Vyacheslav Ivanov and C.M. Bowra: a ... - UCL Discovery

‘zhiznetvorchestvo’ (creation of life) as a means of resuscitating the spirit of classical
antiquity in life itself. As Ivanov commented in later years to his student at Baku
University, Moisei Al’tman: ‘Я, быть может, как никто из моих
современников, живу в мифе – вот в чем моя сила, вот в чем я человек нового,
начинающегося периода.’ [I, perhaps, more than any of my contemporaries, live
in myth – this is where my strength lies, this is where I am a man of the new era that is
now beginning.] 11 He excelled at mythologizing his own life and at drawing his close
friends and wider circle of followers into this process. At the famous Wednesday
gatherings at the Tower in St. Petersburg he and his wife deliberately created an
atmosphere reminiscent of Platonic symposia. 12 A similar erosion of the boundaries
between life and art was achieved in many of the literary societies and circles in which
he subsequently took an active part. In these public forums as well as in the more
intimate circles of his private life, he created a life-style to match his ideals; he also used
his autobiographical writings, correspondence and verse to project a particular ‘reading’
of the text of his own life. Striking examples of such forms of self-mythologizing
‘zhiznetvorchestvo’ include his diary entries and verse on the introduction of a third
person (Sergei Gorodetskii, then Margarita Sabashnikova) into the sacrificial cult of
Eros at the Tower, or his reading of Lidiya’s death and his subsequent marriage to her
daughter Vera in the light of the Dionysian cycle of suffering, death and rebirth.
Ivanov’s role as a lecturer and teacher enabled him to extend his inner circle into
the more public domain and won him many more adherents. In 1903, for example, he
gave a course of lectures on Dionysus in Paris and introduced a large audience of
10
Ibid., II, 21.
11
M.S. Al’tman, Razgovory s Vyacheslavom Ivanovym, ed. V.A. Dymshits and K.Yu. Lappo-Danilevskii
(SPb.: INAPRESS, 1995), 61.
12
For a detailed discussion of Ivanov’s symposia, see Andrei Shishkin, ‘Simposion na peterburgskoi
bashne v 1905-1906 gg.’, in D.S. Likhachev (ed.), Russkie piry (SPb.: Al’manakh “Kanun”, 1998), 273-
352.
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