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Writer Zinaida Gippius. Zinaida Gippius - biography and creativity briefly, interesting facts. Attitude to the October Revolution and its reflection in creativity

The writer and poetess Zinaida Gippius, who is considered one of the brightest creative personalities of the Silver Age, was a very extraordinary person. Her deliberate disregard for fashion, some traditions and public opinion, combined with a sharp tongue, made her insanely popular. At the same time, there were enough of those who treated her, to put it mildly, not very warmly - her publications created many enemies for her.

Facts from the life of Zinaida Gippius

The poetess had German roots.
She first picked up a book at the age of seven, and since then she has not parted with reading until the end of her life.
At the age of eleven, Zinaida was already writing her first poems. She later herself told about this in one of her letters to the poet Valery Bryusov (see).
Zinaida Gippius had three sisters.
She tried to translate into Russian "Manfred" by Gordon Byron, but failed.
At the age of eighteen, she met the writer and therefore Dmitry Merezhkovsky, whom she soon married. The couple lived together for 52 years, until the death of Dmitry (see).
The early work of Gippius is saturated with a gloomy atmosphere.
Her poem "Follow me" was turned into a song by rock musician Anatoly Krupnov.
After the wedding, Zinaida Gippius and Dmitry Merezhkovsky agreed that she would write only prose, and he would only write poetry, but the husband soon, with the consent of his wife, violated the agreement.
Zinaida Gippius published under many pseudonyms, and she used mainly male names. Most often, her critical publications were published, being signed "Anton Extreme".
Already known, Gippius wrote a review of the poems of Sergei Yesenin, who was then completely unknown (see).
The poetess did not go out without a huge amount of makeup on her face. Contemporaries note that she was attractive, but bright makeup in combination with red hair looked very outrageous.
At one time, it was Gippius who helped Alexander Blok's first publication to see the light of day.
There were many romances in her life, but none of them went far.
Famous writers and poets regularly gathered in the literary salon of Zinaida Gippius.
Osip Mandelstam noted that his literary path began successfully thanks to the assistance of Gippius (see).
After the 1905 revolution, she left Russia with her husband, where she never returned.
When Merezhkovsky died, Zinaida Gippius cut off all social ties. She survived him by four years.
The revolution of 1917 horrified the poetess. Her notes and diaries, written in subsequent years, are full of bitter regrets about the lost country and hatred of the communists. Her husband fully shared her opinion.
Zinaida Gippius is buried in the same grave with her husband.

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (after her husband Merezhkovskaya) was born November 8 (20), 1869 in the city of Belev (now the Tula region) in a Russified German noble family. Father, Nikolai Romanovich Gippius, a well-known lawyer, served for some time as chief prosecutor in the Senate; mother, Anastasia Vasilievna, nee Stepanova, was the daughter of the chief police chief of Yekaterinburg. Due to the necessity associated with the official activities of the father, the family often moved from place to place, because of which the daughter did not receive a full education; She visited various educational institutions in fits and starts, preparing for exams with governesses. In childhood, the poetess managed to live in Kharkov, and in St. Petersburg, and in Saratov.

The future poetess began writing poetry from the age of seven. In 1902, in a letter to Valery Bryusov, she noted: “ In 1880, that is, when I was 11 years old, I already wrote poetry (moreover, I really believed in "inspiration" and tried to write right away, without taking my pen off the paper). My poems seemed to everyone to be "spoiled", but I did not hide them. I must say that I was not at all “spoiled” and very “religious” with all this ... ”At the same time, the girl read avidly, kept extensive diaries, and eagerly corresponded with her father’s acquaintances and friends. One of them, General N. S. Drashusov, was the first to pay attention to the young talent and advised her to seriously engage in literature.

Already for the first poetic exercises of the girl, the most gloomy moods were characteristic. “I have been wounded by death and love since childhood,” Gippius later admitted. As one of the biographers of the poetess noted, “... the time in which she was born and raised - the seventies and eighties, did not leave any imprint on her. Since the beginning of her days, she has been living, as it were, outside of time and space, busy almost from the cradle with the solution of eternal issues. Subsequently, in a comic poetic autobiography, Gippius admitted: “I solved it - the question is huge - / I followed the logical path, / I decided: noumenon and phenomenon / In what ratio?”

