Father Gippius is from a Russified (in Russia since the 16th century) German family. Wife D. S. Merezhkovsky(1865-1941), whom she met in 1888 and lived "52 years, not parting for a single day."
Gippius was a devoted spiritual companion Merezhkovsky, an accomplice and inspirer (according to many contemporaries, the initiator) of his religious and philosophical ideas; Merezhkovsky introduced her to the Petersburg literary environment. In the Severny Vestnik (1895), the organ of the "senior symbolists" (Gippius maintains relations with the leading critic of the journal A. L. Volynsky, which ended in a break), her first shocking poems appeared "Dedication"(“But I love myself as God”) and "Song"(“I need something that is not in the world”); Gippius included them, like other poems, in her prose books. Widely published in periodicals, the poems were collected in collections published in Moscow: “Collection of Poems. 1889-1903" (1904) and "Collected Poems. 1903-1909" (1910).
Soul and God
"Poetry of Limits", the highest ups and downs - the polar and constant range of her poetry. But this is not a lonely confession of a lonely soul, but its metaphysical landscape: all its states and insights are symbolic and realized by Gippius as stages of gaining a personality in the light of a higher truth, a personality that surpasses itself, striving to go beyond human dimensions. Gippius ruthlessly dissects his soul - sluggish and powerless, deathly and "inert", "numb" and indifferent; with such a soul one must fight and overcome - with one's own will ("Thoughts without will - an unregal path"), "desire" and faith. Turning to God (under the names He, the Invisible, the Third) and calling the verses "prayers", Gippius establishes his own, direct and equal, "blasphemous" relations with him. God for her is, first of all, the path to self-disclosure and purification of her own self. At the same time, Gippius postulates not only love for God, but also for himself, calls dislike for himself a sin, because the “immensity” of her self, the desire for heaven, the thirst for the unrealizable and impossible (especially in love, which she also understands metaphysically, as a rejection of "earthly" attraction for the sake of spiritual unity in the union of two), the expectation of a "miracle" - from God ( "Prayer"). Through her will, according to Gippius, the divine will is revealed, and God is called or must - imperativeness is generally characteristic of Gippius - to sanctify the courage and audacity of such a soul, its very disobedience - “But I will not give my soul to the weakness of humility” ( "Deafness"), strengthen her will and faith ( "Ballad", "About other"). Volitional efforts to create and preserve the soul are a “difficult” path, “devilish” temptations and temptations, despair and impotence of faith are inseparable from it, and Gippius talks about them with fearless truthfulness. The truthfulness, sincerity, "uniqueness" of Gippius' poetry was also recognized by those who spoke of the speculativeness, "dryness", cold restraint of her poems (written from a male person). Gippius was valued as an outstanding master of verse ( V. Ya. Bryusov, I. F. Annensky). Virtuosity of form, rhythmic richness, "singing abstraction" distinguished her lyrics of the late 1890s - 1900s, later more traditional.
First decadent prose
Gippius's first collections of short stories New People (1896, 1907) and Mirrors (1898) became the first "decadent" prose books of Russian symbolism, revealing the structure of thought of the "new people" - broken, painful, incorporeal. All of them were united by a conscious rejection of life, a longing for “new beauty”, “another sky”, for everything and only “inexplicable”, “forever inaccessible and forever incomprehensible” (“New People”). Completely different in style and mood was Gippius's prose debut - the story "The Unfortunate" (1892), which draws with sympathetic attention " simple life"(original author's title); Gippius succeeded in pictures of everyday existence in other books as well. The duality of man and being itself, the "angelic" and demonic beginnings, the view of life as a reflection of an inaccessible spirit (the story of the same name "Mirrors") revealed the influence of F. M. Dostoevsky. The first books, like most of the subsequent ones, caused a fierce rejection of liberal and populist criticism - for the unnaturalness, unprecedentedness, pretentiousness of Gippius' heroes. In The Third Book of Stories (1902), the paradoxical feelings and aspirations of the same "painfully strange" heroes are more artistically motivated, conveyed through the struggle of consciousness, their values (autobiographically close to Gippius herself) - through a painful search, often with a tragic outcome, another, contrary to generally accepted morality and truth. Gippius formulates his metaphysics of love (correlated with the "Meaning of Love" V. S. Solovyova) and suffering: to love not for oneself, not for happiness and “appropriation”, but for gaining in infinity or in the name of the third (which, from the point of view of Gippius, is essentially the same thing), in order to express and “ give your whole soul ”(the desire to go to the end in any experience, including experimenting with yourself and people) - one of her imperatives and life attitudes Gippius - a poem "To the dregs". Such love presupposes a fearless determination to cause suffering to another, and not to save from it - if this contributes to the growth of the soul, self-identification of the personality (“Twilight of the Spirit”, “Comet”, drama-mystery “Holy Blood”). In the story "Holy Flesh" - about the self-sacrifice of a simple heroine for the sake of a feeble-minded sister - the emphasis is on the freedom of humility, and not passive resignation to fate.
