scornful) anti-Vekhi tirade, his social status, too. Shunned by both former allies and the conservatives, he was hated by the Church: Saratov Bishop Dolganov even demanded his excommunication after the book Sick Russia was published in 1910.

In the early 1910s Merezhkovsky moved to the left side of the Russian cultural spectrum, finding among his closest associates the esers Ilya Fondaminsky and, notably, Boris Savinkov. The latter was trying to receive from Merezhkovsky some religious and philosophical justification for his own terrorist ideology, but also had another, more down to Earth axe to grind, that of getting his first novel published. This he did, with Merezhkovsky's assistance – to strike the most unusual debut of the 1910 Russian literary season. In 1911 Merezhkovsky was officially accused of having links with terrorists. Pending trial (which included the case of Pavel Pervy play) the writer stayed in Europe, then crossed the border in 1912 only to have several chapters of Alexander the First novel confiscated. He avoided being arrested and in September, along with Pirozhkov, the publisher, was acquitted.

1914–1919 1914–1916 For a while in 1914 it looked as though Merezhkovsky would have his first ever relatively calm year. With the two Complete Works Of editions released by the Wolfe's and Sytin's publishing houses, academic Nestor Kotlyarevsky nominated the author for the Nobel Prize for literature.

Two new plays by Merezhkovsky, Joy Will Come (Radost Budet) and The Romantics were staged in war-time Petrograd theaters. The latter proved a successful hit, but for the mainstream critics its playwright remained a "controversial author". "All in all, Russian literature is as hostile to me as it has always been. I could as well be celebrating the 25th anniversary of this hostility", the author wrote in his short autobiography for Semyon Vengerov's biographical dictionary.

Merezhkovsky viewed the October Socialist Revolution of 1917 as a catastrophe. He saw it as the Coming of Ham he wrote about a decade later, the tragic victory for, as he choose to put it, Narod-Zver (The Beast-nation), the political and social incarnation of universal Evil, putting the whole of human civilization in danger. Merezhkovsky and Gippius tried to use whatever influence they retained upon the Bolshevist cultural leaders to ensure the release of their friends, the arrested Provisional-government ministers. Ironically, one of the first things the Soviet government did was lift the ban from Merezhkovsky's anti-monarchist Pavel Pervy play, and it was staged in several of Red Russia's theaters.

After news started to filter through of the defeats suffered by the White forces of Yudenich, Kolchak and Denikin in the course of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the Merezhkovskys saw their only chance of survival in fleeing Russia. They left Petrograd on December 14, 1919, along with Filosofov and Zlobin (Gippius' young secretary), having obtained from Anatoly Lunacharsky signed permission "to leave Petrograd for the purpose of reading some lectures on Ancient Egypt to Red Army fighters".

In Warsaw Merezhkovsky did practical work for some Russian immigrant organizations, Gippius edited the literary section in Svoboda newspaper.

In Paris Merezhkovsky founded the Religious Union (later Soyuz Neprimirimykh, the Union of the Unpacified), was holding lectures, contributed to Pavel Milyukov's Poslednye Novosty and Pyotr Struve's Osvobozhdenye newspapers, exposing what he saw as the Bolshevist lies and denouncing the "Kingdom of Antichrist." It was becoming more and more obvious, though, that Merezhkovsky, backed only by the circle of friends, was in isolation, misunderstood by some, abhorred by others. His calling for the international intervention into Russia angered the left; rejecting the restoration of the Russian monarchy antagonized the right.

Merezhkovsky insisted upon severing all the International PEN's contacts with Communist Russia and cancelling French help for the victims of mass hunger in Russian Volga Region arguing, not unreasonably, that those in need will not ever see any of the money or food sent. He criticised the exiled Russian Constituent Assembly's communique which was, in his opinion, too conciliatory in tone. In 1922 the collection of articles and essays of the four authors (Merezhkovsky, Gippius, Filosofov contacts with whom have been restored, and Zlobin) came out under the title The Kingdom of Antichrist, the general idea of the book being that the 'Russian fires', globalist in their nature and intent, promise "either brotherhood in slavery or the end in a common grave" for the European nations.

In winter 1925 a small literary and philosophy circle was formed by Merezhkovsky and Gippius; two years later it was officially launched as the Green Lamp group. With the Novy Korabl (The New Ship) magazine of its own, the group attracted the whole of the Russian intellectual elite in exile and remained the important cultural center for the next ten years. "We are the Criticism of Russia as such, the latter's disembodied Thought and Conscience, free to judge its present and foresee its future," wrote Merezhkovsky of the Green Lamp mission.