N. R. Gippius was ill with tuberculosis; As soon as he received the position of chief prosecutor, he felt a sharp deterioration and was forced to urgently leave with his family for Nizhyn, in the Chernigov province, to a new place of service, as chairman of the local court. Zinaida was sent to the Kyiv Women's Institute, but some time later they were forced to take her back: the girl was so homesick that she spent almost all six months in the institute's infirmary. Since there was no women's gymnasium in Nizhyn, she studied at home, with teachers from the local Gogol Lyceum.

Nikolai Gippius died suddenly in Nizhyn in 1881; the widow was left with a large family - four daughters (Zinaida, Anna, Natalya and Tatyana), a grandmother and an unmarried sister - with virtually no means of subsistence. In 1882 Anastasia Vasilievna and her daughters moved to Moscow. Zinaida entered the Fischer gymnasium, where she began to study at first willingly and with interest. Soon, however, doctors discovered tuberculosis in her too, which educational institution had to leave. “A little man with great grief,” these were the words used here to remember a girl who constantly bore the stamp of sadness on her face.

Fearing that all the children who inherited a tendency to consumption from their father might follow his path, and especially worried about their eldest daughter, Anastasia Gippius left for Yalta with the children. The trip to the Crimea not only satisfied the love of travel that had developed in the girl from childhood, but also provided her with new opportunities for doing two of her favorite things: horse riding and literature. From here in 1885 mother took her daughters to Tiflis, to her brother Alexander. He had sufficient funds to rent a cottage for his niece in Borjomi, where she settled with her friend. Only here, after a boring Crimean treatment, in a whirlwind of "fun, dancing, poetic competitions, races," Zinaida managed to recover from the severe shock associated with the loss of her father. A year later, two large families went to Manglis, and here A. V. Stepanov died suddenly from inflammation of the brain. The Gippiuses were forced to stay in Tiflis.

In 1888 Zinaida Gippius and her mother again went to the dacha in Borjomi. Here she met D. S. Merezhkovsky, who had recently published his first book of poetry and in those days traveled around the Caucasus. Feeling an instant spiritual and intellectual intimacy with her new acquaintance, who was very different from her surroundings, the eighteen-year-old Gippius agreed to his marriage proposal without hesitation. On January 8, 1889, a modest wedding ceremony took place in Tiflis, followed by a short honeymoon trip. The union with Merezhkovsky, as noted later, “gave meaning and a powerful incentive to all her gradually accomplished internal activities, soon allowing the young beauty to break out into vast intellectual expanses”, and in a broader sense, played a crucial role in the development and formation of the literature of the “Silver Age” .

At first, Gippius and Merezhkovsky entered into an unspoken agreement: she would write exclusively prose, and he would write poetry. For some time, at the request of her husband, the wife translated (in the Crimea) Byron's "Manfred"; the attempt was unsuccessful. Finally, Merezhkovsky announced that he himself was going to violate the contract: he had the idea of a novel about Julian the Apostate. Since that time, they wrote both poetry and prose each, depending on their mood.

Soon after the wedding, the couple moved to St. Petersburg. The house of the Merezhkovskys was very popular in those days. All admirers of literary creativity aspired to get there, because the most interesting evenings of poetry were held in this house.

In St. Petersburg, Merezhkovsky introduced Gippius to famous writers: the first of them, A. N. Pleshcheev, “charmed” a twenty-year-old girl by bringing some poems from the editorial portfolio of Severny Vestnik (where he was in charge of the poetry department) during one of his return visits - to her "strict court". Among the new acquaintances of Gippius were Ya. P. Polonsky, A. N. Maikov, D. V. Grigorovich, P. I. Weinberg; she became close to the young poet N. M. Minsky and the editors of the Severny Vestnik, one of the central figures in which was the critic A. L. Volynsky. The first literary experiments of the writer were connected with this magazine, oriented towards a new direction “from positivism to idealism”. During these days, she actively contacted the editors of many metropolitan magazines, attended public lectures and literary evenings, met the Davydov family, who played an important role in the literary life of the capital (A. A. Davydova published the journal The World of God), attended V. D. Spasovich, whose participants were the most famous lawyers (in particular, Prince A. I. Urusov), became a member of the Russian Literary Society.

In 1888 in the Severny Vestnik (with the signature "Z. G.") two "semi-childish", as she recalled, poems were published. These and some subsequent poems by the novice poetess reflected "the general situation of pessimism and melancholy of the 1880s" and were in many ways in tune with the works of the then popular Semyon Nadson.