Anton Krainy
In 1899, Gippius became close to the World of Art, published literary-critical articles in their journal (The World of Art, 1899-1901), acted as a publicist-critic and de facto co-editor (together with Merezhkovsky, P. P. Pertsov; since 1904 with D. V. Filosofov) of the religious and philosophical journal “ New way"(1903-1904), where he also publishes his poems and prose (reports of the Religious-Philosophical Meetings also appear here), one of the leading critics of the symbolist magazine Scales (1906-08), later (1910-14) - a permanent collaborator of the liberal "Russian Thought"; participation in them reflects the stages of Gippius's spiritual search.
Religious-philosophical meetings
Other prose
In the late 1900s and into the 1910s, Gippius published two collections of short stories, Black on White (1908), Moon Ants (1912), and the dilogy novels The Devil's Doll (1911) and Roman Tsarevich "(1913). The stories of this time are closer to life, addressed to "sick" modern issues, the circle of heroes is expanding (students, people from the people, the middle class), religious problems do not go away, but lose their imperative tone, the search for the "real self" is accompanied by dreary bewilderment, horror before immediate life and are often "resolved" by death. The novels, on the other hand, were clearly ideological, tendentious, and "sloppy" in execution; the gallery of social types displayed in them (revolutionaries, provocateurs, bearers of the ideas of the “tribrotherhood” and vulgar Nietzscheans), the picture of ideological and social decay, the attempt at religious awareness of the revolution (in “Roman the Tsarevich”) did not receive artistic generalization and unity.
Emigration
Gippius took the February Revolution with enthusiasm, hoping for a religious, creative and political renewal of the country, participated in political life, which she described in Petersburg Diaries. 1914-1919” (New York, 1982, 1990; both editions with a foreword by N. N. Berberova). The October Revolution was for Gippius the death of Russia, its criminal "destruction", "murder of freedom" and a common sin, including the people who "do not respect the shrines" (poem, "Candle of Hate"); in 1918-22, a cycle of extremely hostile anti-revolutionary, "avenging" poems was written ("Last poems. 1914-1918") and poignant poems about Russia ( "If", "Know" , ).
At the end of 1919 Gippius with Merezhkovsky, Filosofov and their literary secretary and poet V. A. Zlobin illegally emigrated from Russia to Poland, and from November 1920, having parted with Filosofov, they live in Paris. Gippius publishes articles, reviews, poems (of which he writes less) in the journal Sovremennye Zapiski, the newspapers Latest News, Vozrozhdeniye, and many other publications. Small poetry collections are published (reprints of old and new poems): “Poems. Diary. 1911-1921" (Berlin, 1922) and "Shine" (Paris, 1939) and memoirs "Living Faces" (Prague, 1925). In the chapter “The fragrance of gray hairs”, Gippius draws attractive images of “famous old men” who have left the stage, her literary antagonists - A. N. Pleshcheeva, Ya. P. Polonsky, N. I. Weinberg, D. V. Grigorovich, emphasizes their “moral purity”, “ability for heroism and sacrifice”, the spirit of “chivalry”, characteristic of Russian literature and the “Russian intelligentsia”. Creates bright and benevolently insightful (despite the fact that it does not smooth out contradictions and conflicts) portraits Blok, White, Bryusova, Rozanova, F. Sologuba and others, which, apparently, was facilitated by the absence of a topical literary struggle and a polemical task.