Merezhkovsky's literary activities: 1925–41 In the mid-1920s, disappointed by the Western cultural elite's reaction to his political manifestos, Merezhkovsky returned to religious and philosophical essays, but in the new format, that of a monumental free-form experimental-styled treatise. Some of his new books were biographies, some just extensive, amorphous researches in ancient history. Speaking of the first two of them, The Birth of Gods. Tutankhamen in Crete (1925) and Messiah (1928), Merezhkovsky thus explained his credo: "Many people think I am a historical novelist, which is wrong. What I use the Past for is only searching for the Future. The Present is a kind of exile to me. My true home is the Past/Future, which is where I belong."

Of the three fundamental books Merezhkovsky created in the late 1920s early 1930s another trilogy took shape, loosely linked by the concept of man's possible way to salvation. The Mystery of the Three: Egypt and Babylon (Prague, 1925) was followed by the Mystery of the West: Atlantis-Europe (Berlin, 1930), where the cherished Third Testament idea took an apocalyptic, Nietzschean turn. The third, Unfamiliar Jesus (1932, Belgrade), is seen in retrospect as the strongest of the three.

All of a sudden Merezhkovsky, a prolific writer again, drifted into the focus of the Nobel Prize committee attention. From 1930 onwards Sigurd Agrell, professor of Slavic languages in Lund University, started to methodically nominate Merezhkovsky for the Prize, although, invariably (and rather frustratingly for both), in tandem with Ivan Bunin. In November 1932 Gippius in a letter to Vera Bunina expressed her opinion that Merezhkovsky had no chance of winning "because of his anti-Communist stance," but the truth was, Bunin (no lesser a Communism-loather than his rival) wrote books that were more accessible and, generally, popular. Merezkovsky even suggested they should make a pact and divide the money should one of them ever win, but Bunin took seriously what was meant apparently as a joke and responded with outright refusal. He won the Prize in 1933.

Agrell continued nominating Merezhkovsky up until his own death in 1937 (making eight such nominations, in all), but each year the latter's chances were getting slimmer. The books he produced in his latter years (like the compilation of religious biographies Faces of Saints: from Jesus to Nowadays and The Reformers trilogy, published posthumously) were not ground-breaking. Hard times and deepening troubles notwithstanding, Merezhkovsky continued to work hard until his dying day, trying desperately to complete his Spanish Mysteries trilogy; the last of the three pieces, the unfinished Little Theresa, was with him at his deathbed; he died literally with a pen in his hand.

Merezhkovsky and the European dictators Although never a Russian nationalist, Merezhkovsky was a Russo-centric author and thinker, cherishing the idea of his country's unique and in many ways decisive place in the world culture in history. Never tiring of reiterating the "Russian plight is the problem of the world, not Russia" postulate, he was ever on the look-out for some "strong leader" who would be able to organize and successfully see through the anti-Communist crusade. For a while Merezhkovsky thought he had found his hero in Benito Mussolini who, having sponsored his book on Dante, had several lengthy talks with the Russian writer on politics, literature and art. Impressed, Merezhkovsky started to see his new friend almost as an incarnation of Dante. In a letter addressed to Mussolini, he wrote:The best, the truest and the liveliest document on Dante is – your personality. To understand Dante one has to live through him, but only you being around makes that possible. Two souls, his and yours, are merged into one, Infinity itself bringing you two together. Visualize Mussolini in contemplation, and it's Dante. Imagine Dante in action, and it's Mussolini.

Merezhkovsky had never seen Fascism as an alternative to Communism. As early as 1930 he wrote of a doomed Europe stuck between the two "stores of explosives: Fascism and Communism", expressing hope that some day these two evils will somehow destroy one another.

On June 27, 1940 the German Wehrmacht occupied Biarritz. Here in a hotel on August 14 the writer's 75th anniversary celebration was held, organized by a group of French writers, with some notable Russians like Pavel Milyukov, Ivan Bunin and Mark Aldanov invited. It was there that Merezhkovsky made comments which (according to biographer Yuri Zobnin) were later presented by some memoirists as his "infamous German radio speech". Still, even Zobnin admits that there were reasons to regard Merezhkovsky as a Nazi sympathizer. In the autumn of 1941 Merezhkovsky found himself in the center of his German admirers – students, mostly, but army officers too. It was their German friends who helped the couple move back to Paris from Biarritz where they found themselves penniless and on the verge of homelessness. "Merezhkovsky flew up to the Nurnberg fires with the agitation of a newly born butterfly... By this time most of us stopped visiting them," wrote , a Green Lamp group member.