Early 1890 Gippius, under the impression of a little love drama that played out before her eyes, the main characters of which were the maid of the Merezhkovskys, Pasha and "family friend" Nikolai Minsky, wrote the story " Simple life". Unexpectedly (because this magazine did not favor Merezhkovsky then), the story was accepted by Vestnik Evropy, published under the heading "Unfortunate": this was Gippius' debut in prose.

New publications followed, in particular, the stories "In Moscow" and "Two Hearts" ( 1892 ), as well as novels (“Without a Talisman”, “Winners”, “Small Waves”), both in the Severny Vestnik and in Vestnik Evropy, Russkaya Mysl and other well-known publications. The early prose works of Gippius were met with hostility by liberal and populist criticism, which was disgusted, first of all, by "the unnaturalness, unprecedentedness, pretentiousness of the characters." Later, the New Encyclopedic Dictionary noted that the first works of Gippius were "written under the clear influence of the ideas of Ruskin, Nietzsche, Maeterlinck and other masters of thought of that time." Gippius's early prose was collected in two books: New People (St. Petersburg, 1896 ) and "Mirrors" (St. Petersburg, 1898 ).

All this time, Gippius was haunted by health problems: she suffered relapsing fever, a series of "endless sore throats and laryngitis." Partly to improve their health and prevent a recurrence of tuberculosis, but also for reasons related to creative aspirations, the Merezhkovskys in 1891-1892 made two memorable trips to the south of Europe. During the first of them, they communicated with A.P. Chekhov and A.S. Suvorin, who for some time became their companions, visited Pleshcheev in Paris. During the second trip, staying in Nice, the couple met Dmitry Filosofov, who a few years later became their constant companion and closest associate. Subsequently, Italian impressions took an important place in Gippius's memoirs, superimposed on the bright and sublime moods of her "happiest, youngest years." Meanwhile, the financial situation of the married couple, who lived almost exclusively on royalties, remained difficult during these years. “Now we are in a terrible, unprecedented situation. We have been living literally from hand to mouth for several days now and have pawned wedding rings, ”she said in one of the letters. 1894(in another lamenting that he cannot drink kefir prescribed by doctors due to lack of money).

Gippius's poems, published in the journal of the "senior" symbolists "Northern Messenger" ("Song" and "Dedication") immediately received scandalous fame. In 1904 published a collection of poems. 1889-1893" and in 1910- A collection of poems. 1903-1909 ”, combined with the first book by the constancy of themes and images: the spiritual discord of a person who is looking for a higher meaning in everything, a divine justification for a low earthly existence, but who has not found sufficient reasons to reconcile and accept - neither the “severity of happiness”, nor the renunciation of him. In 1899-1901 Gippius works closely with the magazine "World of Art"; in 1901-1904 is one of the organizers and an active participant in the Religious and Philosophical Meetings and the de facto co-editor of the New Way magazine, where her smart and sharp critical articles are published under the pseudonym Anton Krainy, later becomes the leading critic of the Libra magazine ( in 1908 selected articles were published as a separate book - "Literary Diary").

At the beginning of the century, the Merezhkovskys' apartment became one of the centers of the cultural life of St. Petersburg, where young poets underwent a difficult test of personal acquaintance with the "Matressa". Z. Gippius made high, extreme demands on poetry of religious service to beauty and truth ("verses are prayers"). Collections of short stories by Z. Gippius enjoyed much less success with readers and provoked sharp attacks from critics.

Events of the Revolution 1905-1907 became a turning point in life creative biography Z. Gippius. If until that time socio-political issues were outside the sphere of interests of Z. Gippius, then after January 9, which, according to the writer, "turned" her, actual social problems, "civil motives" become dominant in her work, especially in prose. Z. Gippius and D. Merezhkovsky become irreconcilable opponents of the autocracy, fighters against the conservative state structure Russia (“Yes, autocracy is from the Antichrist,” Gippius writes at this time).

In February 1906 they leave for Paris, where they spend more than two years. Having settled in Paris, where they had an apartment since pre-revolutionary times, the Merezhkovskys resumed their acquaintance with the color of the Russian emigration: Nikolai Berdyaev, Ivan Shmelev, Konstantin Balmont, Ivan Bunin, Alexander Kuprin and others.

Two more of her poetry collections Gippius were published abroad: “Poems. Diary 1911-1921" (Berlin, 1922 ) and "Shine" (Paris, 1939 ).