Intransigence towards Bolshevik Russia complicates her relations with many Russian emigrants. But here, too, she organizes literary "Sundays", the "Green Lamp" society (1927-1939), whose visitors were G. V. Ivanov, B. K. Zaitsev, V. F. Khodasevich, M. A. Aldanov, A. M. Remizov, I. A. Bunin, literary youth. According to Berberova's memoirs, there were constant disputes at the Merezhkovskys' about what was "more precious" to whom: "freedom without Russia" or "Russia without freedom"; Gippius chose the first.
The last unfinished book of Gippius - "Dmitry Merezhkovsky" (Paris, 1951) - was written in 1941 after his death Merezhkovsky, which she went through hard; a significant part of the book is devoted to his ideological evolution, the history of the Religious-Philosophical Assemblies. Gippius is buried in Paris under the same headstone with Merezhkovsky at the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve de Bois.
L. M. Schemeleva
GIPPIUS, Zinaida Nikolaevna - Russian writer, critic. Wife D. S. Merezhkovsky, together with whom she was a representative of decadence in Russian literature, which became especially widespread during the years of reaction after the defeat of the revolution of 1905-07. In 1888 she published her first poems in Severny Vestnik, around which St. Petersburg symbolists of the "older" generation were grouped. In 1903-04, together with Merezhkovsky and D. V. Filosofov published the literary journal "New Way". In the poems of Gippius, the preaching of sensual love is combined with the motives of religious humility, fear of death and decay. Main value for Gippius, the Nietzscheian understanding of his own personality remains ( "I love myself like a god"). Author of several collections of short stories, novels: "Devil's Doll" (1911), "Roman Tsarevich" (1913) and others, plays: "Poppy Color" (1908, together with D. Merezhkovsky and D. Filosofov) and The Green Ring (1916), memoirs Living Faces (1925). As a critic (pseudonym Anton Krainy), Gippius defended symbolism (Literary Diary, 1908). October revolution Gippius met with extreme hostility; in exile (since 1920) she appeared in articles and poems with sharp attacks on the Soviet system.
Op.: Sobr. poems, books 1-2, M., 1904-1910; Poems (Diary 1911-1921), Berlin, 1922; Last verses. 1914-1918, P., 1918; Radiance, Paris, 1938; Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Paris, 1951.
Lit .: Lundberg E., Poetry Z. Gippius, “Rus. thought”, 1912, No. 12; Bryusov V, Z. N. Gippius, in the book: Rus. 20th century literature Ed. S. A. Vengerova, v. 1M., ; Chukovsky K., Z. N. Gippius, in his book: Faces and Masks, P., 1914, p. 165-77; Gorbov D., At home and abroad. Lit. essays, [M.], 1928; Mikhailovsky B.V., Rus. literature of the XX century., M., 1939; History of Russian. liters late XIX- the beginning of the XX century. Bibliographic index ed. K. D. Muratova, M. - L., 1963.
O. N. Mikhailov
Brief literary encyclopedia: In 9 t. - T. 2. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1964
GIPPIUS (Merezhkovskaya) Zinaida Nikolaevna - poetess, novelist, playwright and literary critic (pseudonym - Anton Krainy). She began publishing in 1888 in Severny Vestnik. Together with D. Merezhkovsky, V. Bryusov and others, Gippius was one of the founders of symbolism. As a public figure, Gippius is known for her active participation in religious and philosophical societies. She was one of the editors of the New Way magazine. She also owns a number of articles in the World of Art. The symbolism of Gippius is the symbolism of that part of the noble intelligentsia that did not accept the social relations of the era of industrial capitalism and the first revolutionary storms. In most of his stories and stories, Gippius gives the image of a man who is losing ground, devoid of any meaning of existence. Very indicative in this regard are the book of stories "New People" and the collection " heavenly words”, compiled from old things by Gippius (came out in Paris in 1921). In self-care, in individualism, in extreme self-forgetfulness, the heroes of Gippius see the only way out for themselves. Sometimes these experiences reach a complete atrophy of all social instincts: “People, listen to me, you will not be happy anyway. Make it so that you don’t want anything and don’t be afraid of anything - that’s how you will live in peace ”(story“ Legend ”). Gippius especially closely develops the motives of death and death, thereby joining the group of the most decadent symbolists. Her poetry is all imbued with consciousness inner emptiness, lack of will and loneliness:
“I stand over the abyss, under the sky - But I can’t fly away to the azure. I don't know whether to rebel or submit, I don't have the courage to die or live. God is close to me, but I can’t pray, I want love, but I can’t love ... ".
