THE BOOK OF POEMS IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY ... - TopReferat

"pseudonym" A. Beklemishev. 63
With this story, Muni carried out a magnificent
symbolist act—he melded art with life. This fictional portent of his own suicide (eight
years prior to the event) carries to the extreme the notion of life-creation
(жизнетворчество).
Muni, however, did not maintain this “двойное существование” until his death.
Khodasevich put an early end to it by revealing Beklemishev’s identity in feigned love
poems from his own fictional creation, Elizaveta Maksheeva. Already in 1908,
Khodasevich recognized the danger of Muni’s identity games, and, by the time of his
memoir (1926) admitted his own share of responsibility for Muni's death. While he was
never fully taken in by Muni's identity play, he participated in it willingly: мы жили в
такой внутренней близости и в ошибках Муни было столько участия моего, что я
не могу не винить и себя в этой смерти. 64
In the years between "Летом 190* года" and Некрополь, Khodasevich explored
the theme of двойничество in his poetry. With "Рыбак" and "За окном…" he created
two poems which act as doubles for each other—each revealing a different side of
Bol'shakov/Pereyaslavtsev and ultimately Khodasevich's own transition from decadent
youth to maturity as reflected by the placement of "За окном" in Счастливый домик
and "Рыбак" in Путем зерна.
Khodasevich's poem "Рыбак" is a poetic rewriting of the inserted skazka in
Muni's story: 65
63 Akhramovich's letter recommending the story for publication was most likely written before the fall of
1908, when Beklemishev's poems began appearing in Русская мысль. Kissin, Legkoe bremia, 185-6.
64 Khodasevich, Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh, vol. 4, 77.
65 Muni's skazka also finds a resonance in Khodasevich's "Элегия" discussed above. After the description
of the stream, the poem offers an alternative vision of the valley of death—an ancient fisherman sitting on a
barren shore, oblivious to the poet's steps.
Иль, может быть, на берегу пустынном
38