In 1908 the couple returned to Russia, and in cold St. Petersburg, after three years of absence, Gippius's old illnesses reappeared here. Over the next six years, she and Merezhkovsky repeatedly traveled abroad for treatment. AT last days one such visit in 1911, Gippius bought a cheap apartment in Passy (Rue Colonel Bonnet, 11-bis); this acquisition later had a decisive, salutary significance for both. Since autumn 1908 The Merezhkovskys took an active part in the Religious-Philosophical Meetings resumed in St. Petersburg, transformed into the Religious-Philosophical Society, but now there were practically no church representatives here, and the intelligentsia resolved numerous disputes with itself.

In 1910 published a collection of poems. Book. 2. 1903-1909 ”, the second volume of the collection of Zinaida Gippius, in many respects consonant with the first. Its main theme was "the spiritual discord of a person who is looking for a higher meaning in everything, a divine justification for a low earthly existence, but who has not found sufficient reasons to reconcile and accept - neither the" severity of happiness ", nor the renunciation of it." By this time, many of the poems and some stories of Gippius had been translated into German and French. The book “Le Tsar et la Révolution” (1909) written in French (in collaboration with D. Merezhkovsky and D. Filosofov) and an article on Russian poetry in the Mercure de France were published abroad and in Russia. By the early 1910s refers to the last prose collection of Gippius "Moon Ants" ( 1912 year), which absorbed the stories that she herself considered the best in her work, as well as two novels of the unfinished trilogy: "Devil's Doll" (first part) and "Roman Tsarevich" (third part), which met with rejection by the left press (which saw they “slander” the revolution) and, on the whole, a cool reception of criticism, which found them frankly tendentious, “problematic”

Having met with hostility the October Revolution of 1917, Gippius emigrates to Paris with her husband. Emigrant creativity of Zinaida consists of poems, memoirs and journalism. She came out with sharp attacks on Soviet Russia and prophesied her imminent fall. The collection “Last Poems. 1914-1918" ( 1918).

Winter 1919 Merezhkovsky and Philosophers began to discuss options for flight. Having received a mandate to lecture to the Red Army soldiers on the history and mythology of Ancient Egypt, Merezhkovsky received permission to leave the city, and December 24 four (including V. Zlobin, secretary Gippius) with meager luggage, manuscripts and notebooks - went to Gomel (the writer did not let go of the book with the inscription: "Materials for lectures in the Red Army units"). The path was not easy: four had to endure a four-day journey in a carriage “full of Red Army soldiers, bagmen and all sorts of rabble”, a night landing in Zhlobin in a 27-degree frost. After a short stay in Poland in 1920, disappointed both in the policy of J. Pilsudsky towards the Bolsheviks, and in the role of B. Savinkov, who came to Warsaw to discuss with the Merezhkovskys a new line in the fight against communist Russia, October 20, 1920 The Merezhkovskys, after parting with Filosofov, left for France forever.

In 1926 the spouses organized the literary and philosophical brotherhood "Green Lamp" - a kind of continuation of the community of the same name early XIX century, in which Alexander Pushkin participated. Meetings were closed, and guests were invited exclusively according to the list. Alexei Remizov, Boris Zaitsev, Ivan Bunin, Nadezhda Teffi, Mark Aldanov and Nikolai Berdyaev were regular participants in the "meetings". With the outbreak of World War II, the community ceased to exist.

Shortly after the German attack on the USSR, Merezhkovsky spoke on German radio, in which he called for a fight against Bolshevism (the circumstances of this event later caused controversy and discrepancies). Z. Gippius, “having learned about this radio performance, was not only upset, but even scared,” her first reaction was the words: “this is the end.” She was not mistaken: cooperation with Hitler, which consisted only in this one radio speech, Merezhkovsky was not forgiven. The Parisian apartment of the Merezhkovskys was described as non-payment, they had to save on small things. Death of Dmitry Sergeevich ( December 9, 1941) was a severe blow for Zinaida Nikolaevna. Two other losses were superimposed on this loss: a year earlier it became known about the death of Filosofov; in 1942 her sister Anna died.

The widow of the writer, who was ostracized in the emigrant environment, devoted her last years work on the biography of the late husband; this book remained unfinished and was published in 1951.

In recent years, she returned to poetry: she took up work on the (reminiscent of the Divine Comedy) poem The Last Circle (published by in 1972), which, like the book "Dmitry Merezhkovsky", remained unfinished. The last entry in Gippius's diary, made just before his death, was the phrase: “I am worth little. How wise and just God is.