Gippius reacted negatively to the war, but her whole protest is thoroughly religious and pacific ("Father! Father! Bow down to your land - it is saturated with filial blood").
Gippius perceived the October Revolution as "fornication", "disrespect for sacred things", "robbery". Gippius' poems from the period 1917-1921, addressed to the Bolsheviks, are clearly Black Hundred in nature:
“Slaves, liars, murderers, tati - I hate every sin. But you, Judas, you traitors, I hate most of all.
High quality her poetic language is now drastically reduced. Gippius's poems abound with a number of crude prosaisms. In 1920 Gippius emigrated to Western Europe. In Munich, she released together with D. Merezhkovsky, D. Filosofov and other collection of memoirs about Soviet Russia. In 1925, two volumes of sharply tendentious memoirs about Bryusov, block, Sologub and others (under the title "Living Faces"). Joined the CPSU (b) V. Bryusov, in her opinion, "looks like a chimpanzee"; but "Anya" (Vyrubova) is described by her enthusiastically and pathetically. The foreign "creativity" of Gippius is devoid of any artistic and social value, except for the fact that it vividly characterizes the "animal face" of emigrants.
Bibliography: I. Stories - vol. I ("New people"), St. Petersburg., 1896 (the same, published by M. Pirozhkov, St. Petersburg., 1907); v. II ("Mirrors"), St. Petersburg., 1898; vol. III (Stories), St. Petersburg, 1902; v. IV ("Scarlet Sword"), St. Petersburg., 1906; vol. V ("Black on white"), St. Petersburg., 1908; vol. VI ("Lunar ants"), M., 1912; Devil's doll, M., 1911; Roman Tsarevich, M., 1913; Green Ring, P., 1916; Last Poems, P., 1918; Poems (Diary 1911-1921), Berlin, 1922.
II. Kamenev Yu., About the timid flame of the years. Antonov Extreme, "Literary decay", book. 2nd, 1908; Lundberg Evg., Z. Gippius, 1911; Shaginyan M., On the bliss of the possessor (poetry of Gippius), M., 1912; Gippius Z., Autobiographical note, "Russian literature of the XX century", ed. S. A. Vengerova, vol. I; Bryusov V., Z. N. Gippius, ibid., vol. I.
III. Fomin A. G., Bibliography of the latest Russian literature, "Russian literature of the XX century", vol. II, book. 5th; Vladislavlev I.V., Russian writers, ed. 4th, Guise, L., 1924; Him, Literature of the Great Decade, vol. I, Guise, M., 1928; Mandelstam R. S., Fiction in the assessment of Russian Marxist criticism, ed. 4th, Guise, M., 1928.
An. T.
Literary Encyclopedia: In 11 volumes - [M.], 1929-1939
Date added: 10 March 2013 at 17:53
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Analyzing many of Z.doc's poems
- 37.00 KbAnalyzing many of the poems of Z. Gippius, it is impossible not to pay attention to their special spatial structure.
characterizes the main significant locus in the collections “Collected Poems. 1889-1903" and "Collected Poems. 1903-1909", which is a kind of closed space, similar to a cell. The "cell" space gets its completeness and is modeled through a system of images of silence and prayer, as well as images of a lamp and a candle, a window, a threshold. This space replaces the "home", provides isolation, peace.
I am in a close cell - in this world.
