Boris Bugayev "Andrey Bely"

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Boris Bugayev "Andrey Bely" (Russia, 1880)

Simfoniya 2-ya Dramaticheskaya/ The Dramatic Symphony (1902)

synopsis forthcoming

Severnaya Simfoniya/ Northern Symphony (1904)

synopsis forthcoming

Zoloto v Lazuri/ Gold in Azure (1904) [p]

synopsis forthcoming

Vozvrat 3-ya Simfoniya/ Return (1905)

synopsis forthcoming

Budushchee/ The Art Of The Future (1907) [h]

synopsis forthcoming

Kubok Meteley 4-ya Simfoniya/ Goblet (1908)

synopsis forthcoming

Pepel/ Ashes/ Cenere (1909) [p]

synopsis forthcoming

Urna (1909) [p]

synopsis forthcoming

Magiya Slov/ The Magic of Words (1909) [h]

synopsis forthcoming

Serebryany Golub/ The Silver Dove/ Colombo d'Argento (1910) +

synopsis forthcoming

Petersburg (1912, first published in 1916 and abbreviated in 1922, and republished in a shorter, "censored" version in 1928) ++ dramatizes the political events of 1905 but mixes history with mysticism. The book is erudite and poetic at the same time, both visual (chromatic descriptions) and musical (rhythmic prose) with perhaps links to the revolutions going on in painting and classical music. Bely wrote in the essay "The Theatre and Contemporary Drama" (1907) that theater was the highest poetic art followed by symphonic music.
Bely was obsessed with geometry and the novel continuously pits the grid of Petersburg's streets and the cube of the houses against the spiral of the soul's evolution.
There is also a satirical element. Bely mocks the pompous style of both 19th century English novels and of czarist imperial edicts. Some characters are also caricatures, starting with Apollon himself.
Each character represents a different aspect of St Petersburg. Apollon personifies the state that created the city and that strives to maintain the status quo.
The novel opens with a quote from Pushkin's narrative poem "The Bronze Horseman" (1833), which becomes a recurring theme. "The Bronze Horseman" is also the name of an equestrian statue of Peter the Great in St Petersburg.
Bely hints at stream of consciousness, but there are transcendent and mystical overtones in his stream of consciousness, and Bely is more interested in how the soul undergoes different states of consciousness. The novel is is dense with literary references. Apollon evokes both Alexey Karenin in Tolstoy’s "Anna Karenina" (a man abandoned by his wife and left alone with a dysfunctional son) and the protagonist of Gogol's “The Overcoat” (the pompous bureaucrat). Dudkin has elements of Evgeny, the man who is driven to madness in Pushkin’s "The Bronze Horseman" (or, better, "The Copper Horseman", a more accurate translation of "Mednyi Vsadnik") and of Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky’s "Crime and Punishment". Dudkin's meeting with Shishnarfne recalls Ivan Karamazov’s conversation with the devil. Bely identifies czar Peter the Great (the founder of St Petersburg) with the Flying Dutchman doomed to eternal sailing, the hero of Wagner's opera. There are references to "The Queen of Spades", which is both a Pushkin tale and a Tchaikovsky opera.
This is a "city novel" as much as Joyce's "Ulysses", and Bely experiments with language and structure just like Joyce does (Bely plays language games that can only be understood in Russian). Both novels take place in a short time period ("Ulysses" in 24 hours, "Petersburg" in ten days) and both plots are nonlinear and sometimes confusing.
The city and its architecture are protagonists as much as the characters. St Petersburg's three vertical buildings keep reoccurring as symbols throughout the novel: St Isaac's Cathedral, the Admiralty, and the Cathedral of Peter and Paul.