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius died in Paris. In the evening September 1, 1945 Father Vasily Zenkovsky communed Gippius. She understood little, but she swallowed the sacrament. Secretary V. Zlobin, who remained next to her to the last, testified that in the instant before her death, two tears flowed down her cheeks and an “expression of deep happiness” appeared on her face. Legend silver age gone into oblivion September 9, 1945(at age 76). She was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois in the same grave with her husband. The literary heritage of the hoaxer has been preserved in collections of poems, dramas and novels.

Compositions

Poetry

"Collected Poems". Book one. 1889-1903. Publishing house "Scorpion", M., 1904.
"Collected Poems". Book two. 1903-1909. Publishing house "Musaget", M., 1910.
"Last Poems" (1914-1918), "Science and School" edition, St. Petersburg, 66 pages, 1918.
"Poetry. Diary 1911-1921. Berlin. 1922.
"Shine", series "Russian poets", issue two, 200 copies. Paris, 1938.

Prose

"New people". First book of stories. St. Petersburg, 1st edition 1896; second edition 1907.
"Mirrors". Second book of stories. St. Petersburg, 1898.
"Third book of stories", St. Petersburg, 1901.
"Scarlet Sword". Fourth book of stories. St. Petersburg, 1907.
"Black on white". Fifth book of stories. St. Petersburg, 1908.
"Moon Ants". Sixth story book. Publishing house "Alcyone". M., 1912.
"Damn Doll" Novel. Ed. "Moscow publishing house". M. 1911.
"Roman Tsarevich". Novel. Ed. "Moscow publishing house". M. 1913. - 280 p.

Dramaturgy

"Green Ring" Play. Ed. "Lights", Petrograd, 1916.

Criticism and journalism

"Literary diary". Critical articles. St. Petersburg, 1908.
"Blue Book. Petersburg diaries 1914-1938. - Belgrade, 1929-234 p.
Zinaida Gippius. Petersburg diaries 1914-1919. New York - Moscow, 1990.
Zinaida Gippius. diaries

Contemporary editions (1990 -)

Plays. L., 1990
Live faces, vols. 1-2. Tbilisi, 1991
Works. Leningrad branch. Artistic lit. 1991
Poems. St. Petersburg, 1999

Keywords: Zinaida Gippius, Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius, biography, detailed biography, criticism of works, poetry, prose, free download, read online, Russian literature, 20th century, Merezhkovskaya, life and work, decadent Madonna, symbolism

The beginning of the literary activity of Zinaida Gippius (1889-1892) is considered to be the “romantic-imitative” stage: in her early poems and stories, critics of that time saw the influence of Nadson, Ruskin, Nietzsche.

After the appearance of the program work of D.S. Merezhkovsky “On the Cause of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature” (1892), Gippius’s work acquired a distinctly “symbolist” character, moreover, later she was considered one of the ideologists of the new modernist movement in Russian literature. During these years, the preaching of new ethical values became the central theme of her work. As she wrote in Autobiography, "It was not decadence that occupied me, but the problem of individualism and all the questions related to it." She polemically titled the 1896 collection of short stories "New People", implying the image of the characteristic ideological aspirations of the emerging literary generation, rethinking the values of Chernyshevsky's "new people".

Her characters seem unusual, lonely, painful, emphatically misunderstood. They declare new values: “I would not want to live at all”, “And illness is good ... You have to die from something”, the story “Miss May”, 1895.

The story “Among the Dead” shows the heroine’s extraordinary love for the deceased artist, whose grave she surrounded with care and on which, in the end, she freezes, thus uniting in her unearthly feeling with her lover.

However, finding among the heroes of the first prose collections of Gippius people of the "symbolist type", who were engaged in the search for "new beauty" and ways of spiritual transformation of a person, critics also noticed distinct traces of Dostoevsky's influence (not lost over the years: in particular, "Roman Tsarevich" of 1912 compared with "Demons"). In the story "Mirrors" (collection of the same name, 1898), the characters have their prototypes among the characters in Dostoevsky's works. The main character tells how she “everything wanted to do something great, but so ... unparalleled. And then I see that I can’t - and I think: let me do something bad, but very, very bad, bad to the bottom ...”, “Know that offending is not at all bad.”