And the cell is cramped and low.
And four corners
Tireless spider ... ("Spiders")
The poem seems to be inspired by the conversation between Svidrigailov and Raskolnikov about the afterlife: “We all see eternity as an idea that cannot be understood, something huge, huge! But why must it be huge? And suddenly, instead of all this, imagine, there will be one room there, something like a village bath, smoky, and spiders in all corners, and that's all eternity.
The symbolism of the "spider", characteristic of the consciousness of the beginning of the 20th century. directly recorded in the diaries of V. Bryusov: "Merezhkovsky defended the opinion that the torments of hell would be bodily, there would be boilers with boiling tar and rooms with spiders" (Bryusov V. Diaries. - L., 1979. - P. 127).
The image of a closed space - a cramped cell, in which spiders symbolizing evil lurk, is inspired, according to Hanzen-Löwe, by "the grotesque images of hell (eternity) of Dostoevsky" [Hanzen-Löwe, 1999. p. 107]. A spider sitting in its web is the center of the world; this is how an analogy with the picture of the universe arises, and therefore this mythology can be considered in the paradigm of the eternal weaving of a web of illusions1. Associations with the picture of the universe are indicated by the numerical symbolism of the four spiders. The "Four Spiders" with their uninterrupted weaving of webs and ability to kill retain the meaning of "the continuous alternation of forces on which the stability of the world depends"
[Kerlott, 1994. p. 383]. The symbolism of the number "four" becomes "a sign of the unity of the lower and higher spheres of being" [Tresidder, 2001. p. 170]. Man in this context is only a microcosm, a reflection of the vast Universe contained in each individual.
The symbolism of the spider carries the meaning of the continuous transmutation of a person turned into a victim1. The spider in the poetry of Gippius, being a lunar chthonic animal, retaining power over the world of phenomena, spins the thread of human destiny2. The web, as a variant of the fabric, carries the idea of creation and development (of the wheel and its center). The number "four" ("... They have four cobwebs / Into one, huge, weaved. / I look - their backs are moving / In the fetid-gloomy dust...") [Gippius, 2001, vol. 2. p. 513] , being a symbol of terrestrial space, external, natural limits of "minimal awareness of totality", ultimately, personifies the rationality of the world, so alien, hated by the lyrical subject of poetry Z. Gippius [Tresidder, 2001. p.332].
With privacy lyrical hero connected with the originality of the artistic solution of time and space in the poetry of Z. Gippius 1889-1909: the reality surrounding him is not material, but spiritual. It is determined that the space of the lyrical hero Gippius is multidimensional, his images are included in the paradigm of internal-external, one's own-alien, closed-open, temporal and eternal. The "private" space of the lyrical hero is adjacent to other worlds - valley and mountain, and it is possible to go to any of these worlds by crossing the "border" ("window", "threshold", "door"). Going out into outer space does not please and does not free the hero: in his relationship with the natural elements (water, earth, air and fire) there is a steady static, the symbolism of death dominates: the pond is “immobile”, the fire is “fireless”, the air is “muddy fog” , earth - "open grave".
The “private” space of the lyrical hero is anthropocentric, on the external level it is static, on the internal it is dynamic. A model of the “space of the soul” is being formed, appearing in a “bare” form and striving for the transition to eternity: “The last naked exposure / My soul has no more limits” (“The Marriage Ring”, 1905). The human soul in the representation of the lyrical hero Gippius has a symbolic spatial expression, appears in the form of a temple.
We think that we will build a new temple
For the new land promised to us...
But everyone cherishes their peace
And loneliness in your gap.
The hero's soul is, as it were, in a "triple prison", it exists on several levels at the same time. So, the deepest level of "imprisonment" is the "soul of the soul" ("Creature", 1907), the second level is the soul in the shackles of a "strange, stupidly evil, blind-born" body ("The Third Hour", 1906) who does not want to have any "insights". And the third level is the voluntary "imprisonment" of one's soul in a "cell space", which covers the whole world: "I am in a close cell - in this world" ("Spiders", 1903). Such "imprisonment" of the soul can have an infinite number of levels, the last of which will be eternity. The lyrical hero-contemplator with his gaze matches the distant and near plans and thus informs the development of the action. The spatial turn is combined with tightness towards the center (“the space of the soul”), which determines the direction of movement inward: “I am for monastic life / I have a secret addiction / Isn’t here a stormy boat / A calm happiness awaits?” ("Isn't it here?", 1904).
