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less, the letter was widely distributed through
clandestine channels and became essential read-
ing for Russian liberals. Marriage to Maria Orlova
produced a son and a daughter. Generally in poor
health, Belinsky went abroad in 1847 to recover
from tuberculosis. He returned to St. Petersburg
in November 1847 and worked briefly for the
journal
The Contemporary
as its review editor. His
health never fully recovered, however, and he
died of consumption in June 1848.
Bely traveled to Switzerland to study with him,
but they soon fell out and Bely returned to Rus-
sia in 1916. After the
OCTOBER REVOLUTION
he left
Russia again but returned in 1923 and he contin-
ued to publish. His
Recollections of Alexander Blok
(1922) was an incisive account of the great poet
and the Symbolist movement in general. Three
other volumes of “Recollections,” published
between 1931 and 1934, re-create in Bely's usual
style, often laced with humor, the remarkable
early-20th-century world of Russian letters and
culture. A man who frequently changed intellec-
tual allegiances, after his final return to Russia
Bely sought to imbue his writings with Marxism.
Bely, Andrei
(1880-1934)
writer
A writer of dazzling, complex poetry, prose, and
literary criticism who emerged as a major spokes-
man of the younger generation that helped
shape Russia's Silver Age. Born Boris Nikolae-
vich Bugaev, Bely was the son of a well-known
mathematician and dean of the faculty of science
at Moscow University, from where he also
received a degree in mathematics. His early
work, in which he attempted to create the effect
of musical compositions, was impressive in its
virtuosity but difficult and somewhat contrived.
Bely's talents were first recognized by a broader
audience with the publication of his first novel,
The Silver Dove
(1909), about a sect that follows a
RASPUTIN
-like figure. Influenced by
GOGOL
, the
novel combines the fantastic and the irrational, a
style that Bely would develop throughout his
work. His next novel,
Petersburg
(1913), is per-
haps his best-known work. Here Bely plays with
long-standing Russian literary themes such as
the antinomy between East and West and the
generational split between “fathers and sons,” all
in the context of terrorism and revolution of the
early 20th century. Immensely talented and
quick-witted, he dabbled in the many intellec-
tual currents of the time such as Symbolism,
Mysticism, and
FUTURISM
, frustrating many by
what they perceived as his intellectual fickleness.
A good friend of the poet Aleksandr
BLOK
,
together they admired the work of the philoso-
pher Vladimir
SOLOVIEV
. Attracted by the spiri-
tual and mystical teachings of Rudolf Steiner,
Berdiaev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich
(1874-1948)
philosopher
Born in Kiev into a noble family, Berdiaev
became one of the leading representatives of a
group of early-20th-century intellectuals who
moved from a materialist Marxist to a spiritual-
ist Christian outlook. Berdiaev first studied law
at Kiev University. Early involvement in revolu-
tionary activities led to a brief term of exile in
the northern region of Vologda in 1898.
Released, he traveled to Germany for further
studies. He returned to St. Petersburg in 1904
and became coeditor with Sergei
BULGAKOV
of
Voprosy zhizni
(
Problems of Life
), a philosophy
journal. Berdiaev's work, often defined as per-
sonalism or Christian existentialism, stressed the
value of individual liberty and freedom, which
he considered to be the precondition of all true
existence. His nonacademic approach to philoso-
phy, and his colorful style, relying on aphorisms,
account for the great popularity his work
enjoyed. He himself considered his nonacademic
approach to philosophy a virtue. After the
OCTO
-
BER REVOLUTION
, Berdiaev taught at the private
Academy of Spiritual Culture in Moscow until
1922, when, together with a large group of
prominent intellectuals, he was expelled from
Soviet Russia. After a short stay in Berlin, he set-
tled near Paris in 1925, married, and became
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