Bely wrote the novel at the time that was not only politically turbulent but also intellectually transformational. Russia's science and math was catching up with the West. In particular, in 1826 Lobachevsky discovered non-Euclidean space, which abolished Kant's absolute space. Russians were aware of the scientific revolution (thermodynamics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, relativity) but were also aware of how it had failed to reform Russian society. There was a reaction to the philosophy of positivism (i.e. rationalism and empiricism), which had come to dominate the 19th century. But its materialistic overtones (and the simply fact of its failure to reform Russia's society) triggered an opposite movement to rediscover Russian mystical tradition and the power of intuition, and somehow marry it to science. In particular, the Russian symbolists rediscovered the traditional mystical elements embedded in Russian Orthodox Christianity. Bely knew well the philosopher and poet Vladimir Solovyov, son of the historian Sergei Solovyov (the two families became neighbors in 1893), the influential author of "The Crisis of Western Philosophy - Against the Positivists" (1874) and a friend of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Solovyov revived the idea of "sobornost", that a new "organic" order could arise spontaneously out of integration, in particular by integrating theology, philosophy, art and science, and achieving the unity of being. It was fundamentally a mystical doctrine and then it also mixed apocalyptic and xenophobic aspects. Solovyov's poem "Pan-Mongolism" (1894), his short-story "Tale of the Antichrist" (1900), his poem "The Dragon" (1900) and his "Three Conversations" (1900) pitted European civilization against eastern barbarism, imagining an alliance of China and Japan against Russia, therefore foreshadowing the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. For Solovyov the "dragon" of the "Nibelungenlied" is China and the role of Siegfried is played by the German emperor, Wilhelm II, who coined the expression "yellow peril". Solovyov also crafted a theology that expanded on Eastern Orthodox Christianity's notion of holy wisdom or "Hagia Sophia", for example in the poem "Tri Svidaniya/ Three Meetings" (1892), describing his three mystical encounters with "Sophia" (a sort of immaterial eternal principle of femininity). And Sofya is the name of the woman at the center of Bely's novel.
Influenced by Solovyov, Bely's essay “Apocalypse in Russian Poetry” (1905) talks of art as a vehicle for religious rebirth, as a bomb that can destroy spiritually-dead culture and enable the birth of a spiritual culture.
Far from being hostile to science, Bely was fluent in science and math. His father Nikolay Bugaev had founded the Moscow Mathematical Society and had devoted his life to "arithmology", a theory of numbers inspired by Georg Cantor. Bely knew well Pavel Florensky, a priest turned mathematician, because in 1903 they had been members of “Ajaxes”, a group of students interested in theological issues. Florensky assigned a metaphysical meaning to geometric objects, as he eventually wrote in "The Imaginary in Geometry" (1922). Bely’s "Third Symphony" (1905) is permeated by a similar quasi-mystical view of geometric forms. Its protagonist Khandrikov states: “The most exact science is the most relative”. In September of that year Einstein published his paper on relativity. Finally, there was the influence of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher whom he met in May 1912 in Germany (when Bely was starting to work on the novel) and who had coined a Christian variant of theosophy ("anthroposophy") with a unified theological and cosmological model that more or less borrowed ideas from Hinduism and Buddhism (reincarnation and metamorphosis). Steiner preached about seven stages of consciousness from Saturn (not the planet but the originall ball of fire that encompassed the entire Solar System) to Vulcan. In 1914 Bely provided physical labor to the construction of the sect's temple in Switzerland. Bely's assimilated ideas from Steiner into his own vision of history as the evolution of humanity’s consciousness, i.e. history as spiritual development (as summarized in "Ictopija Ctanovlenija Camocoznajusej Dyši/ The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul", written in 1926–1931, but published only in 2020). Bely's essay “The Line, the Circle, the Spiral — of Symbolism” (1912) calls for a geometrical model of the universe that can avoid cultural immobility and aim instead for Eternity and Truth (that seem to be the same thing to him). “Circular Movement” (1912) argues that the spiral, which combines both linear and circular modes of thought, is the geometric form that best represents both material and spiritual aspects of the universe, and that enables beings to escape the eternal return posited by Schopenhauer’s "The World as a Will and Representation" (1819).
While those were the years of Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis, Bely is more interested in spiritual transformation than in "curing" psychic traumas. Both the aristocrats and the terrorists conduct "cerebral play" because they are spiritually dead.
The psychological world of "Petersburg" is devoid of love: there are only cheatings, unhappy marriages, unsatisfied lust, betrayals... and the death of culture.
It is a profoundly pessimistic novel which depicts the the inexorable decline of human civilization. Bely sculpts an age of anxiety characterized by a sense of impending historical catastrophe and a sense of cultural exhaustion.
Note: the best English translation is probably David McDuff's, which is a translation of the original, longer, 1913 version.