But its heroes inherited the problems not only of Dostoevsky, but also of Merezhkovsky. (“We are for the new beauty, we break all the laws ...”). The short story Golden Flower (1896) discusses a murder for “ideological” reasons in the name of the complete liberation of the hero: “She must die ... Everything will die with her - and he, Zvyagin, will be free from love, and from hatred, and from all thoughts of her". Reflections on murder are interspersed with disputes about beauty, individual freedom, Oscar Wilde, etc.

Gippius did not blindly copy, but rethought the Russian classics, placing her characters in the atmosphere of Dostoevsky's works. This process had great importance for the history of Russian symbolism as a whole. Critics of the early 20th century considered the main motives of Gippius's early poetry to be "the curse of boring reality", "the glorification of the world of fantasy", the search for "new unearthly beauty". The conflict between the painful feeling within human disunity and, at the same time, the desire for loneliness, characteristic of Symbolist literature, was also present in Gippius's early work, marked by a characteristic ethical and aesthetic maximalism. Genuine poetry, Gippius believed, comes down to the "triple bottomlessness" of the world, three themes - "about man, love and death." The poetess dreamed of "reconciliation of love and eternity", but she assigned a unifying role to death, which alone can save love from everything transient. This kind of reflection on “eternal themes”, which determined the tone of many of Gippius’ poems of the 1900s, also dominated in the first two books of Gippius stories, the main topics of which were “affirmation of the truth of only the intuitive beginning of life, beauty in all its manifestations and contradictions and lies in the name of some high truth.

The “Third Book of Stories” (1902) Gippius caused a significant resonance, criticism in connection with this collection spoke of the author’s “morbid strangeness”, “mystical fog”, “head mysticism”, the concept of the metaphysics of love “against the background of the spiritual twilight of people ... not yet capable of realize it." The formula of “love and suffering” according to Gippius (according to the “Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius”) correlates with the “Meaning of Love” by V.S. Solovyov and carries the main idea: to love not for oneself, not for happiness and “appropriation”, but for gaining infinity in the “I”. Imperatives: “to express and give all my soul”, to go to the end in any experience, including experimenting with oneself and people, were considered her main life attitudes.

A notable event in the literary life of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century was the publication of the first collection of poems by Z. Gippius in 1904. Criticism noted here "the motives of tragic isolation, detachment from the world, strong-willed self-affirmation of the individual." Like-minded people also noted the special manner of “poetic writing, reticence, allegory, allusion, silence”, the manner of playing “melodious chords of abstraction on a silent piano”, as I. Annensky called it. The latter believed that "no man would ever dare to dress abstractions with such charm", and that in this book the best way"the entire fifteen-year history of ... lyrical modernism" was embodied in Russia. An important place in the poetry of Gippius was occupied by the theme of “efforts to create and preserve the soul”, with all the “devilish” temptations and temptations inseparable from them, many noted the frankness with which the poetess spoke about her internal conflicts. She was considered an outstanding master of verse by V.Ya. Bryusov and I.F. Annensky, who admired the virtuosity of form, rhythmic richness and "melodious abstraction" of Gippius's lyrics of the late 1890s - 1900s.

Some researchers believed that Gippius' work is distinguished by “characteristic non-femininity”, in her poems “everything is large, strong, without particulars and trifles. A lively, sharp thought, intertwined with complex emotions, breaks out of poetry in search of spiritual integrity and finding a harmonious ideal. Others warned against unambiguous assessments: “When you think about where Gippius has the innermost, where is the necessary core around which creativity grows, where is the “face”, then you feel: this poet, perhaps, like no one else, does not have a single face, but there is a multitude…”, wrote R. Gul.

I.A. Bunin, implying the style of Gippius, which does not recognize open emotionality and is often built on the use of oxymorons, called her poetry "electric verses", V.F. Khodasevich, reviewing The Shining, wrote about "a kind of internal struggle of the poetic soul with the non-poetic mind."

The collection of short stories Gippius "The Scarlet Sword" (1906) highlighted "the metaphysics of the author already in the light of neo-Christian themes", while the divine-human in the completed human personality was affirmed here as a given, the sin of self- and apostasy was considered one. The collection "Black on White" (1908), which absorbed the prose works of 1903-1906, was sustained in a "tangential, foggy-impressionistic manner" and explored the themes of dignity of the individual ("On the Ropes"), love and gender ("Lovers" , "Eternal" femininity "", "Two-one"), in the story "Ivan Ivanovich and the devil" Dostoevsky's influences were again noted. In the 1900s, Gippius also made herself known as a playwright: the play Holy Blood (1900) was included in the third book of short stories. Created in collaboration with D. Merezhkovsky and D. Filosofov, the play "Poppy Flower" was released in 1908 and was a response to the revolutionary events of 1905-1907. The most successful dramatic work of Gippius is considered to be The Green Ring (1916), a play dedicated to people " tomorrow”, was staged by V.E. Meyerhold at the Alexandrinsky Theatre.