The artistic space of Gippius' lyrics is characterized by static character, which is one of the main means of asserting the transtemporal nature of the depicted. External movement has no meaning without internal transformation, internal metamorphosis. What matters is not movement in space, but the readiness of the soul itself for the alternation of death and a new birth, its ability to "die and resurrect." The fullness of the existence of the lyrical hero Z. Gippius is achieved in the texts due to the presence of a two-way connection "man - the world".
The lampada calls me in a cramped cell,
The variety of the last silence,
Blissful silence fun -
And the gentle attention of Satan.
He serves: then the lamp lights,
Then he will straighten my cassock on my chest,
That sleeping rosary raises me
And whispers: “Be with us, don’t leave!
Don't you love being alone?
Solitude is a great temple.
With people... you can't save them, you'll destroy yourself,
And here, alone, you will be equal to Us.
According to Gippius, the subject not only perceives the world, but also feels the view from the side of the world, that is, it remains in the function of the object. A reverse perspective arises: nature “looks” at a person: “Swaddled, lying, submissive, / I have been lying for a very long time; / And the moon, black-black, / Looks at me through the window ”(“ The Black Sickle ”, 1908). Internal reversibility can be traced at the compositional, verbal level, goes beyond the text, making ambivalence the dominant factor of texts at the conceptual level. The lyrical hero Gippius is in the field of complex relationships, as if inside polar substances with a game of opposite meanings, characteristic of the world of transitional states.
Short description
The symbolism of the spider carries the meaning of the continuous transmutation of a person turned into a victim1. The spider in the poetry of Gippius, being a lunar chthonic animal, retaining power over the world of phenomena, spins the thread of human destiny2. The web, as a variant of the fabric, carries the idea of creation and development (of the wheel and its center). The number "four" ("... They have four cobwebs / Into one, huge, weaved. / I look - their backs are moving / In the fetid-gloomy dust...") [Gippius, 2001, vol. 2. p. 513] , being a symbol of terrestrial space, external, natural limits of "minimal awareness of totality", ultimately, personifies the rationality of the world, so alien, hated by the lyrical subject of poetry Z. Gippius [Tresidder, 2001. p.332].
Zinaida Gippius left behind a great legacy that will be passed on for many more generations. She was not only a poetess, but also wrote novels, short stories, short stories and presses. Her works are always a wise and expedient story that conveys the experiences of people.
One of her most beautiful and at the same time gloomy poems is considered to be the work "Spiders". From the very first lines, a heavy and gloomy mood is approaching the reader, which does not let him go until the very end.
"I am in a tight cell - in this world."
Perhaps Gippius, with the help of a literary hero, described her thoughts and feelings. Of these, we can only establish that the author felt trapped from where there was no way out. In addition to tightness and lack of freedom, the author also feels loneliness. The place where the literary hero of the poem resides is not only gloomy and cramped, but also very lonely. After all, there is nothing there, only one person who is trapped.
But the most important element of this dungeon are the spiders that keep the prisoner inside. The author describes them as fat, agile and dirty animals, whose monotonous work makes her dread
Even more.
The location of the spiders also plays a big role. All of them are located in the corners of the room, four corners - four spiders. This means that they surrounded their prisoner with their ubiquitous presence, they only increase fear.
At the beginning of the poem, it seems that the literary hero only stands and watches from the side. Yes, she is terribly scared, but we do not see the actual contact with the spiders. And only the line: "My eyes are under the web" says that she has already fallen into this trap and there is no way to get out of it. And the spiders with which she personifies her enemies and opponents are glad that she fell into a trap.
The poem is very beautiful and mystical, it describes the fear of imprisonment, hopelessness and lack of dreams.