Apollon Ableukhov is a 68-year-old senator who two years earlier was abandoned by his wife Anna, who now lives in Spain with her Italian lover. His son Nikolay is inscrutable: he spends most of his time in his room reading books. In the five years that Apollon has been at his current job, Russia has taken Port Arthur from China and then lost it in the war against Japan. While Apollon is heading to his office, a mysterious stranger, Alexander Dudkin, brings a bundle to his friend Lippanchenko, who tells him to deliver to Nikolay with a letter. Meanwhile, Nikolai has ordered a weird red costume and a black mask. He wears it to scare a woman.
The second chapter begins with a prelude in which the narrator talks in first person and tells us that the local newspaper is reporting the appearance of a mysterious man wearing a red domino and a black mask. We are then introduced to Sofya Likhutina, nicknamed "Angel Peri", a fan of Japanese art who runs a salon from her Japanese-themed house. Her husband Sergei (who lost his inheritance when he insisted on marrying Sofya against his father's will) is almost never there while baron Ommau-Ommergau, count Aven, Herman Verhefden, Leib Shporyshev and Lippanchenko (now described as looking like a Ukrainian) are there all the time. Nikolay too used to visit daily but then suddenly disappeared. That's when Sofya started reading the spiritualits. The narrator then explains that Sofya and Nikolay had started flirting but ultimately Sofya had rejected him and called him a "red buffoon" when he had tried to kiss her. We know that she is the woman that Nikolay scared wearing the red domino and Sofya suspects it. Sofya asks her friend Neintelpfain, a journalist, to write articles about the masked man in the newspaper. The narrator informs us that all over Russia there was turmoil, people feared something and hoped for something. Returning to Nikolay's room, Alexander delivers the parcel and the letter, and accidentally notices the red domino. Alexander introduces himself as a militant of the underground, escaped from forced exile through Finland (which at the time was part of Russia), but also as someone who reads religious books (including the gnostic Gospels and the "Apocalypse") and a Nietzschean. He confesses that he is sick, prone to anxiety and hallucinations, an avid consumer of vodka and tobacco. Nikolay's father Apollon comes home just then and Nikolay introduces Alexander as a fellow university student. The narrator then returns to the first person and prophesizes that "yellow hordes of Asians" will invade Russia (echoes of Solovyov's apocalyptic prophecies). We are then introduced to Alexander's friend Stepan/ Styopka/ Stepka, a simpleton former peasant who speaks in broken Russian (a character who already appeared in Bely's first novel, "The Silver Dove"). Styopka chats with a gentleman in disgrace named Lev and Lev reads a letter from a political exile with the apocalyptic prediction that something ominous will happen in 1954 (coincidence: Stalin died in 1953) and with the reminding that Russia is the cradle of the Church of Philadelphia (a Roman city in Lydia, now part of Turkey).
Sofya finds the letter written by Lippanchenko to Nikolay. The red domino stalks her again and this time he is chased away by a police officer. Sofya is disappointed. She is influenced by Tchaikovsky's opera "The Queen of Spades" and identifies with Liza (the female protagonist), but doesn't see Nikolay behaving like a Hermann (the male protagonist). He behaves like a coward. Back home she relates the episode to her husband Sergei, who was a childhood friend of Nikolay. Sergei forbids her to attend the masked ball that is coming up, that presumably Nikolay will attend. Sofya can't resist and opens Lippanchenko's letter and reads the contents. Meanwhile, Nikolay has received a letter signed "S" inviting him to a rendezvous in the park. He hopes that it's a letter from Sofya but instead it's Varvara who meets him there, a student who is desperately in love with him. Nikolay is disappointed and flees. Meanwhile, Apollon's wife (Nikolay's mother) Anna has returned to the city. She only reveals herself to a servant. Sofya attends the masked ball hosted by the wealthy Nikolai and Lyubov Tsukatov. Nikolay shows up in his red domino. His father Apollon is also there and doesn't recognize him but almost has a heart attack when Nikolay scares him. He has been hiding his heart condition. Nikolay opens Lippanchenko's letter and leaves furious. Now we learn from Sofya's stream of consciousness that the letter contains an order to blow up a bomb that is stored in Nikolay's desk. She initially thinks it's a practical joke played by Lippanchenko on Nikolay but then is scared that it might be a real plot. At the same ball, a friend informs Apollon that the red domino is his own son Nikolay. Apollon is ashamed and angry. We learn from Nikolay's stream of consciousness more about his mission: the letter orders him to kill his own father! Later a secret agent called Pavel Morkovin approaches Apollon and warns him of a plot by terrorists to assassinate him. We learn that Apollon had received an anonymous letter threatening to kill him if he accepted the promotion that installed him as head of the secret police. Apollon had ignored the threat. Meanwhile, Sofya returns home to find that her husband, humiliated that she went to the masked ball, tried to hang himself (but failed comically when the rotten ceiling crashed).