An important place in the work of Z. Gippius was occupied by critical articles published first in the New Way, then in Scales and Russian Thought (mainly under the pseudonym Anton Krainy). However, her judgments were distinguished (according to the New Encyclopedic Dictionary) both by "great thoughtfulness" and "extreme sharpness and sometimes a lack of impartiality." Parting ways with the authors of the magazine "World of Art" S.P. Diaghilev and A.N. Benois on religious grounds, Gippius wrote: "... to live among their beauty is scary. In it "there is no place for ... God", faith, death, this is art "for" here ", positivist art."

A.P. Chekhov, in the critic's assessment, is a writer of "cooling the heart to all living things", and those whom Chekhov can captivate will "go to choke, shoot themselves and drown themselves." In her opinion ("Mercure de France"), Maxim Gorky is "a mediocre socialist and obsolete artist." The critic condemned Konstantin Balmont, who published his poems in the democratic Journal for All, as follows: 1903, No. 2), which did not prevent her from publishing her poems in this magazine as well.

In a review of A. Blok's collection "Poems about the Beautiful Lady" with the epigraph "Without a Deity, without inspiration", Gippius liked only some of the imitations of Vladimir Solovyov. In general, the collection was assessed as vague and unfaithful "mystical-aesthetic romanticism." According to the critic, where "without the Lady", Blok's poems are "non-artistic, unsuccessful", they show through the "mermaid cold", etc.

In 1910, the second collection of poems by Gippius, Collected Poems. Book. 2. 1903-1909 ”, in many respects consonant with the first, its main theme was “the spiritual discord of a person who is looking for a higher meaning in everything, a divine justification for a low earthly existence ...”. Two novels of the unfinished trilogy, The Devil's Doll (Russian Thought, 1911, No. 1-3) and Roman Tsarevich (Russian Thought, 1912, No. 9-12), were intended to "reveal the eternal, deep roots reactions in public life", to collect "features of spiritual death in one person", but met with rejection by critics, who noted tendentiousness and "weak artistic embodiment." In particular, cartoonized portraits of A. Blok and Vyach were given in the first novel. Ivanov, and the main character was opposed by the "enlightened faces" of the members of the triumvirate of Merezhkovsky and Filosofov. Another novel was entirely devoted to questions of God-seeking and was, according to R.V. Ivanov-Razumnik, "a tedious and viscous continuation of the useless "Devil's Doll"". After their publication, the New Encyclopedic Dictionary wrote: Gippius is more original as an author of poetry than as an author of stories and novels. Always carefully considered, often posing interesting questions, not devoid of apt observation, the stories and novels of Gippius are at the same time somewhat far-fetched, alien to the freshness of inspiration, do not show real knowledge of life.

The heroes of Gippius speak interesting words, get into complex collisions, but do not live in front of the reader, most of them are only the personification of abstract ideas, and some are nothing more than skillfully crafted puppets set in motion by the author’s hand, and not by the power of their internal psychological experiences.

Hatred of the October Revolution forced Gippius to break with those of his former friends who accepted it, with Blok, Bryusov, Bely. The history of this gap and the reconstruction of the ideological collisions that led to the October events, which made the confrontation of the former allies in literature inevitable, formed the essence of Gippius' memoirs Living Faces (1925). The revolution (contrary to Blok, who saw in it an explosion of the elements and a cleansing hurricane) was described by her as a "strong suffocation" of monotonous days, "amazing boredom" and at the same time, "monstrosity" that caused one desire: "to go blind and deaf." At the root of what was happening, Gippius saw some kind of "Great Madness" and considered it extremely important to maintain the position of "sound mind and solid memory."

Collection “Last Poems. 1914-1918 ”(1918) drew a line under the active poetic work of Gippius, although two more of her poetry collections were published abroad:“ Poems. Diary 1911-1921" (Berlin, 1922) and "Shine" (Paris, 1939). In the works of the 1920s, an eschatological note prevailed (“Russia perished irrevocably, the kingdom of the Antichrist is advancing, brutality rages on the ruins of a collapsed culture” - according to the encyclopedia “Krugosvet”).

