Andrey Bely
Andrey Bely, pseudonym of Boris
Nikolayevich Bugayev, Bugayev also
spelled Bugaev (b. Oct. 14 [Oct. 26, New
Style], 1880, Moscow, Russia—d. Jan. 7,
1934, Moscow, Russian S.F.S.R.,
U.S.S.R.), leading theorist and poet of
Russian Symbolism, a literary school
deriving from the Modernist movement in
western European art and literature and
an indigenous Eastern Orthodox
spirituality, expressing mystical and
abstract ideals through allegories from
life and nature.
Reared in an academic environment as
the son of a mathematics professor, Bely
was closely associated with Moscow’s
literary elite, including the late
19th-century philosopher-mystic Vladimir
Solovyov, whose eschatological thought
(concerning the world’s purpose and
final resolution) he absorbed. Carried
by his idealism from harsh reality to
speculative thought, Bely completed in
1901 his first major work, Severnaya
simfoniya (1902; “The Northern
Symphony”), a prose poem that
represented an attempt to combine prose,
poetry, music, and even, in part,
painting. Three more “symphonies” in
this new literary form followed. In
other poetry he continued his innovative
style and, by repeatedly using irregular
metre (the “lame foot”), introduced
Russian poetry to the formalistic
revolution that was brought to fruition
by his aesthetic colleague Aleksandr
Blok.
Bely’s first three books of verse—Zoloto
v lazuri (1904; “Gold in Azure”), Pepel
(1909; “Ashes”), and Urna (1909;
“Urn”)—are his most important
contributions to poetry. Each of them
stands out for an original view of the
world: the first generates a new
mythology; central to the second are
images of the despair of Russian life; a
somewhat ironic philosophical lyricism
is used in the third. In 1909 Bely
completed his first novel, Serebryany
golub (1910; The Silver Dove). His most
celebrated composition, Peterburg
(published serially 1913–14; St.
Petersburg), is regarded as a baroque
extension of his earlier “symphonies.”
In 1913 he became an adherent of the
Austrian social philosopher Rudolf
Steiner and joined his anthroposophical
colony in Basel, Switz., a group
advocating a system of mystical beliefs
derived from Buddhist contemplative
religious experience (see
anthroposophy). While in Switzerland
Bely began writing his Kotik Letayev
(1922; Kotik Letaev), a short
autobiographical novel suggestive of the
style of James Joyce. Eventually, Bely
left Steiner’s group for personal
reasons, but he remained attached to
anthroposophical ideas to the end of his
life.
In 1916 Bely returned to Russia,
where he witnessed the entirety of the
Russian Revolution of 1917. Initially,
like Blok, he welcomed the Bolsheviks’
ascent to power. His enthusiasm was
reflected in Khristos voskrese (1918;
“Christ Is Risen”), a novel in verse in
which Bely renders contemporary life in
mystical terms as a “revolution of the
spirit.” Between 1918 and 1921 he worked
in Soviet cultural organizations, and
during that time he helped found the
nonpartisan Free Philosophical
Association (Volfila). The novel in
verse Pervoye svidaniye (1921: The First
Encounter) resurrects the events of his
youth.
In 1921 Bely traveled to Berlin,
where his already strained marriage
collapsed and where he was subjected to
Steiner’s enmity. Bely also began
writing his memoirs, which were
published later in three volumes: Na
rubezhe dvukh stolety (1930; “On the
Boundary of Two Centuries”), Nachalo
veka (1933; “The Beginning of the
Century”), and Mezhdu dvukh revolyutsy
(1934; “Between Two Revolutions”). In
1923 Bely returned to Moscow, where he
wrote a trilogy of novels set in Moscow,
; he also wrote literary criticism and
revised his early works. Bely’s prose of
the 1920s reflects his interest in form
and in complex plot construction. In the
early 1930s he tried to become a “true”
Soviet author by writing a series of
articles and making ideological
revisions to his memoirs, and he also
planned to begin a study of Socialist
Realism. In 1932 he became a member of
the Organizational Committee of the
Writers’ Union of the U.S.S.R. Yet in an
idiosyncratic way he managed to combine
these activities with his attachment to
anthroposophy and Russian Symbolism.
