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

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atheist regime, received into a community of religious intellectuals in Europe; after the watershed of the second world war, his teaching on the need to preserve the humanist tradition in a Christian spirit transcended its original Russian context and became even more relevant to Europe as a whole. Although Ivanov was now an old man in his eighties, he once again turned to poetry and correspondence as a means of stitching together the tattered fabric of world humanism. In his late cycle ‘Rimskii dnevnik 1944- go goda’ (Roman Diary of 1944), published in Svet Vechernii, several poems revisit the relationship of humanism to Christianity from the vantage point of war. His dialogue with Bowra stands out as a salient example of his return to these themes during the last few twilight years of his long life as a dedicated humanist. 34 Ivanov, Svet Vechernii, 50 and 192-3 (note); reprinted in Ivanov, Sobranie sochinenii, III, 530-31 and 837-8 (note). For further background to the poem, see Zelinskii’s letter to Ivanov of 5 April 1933 and the notes in Takho-Godi, ‘“Dve sud’by nedarom svyazuet vidimaya nit’”, 238-40. 30
CHAPTER TWO Bowra as a Classical Scholar and Literary Critic Vous êtes justement poète, sans y songer peut-être, incessamment, inconsciemment, lorsque vous composez vos strophes grecques et que vous vous adonnez à des recherches austères, à des analyses critiques, en causant avec des amis aussi bien qu'en vous inspirant (tel un ύποφήτης de Delphes) pour interpréter des inspirés. 31 V.I. Ivanov to C.M. Bowra, December 1947 In the following outline of Bowra's background, personality and scholarly achievements we shall focus on those aspects that were of particular significance in defining his relationship with Ivanov. 1 Bowra was born in 1898 at Kiukiang on the Yangtse and spent the first five years of his life in China, where his father, Cecil Arthur Verner Bowra, worked for the Chinese Customs Service, as had his father before him. He was brought up in a lively international community, in which the Russians outnumbered all other Europeans and Americans and made a lasting impression on him through their extravagant life-style. 2 Although he left China in 1903 and received all his formal education in England, he returned to China twice in 1909 and in 1916 to visit his parents. It seems likely that his later attraction to foreign cultures was fostered by this early contact with an exotic alien environment. In 1910 at the age of twelve Bowra was sent to Cheltenham College, a rather 1 Useful sources on Bowra’s life and personality include John Sparrow, ‘Bowra, Sir (Cecil) Maurice’, in Lord Blake and C.S. Nicholls (eds.), The Dictionary of National Biography. 1971-1980 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 76-7; C.M. Bowra, Memories: 1898-1939 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1966); The Times, ‘A Brilliant Oxford Figure’, Isaiah Berlin, ‘Memorial Address in St Mary's’, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, ‘British Academy Memoir’, in Hugh Lloyd-Jones (ed.), Maurice Bowra: A Celebration (London: Duckworth, 1974), 9-38.
Page 1 and 2: BIRMINGHAM SLAVONIC MONOGRAPHS No.
Page 3 and 4: Дорогой друг мой, м
Page 5 and 6: Illustrations Photograph of V.I. Iv
Page 7 and 8: Transcription and Transliteration I
Page 9 and 10: INTRODUCTION Vyacheslav Ivanov (186
Page 11 and 12: classical tradition of humanism to
Page 13 and 14: tradition’. 1 Although Ivanov beg
Page 15 and 16: he overlooked them because of his h
Page 17 and 18: ‘zhiznetvorchestvo’ (creation o
Page 19 and 20: (Transparency, 1904), Eros (1907),
Page 21 and 22: humanism; as we shall see below, th
Page 23 and 24: his transformation of the Russian l
Page 25 and 26: The publication of these letters in
Page 27 and 28: edition then formed the basis of th
Page 29: Жил Диониса новый с
Page 33 and 34: company of a Russian friend's siste
Page 35 and 36: who initiated him into the art of t
Page 37 and 38: made possible his election to the O
Page 39 and 40: the United States, that he discusse
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Page 43 and 44: Moscow during the war years. 2 The
Page 45 and 46: (tiny little corner): 'это то
Page 47 and 48: of the existing anthologies of Russ
Page 49 and 50: (unchanged) in 1947 and then follow
Page 51 and 52: Pindar or Alcaeus.’ 21 In his bri
Page 53 and 54: Уединенная душа. 26 A
Page 55 and 56: К закатным пристан
Page 57 and 58: succeeds in conveying the power and
Page 59 and 60: Dimitrii, who also omit all referen
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Page 63 and 64: ight now it’s impossible to deter
Page 65 and 66: covering several pages; 16 distichs
Page 67 and 68: to the task of translation. A key t
Page 69 and 70: connection advanced by Ivanov and p
Page 71 and 72: you, poet, so much sympathy, compre
Page 73 and 74: mutans carmina in aes raucum’) in
Page 75 and 76: conventional morality. These aspect
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details of his meetings with Akhmat
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of Svet Vechernii back to Oxford, t
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he was clearly anxious to define in
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the way in which his generation of
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έστίν. 79 This Christian versi
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These are not just empty truisms. I
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Bowra were discovered in Wadham Col
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[To C. M. Bowra, Oxford high-priest
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prospere vigeant! 12 Iam ante quinq
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Dear Sir, 3 Ivanov - Bowra 1 Octobe
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Praestantissime poeta, 28 4 Bowra -
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5 Ivanov - Bowra 9 December 1946 33
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survival. 38 I am glad that you hav
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implies. 47 How hard it is, for ins
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Dear Professor Ivanov, 7 Bowra - Iv
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With all good wishes to your family
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compatriotes non-initiés. 64 Vos t
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Dear Professor Ivanov, 10 Bowra - I
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your book. 81 I have also written t
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His subsequent support for the publ
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Works by V.I. Ivanov 1 SELECT BIBLI
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Ivanov, Vyacheslav, Dionis i pradio
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Berlin and Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verl
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Bowra, C.M., Early Greek Elegists,
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London: Duckworth, 1974, 48-85. Aub
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Vena 1998, ed. Sergei Averintsev an
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Konovalov, S., ed., Vyacheslav I. I
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Swinburne, Algernon Charles, Atalan
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INDEX OF NAMES AND WORKS 137
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