As the author's chronicle of the "bodily and spiritual dying of the old world," Gippius left diaries, which she perceived as a unique literary genre that allows her to capture "the very course of life", to record "little things that disappeared from memory", by which descendants could restore a reliable picture of the tragic event. The artistic work of Gippius during the years of emigration (according to the encyclopedia "Krugosvet") "begins to fade, she is more and more imbued with the conviction that the poet is not able to work away from Russia": "heavy cold" reigns in her soul, she is dead, like "a dead hawk ". This metaphor becomes key in the last collection of Gippius's "Shine" (1938), where the motifs of loneliness prevail and everything is seen by the gaze of "passing by" (the title of poems important for the late Gippius, published in 1924).

Attempts to reconcile with the world in the face of a close farewell to it are replaced by declarations of non-reconciliation with violence and evil.

According to the "Literary Encyclopedia" (1929-1939), Gippius's foreign work "is devoid of any artistic and social value, except for the fact that it vividly characterizes the `animal face" of emigrants. " V. S. Fedorov gives a different assessment of the work of the poetess: Creativity Gippius, with all his inner drama of polarity, with intense and passionate striving for the unattainable, has always been not only “change without betrayal”, but also carried the liberating light of hope, fiery, indestructible faith-love in the transcendent truth of the ultimate harmony of human life and being .

Already living in exile, the poetess wrote about her “beyond the starry country” of hope with aphoristic brilliance: Alas, they are divided ... (V.S. Fedorov). Z.N. Gippius. Russian literature of the XX century: writers, poets, playwrights.

Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius - poetess, critic, prose writer (11.20. 1869 Belev, Tula province. - 9.9. 1945 Paris). Among the ancestors of Zinaida Nikolaevna were German nobles who emigrated to Moscow in 1515. The father is a high-ranking lawyer. As a child, Gippius lived from time to time in St. Petersburg, here 30 years (from 1889 to emigration) of her married life with D. Merezhkovsky passed - a rare example in world literature of the union of two people, which served as their mutual spiritual enrichment.

Zinaida Gippius began to write poetry from the age of 7, since 1888 they appear in print, and soon her first story. Before the Bolshevik coup, many collections of poems, short stories, plays, and novels were published. In 1903-09. Zinaida Nikolaevna was closely associated with the editors of the religious-philosophical journal "New Way", where, in particular, her literary-critical articles were published under the pseudonym Anton Krainy, which attracted the attention of readers. Salon Gippius in St. Petersburg (1905-17) became a meeting place for the symbolists.

The poetess rejected the Bolshevik coup, seeing in it an act against freedom and human dignity. On December 4, 1919, together with Merezhkovsky, she managed to leave first for Warsaw, and then for Paris. There she became one of the most significant poets of emigration. One collection" Poetry"(1922) was released in Berlin, the other - " Radiance"(1938) - in Paris. Her journalism also enjoyed great attention, especially the book" living faces(1925). Gippius' book about her husband was published posthumously" Dmitry Merezhkovsky" (1951).

Before perestroika, her works were not published in the USSR, but in Munich in the early 70s. reprints were printed. In 1990, Gippius' book "Dmitry Merezhkovsky" and the novel " December 14". In 1991, many works by Zinaida Nikolaevna were printed in Russia and Tbilisi.

The lyrics of Gippius are deep in thought, religious and formally perfect. The poetess came out of the circle of symbolists, for whom literature was part of a broadly understood cultural process and a means of expressing the highest spiritual reality. Man, love and death are the main themes, the range of which captures her poetry. Poetry for Zinaida Gippius means spiritual experience and a constant philosophical and psychological dispute with oneself and with the imperfection of earthly existence. At the same time, her intellectual brilliance is combined with poetic susceptibility. In his fictional prose, Gippius (under the influence of Dostoevsky) prefers to depict people in borderline situations. This prose is infused religious worldview, which, to a lesser extent than that of Merezhkovsky, is characterized by mysticism. Her journalism is of a high class, this also applies to diaries, and, above all, very personally painted portraits of A. Blok, V. Bryusov, V. Rozanov and others. Here, as in some of her poems, Zinaida Nikolaevna sharply opposes Bolshevism and gives evidence of his deep reverence for the freedom of human dignity and Russian cultural tradition.