ABSTRACT
the complex and many-sided movement of ideas described in the preceding chapter is closely connected with the movement in imaginative literature known as symbolism. Russian symbolism is part of the general cultural upheaval that changed the face of Russian civilization between 1890 and 1910. It was at once an aesthetic and a mystical movement: it raised the level of poetical craftsmanship, and it was united by a mystical attitude towards the world, which is expressed in the very name of symbolism. The name was, of course, borrowed from the French school of that name, but the importance of French influence must not be exaggerated. Only very few of the Russian symbolists had any considerable first-hand acquaintance with the work of their French godfathers, and Edgar Allan Poe had certainly a wider and deeper influence than any single French poet. But the principal difference between French and Russian symbolism was that while, for the French, symbolism was merely a new form of poetical expression, the Russians made it also a philosophy. They actually saw the universe as a system of symbols. Everything was significant to them, not only by itself, but as the reflection of something else. Baudelaire’s famous sonnet Correspondanees (in which the words “des forêts de symboles” occur) was used as the completest expression of this metaphysical attitude, and the line “les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se rêpondent” became a favorite slogan. Another favorite text were two lines from the last scene of Faust: Alles Vergängliche Ist nut ein Gleichnis.