Morkovin then approaches Nikolay and reveals that he knows everything about the plot to murder Apollon, the existence of the terrorist cell, his contact with Alexander and even about his love for Sofya. Morkovin claims to be both a revolutionary and an employee of the secret police. Morkovin tells Nikolay that he has three choices: arrest, suicide or murder. When Nikolay returns home, the servant reveals that his mother Anna is back. Later the servant also tells Apollon. The narrator informs us that Nikolay was devoting his life to philosophy and was an admirer of Buddhism. Nikolay falls asleep and has a strange dream about his father as the emperor of China, as a Russian aristocrat and as the king of Saturn (a reference to Steiner's occult cosmology).
The sixth chapter opens again with a quote from Pushkin's "The Bronze Horseman". Alexander wakes up after a night of feverish nightmares. Nikolay comes to confront him. Nikolay thinks that Alexander knows what the mission is, but Alexander denies it. Alexander learns from Nikolay that the mission is to kill Nikolay's own father, that the letter was written by "The Unknown" leader of the revolutionary party, who had been communicating with Nikolay for three months. Alexander forgot to give it to Nikolay and left it with Varvara, who told him that she was going to see Nikolay. Alexander had no clue what the letter contained. Alexander was under the impression that Nikolay simply had to hide the bomb, but Alexander himself was the one chosen for a terrorist act. Alexander seems to remember that Nikolay himself had proposed to Lippanchenko to kill his own father, but also thinks that it could be made up by his imagination. The bottom line is that Nikolay proclaims that he won't kill his father. Nikolay insinuates that the secret police has infiltrated the party and Alexander begins to suspect that Lippanchenko could be a traitor. Alexander visits Lippanchenko who lives with a female militant named Zoya and is hosting a Persian revolutionary called Shishnarfne. A lenghty stream of consciousness follows in which Alexander analyzes the "person" who has been controlling his actions, that person presumably being Lippanchenko. That "person" tells Alexander that he wrote the letter to Nikolay, implying that he is also the "Unknown". Alexander is now certain that Lippanchenko is a traitor who manipulated him. Back home, Alexander is visited by this Shishnarfne, whom Alexander didn't recognize. The Persian claims to have been his friend in Helsinki. Styopka leaves them alone. The encounter with Shishnarfne, however, doesn't sound real, but rather another stage of Alexander’s gradual descent into madness. Shishnarfne introduces himself as coming from a sort of otherworld, a satanic figure whose task is to make Alexander remember his dark past in Helsinki, where Alexander had developed a theory against civilization and presumably acted accordingly. Shishnarfne informs Alexander that he is already registered in that otherworld and only has to complete the application for a "passport", an application that consists in committing some "extravagant" act. Alexander realizes that the word Shishnarfne is an anagram of the word that haunts him in his nightmares: "enfranshish". We learn that Dudkin is just his nom de guerre and his real name is Pogorelski. Dudkin has a nightmare in which Peter the Great, aka the Bronze Horseman, aka the Flying Dutchman chases him through the streets of Petersburg. When he wakes up, Styopka tells him that he's been delirious with high fever.
The seventh chapter follows in parallel Nikolay, Apollon and Lippanchenko. Nikolay is already distraught when Sofya's husband Sergei stops him in the street and drags him into a carriage while a demonstration takes place around them and they can hear shots being fired (hints of the 1905 revolution). Sergei reveals that he's been following Nikolay from the moment he left Dudkin's place. Sergei takes him to his home, where Sofya see them. Nikolay is scared by Sergei's manners, apologizes to him and even starts crying. It turns out that Sofya has informed Sergei of the contents of the letter that she accidentally read, of the plan to blow up Apollon. Nikolay, however, denies that he was going to kill his father. Meanwhile, Apollon resigns from his job and decides to retire. We learn that he raped a young girl for years (Anna presumably) and Nikolay is the offspring of that rape. Back home, Apollon can't resist and enters Nikolay's room. The desk's drawer is open and Apollon finds the bomb without knowing that it is a bomb.
Meanwhile, Zoya is melancholy, feeling that Lippanchenko keeps a secret from her. Later, Dudkin kills Lippanchenko with a pair of scissors.
Bely apologizes at the beginning of chapter eight for having forgotten Anna. Anna is staying at a deluxe hotel. Apollon visits her and they reconcile. She finds him aged. Meanwhile, Nikolay has returned home and realized that someone took the bomb. He reckons that Sergei must be the one, since Sergei told him that he visited his room. Anna follows Apollon home. Nikolay finally meets his mother and breaks into tears (while still anxious about the fate of his bomb). The tears convince Apollon that there must be something good in his son. Nikolay escorts Anna back to the hotel. The bomb goes off in the middle of the night but doesn't kill anyone. Apollon arranges for Nikolay to travel abroad and his mother Anna follows him for a year.
The epilog informs us that Nikolay lived and worked in Egypt, having abandoned philosophy for archeology, and even wrote a book about a famous Egyptian manuscript ("The Instructions of Duauf"). He then retired in Russia, but far away from St Petersburg. The last sentence informs us that his parents died when he was still in Egypt. Bely paints Nikolay's fate as a symbol of the end of culture.

Kristos Voskres/ Christ Has Risen/ Cristo Risorto (1918) [p]

synopsis forthcoming

Pervoe Svidanie/ First Encounter/ Primo Incontro (1921) [p] +

synopsis forthcoming

Kotik Letayev/ The Memoirs of a Crank (1923) +

synopsis forthcoming

Moskva/ Moscow (1926)

synopsis forthcoming

Maski/ Masks (1930)

synopsis forthcoming