Adding to the confusion is the well-documented fact that Merezhkovsky had already made one speech mentioning Hitler and Joan of Arc in one breath. It happened in August 1940 at his 75th-birthday celebration in Biarritz, and in a different context. In fact, his speech caused trouble because it was deemed too pro-Russian and anti-German. According to Teffi, one of the people present, — According to scholar D.Churakov, Merezhkovsky, pronouncing "the death of metaphysics" and putting forward the idea that only language of symbols could be an adequate instrument for discovering the modern world's pattern of meanings, was unwillingly following Auguste Comte, the difference being that the latter was employing these ideas in scientific fields, while the former proposed to use them in literature and criticism. This New Trinity concept implied that the all-inviting Holy Ghost was not a sexless spirit, but a female entity.

In his own words, "Being aware of myself in my body, I'm at the root of personality. Being aware of myself in the other one's body, I'm at the root of sex. Being aware of myself in all human bodies, I am at the root of unity". The consequence of such revolution would bring about gradual change in the nature of religion itself, the latter taking under its spacious wing not only man's sensual liberation but also the latter's "freedom of rebellion." "We are human only as long as we're rebels," Merezhkovsky insisted, expressing what some saw as a proto-existentialist idea.

B. Rozental, analyzing Merezhkovsky's political and religious philosophy, thus summed up the writer's position: "The Law amounts to violence... The difference between legitimate power that holds violence 'in reserve' and violence itself is but a matter of degree: sinful are both. Autocracy and murder are nothing more than the two extreme forms of exhibiting [criminal] power." In the words of a modern biographer, "he will find his place in history alongside Marquis de Sade, Nietzsche and Henry Miller, those classics who only through being condemned and ostracized by the many could be approached and appreciated by the few." Anton Chekov insisted that the Russian Academy of Sciences should appoint Merezhkovsky its honorary academic, in as early as 1902.

Later researchers noted Merezhkovsky's willingness to question dogmas and thwart tradition with disregard to public opinion, never shying away from controversy and even scandal. Crucial in this context (according to O. Dafier) was his "quest for ways of overcoming deep crisis which came as a result of the Russian traditionalist Church losing its credibility."

For all his scientifically strict, academic approach to the process of collecting and re-processing material, contemporary academia, with little exception, ridiculed Merezhkovsky, dismissing him as a gifted charlatan, bent on rewriting history in accordance with his own current ideological and philosophical whims.

For all his religiosity, Merezhkovsky was never popular with either Russian Orthodox Church officials or the religious intellectual elite of the time, people like Sergey Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky and Lev Shestov fiercely denouncing his ideas and projects.

The writer's work published in emigration was, according to the 1934 Soviet Literary encyclopedia "the telling example of the ideological degradation and cultural degeneration of the White emigres." Maxim Gorky's verdict: "Dmitry Merezhkovsky, a well-known God-admirer of a Christian mode, is a small man whose literary activity is akin to that of a type-writer: each type is clear and well-read, but it's soul-less and boring," served as a leitmotif of the Soviet literary officialdom's view on Merezhkovsky for decades. In the Soviet times the writer was (in the words of Alexander Men) "aggressively forgotten," his works unofficially banned up until the early 1990s, when the floodgate of re-issues opened the way for serious critical analysis of Merezhkovsky's life and legacy.

Select bibliography

Novels Christ and Antichrist trilogy The Death of the Gods. Julian the Apostate (Christ and Antichrist trilogy, 1895). Resurrection of Gods. Leonardo da Vinci (book 2 of the Christ and Antichrist trilogy, 1900). , books.google Peter and Alexis (book 3 of the Christ and Antichrist trilogy, 1904)

The Kingdom of the Beast Paul I (Pavel Pervy, 1908) Alexander the First (Aleksandr Pervy, 1913) December 14 (Chetyrnadtsatoye Dekabrya, 1918)

Non-fiction On the Causes of the Decline and on the New Trends in Contemporary Russian Literature (1892) The Eternal Companions (1897) Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (1901) The Forthcoming Ham (Gryadushchu Ham, 1905) Sick Russia (Bolnaya Rossia, 1910) The Birth of Gods. Tutankhamen in Crete (1925) Messiah (1928) The Mystery of the Three: Egypt and Babylon (1925) Mystery of the West: Atlantis-Europe (1930) Unknown Jesus (1932) Jesus Manifest (1935) (1936, First American Edition)

Plays Sylvio (1890) The Storm is Over (1893) Poppy Blossom (Makov Tzvet, 1908, with Gippius and Filosofov) The Last Saint (Posledny Svyatoy, 1908) Pavel the First (Pavel Pervy, 1908), part 1 of the Kingdom of the Beast trilogy. Joy Will Come (Radost Budet, 1916) The Romantics (Romantiki, 1916)

Poetry Poems (1883–1888) Protopop Avvacum (1888) Vera (1890) The Family Idyll (Semeynaya idillia, 1890), Death (Smert, 1891) Symbols. Poems and Songs (1892) End of the Century (Konetz Veka, 1893)