Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov ( rus, Вале́рий Я́ковлевич Брю́сов, p=vɐˈlʲerʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪdʑ ˈbrʲusəf, a=Valyeriy Yakovlyevich Bryusov.ru.vorb.oga; – 9 October 1924) was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He was one of the principal members of the

Russian Symbolist movement Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It arose separately from European symbolism, emphasizing mysticism and ostranenie. Literature Influences Primary ...

Darko Suvin Darko Ronald Suvin (born Darko Šlesinger) is a Yugoslav-born academic, writer and critic who became a professor (now emeritusDavid JohnstonConvocation: Honorary degrees and emeritus professorships McGill Reporter, Volume 33, No. 05, November ...

, "Bryusov,Valery" in Curtis C. Smith, '' Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers''. Chicago, St. James, 1986. (pp. 840–41).

Background

Valery Bryusov was born on 13 December 1873 (1 December 1873 according to the old

Julian calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandri ...

) into a merchant's family in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. His parents were educated for their class and had some literary associations, but had little do with his upbringing, leaving the boy largely to himself. He spent a great deal of time reading "everything that fell into ishands", including the works of

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

and

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...

, as well as various materialistic and scientific essays. The future poet received an excellent education, studying in two private Moscow gymnasia between 1885 and 1893.

Career

Bryusov began his literary career in the early 1890s while still a student at

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

with his translations of the poetry of the French Symbolists (

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the '' fin de siècle'' in international and ...

, Maurice Maeterlinck, and

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

) as well at that of

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wid ...

. Bryusov also began to publish his own poems, which were very much influenced by the Decadent and Symbolist movements of his contemporary Europe. During this time Bryusov came under the influence of the philosopher Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov and the scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. At the time, Russian Symbolism was still mainly a set of theories and had few notable practitioners. Therefore, in order to represent Symbolism as a movement of formidable following, Bryusov adopted numerous

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

s and published three volumes of his own verse, entitled ''Russian Symbolists. An Anthology'' (1894–95). Bryusov's mystification proved successful – several young poets were attracted to Symbolism as the latest fashion in Russian letters. With the appearance of ''Tertia Vigilia'' in 1900, he came to be revered by other Symbolists as an authority in matters of art. In 1904 he became the editor of the influential

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and lett ...

'' Vesy'' (''The Balance''), which consolidated his position in the Russian literary world. Bryusov's mature works were notable for their celebration of sensual pleasures as well as their mastery of a wide range of poetic forms, from the

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the F ...

to the carmina figurata. By the 1910s, Bryusov's poetry had begun to seem cold and strained to many of his contemporaries. As a result, his reputation gradually declined and, with it, his power in the Russian literary world. He was adamantly opposed to the efforts of

Georgy Chulkov Georgy Ivanovich Chulkov ( rus, Гео́ргий Ива́нович Чулко́в, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ tɕʊlˈkof, a=Gyeorgiy Ivanovich Chulkov.ru.vorb.oga; – January 1, 1939) was a Russian Symbolist poet, editor, writer an ...

and Vyacheslav Ivanov to move Symbolism in the direction of Mystical Anarchism. Though many of his fellow Symbolists fled Russia after the

Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

, Bryusov remained until his death in 1924. He supported the

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

government and received a position in the cultural ministry of the new

Soviet state The Government of the Soviet Union ( rus, Прави́тельство СССР, p=prɐˈvʲitʲɪlʲstvə ɛs ɛs ɛs ˈɛr, r=Pravítelstvo SSSR, lang=no), formally the All-Union Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, commonly ab ...

. Shortly before his death he was involved with

Otto Schmidt Otto Yulyevich Shmidt, be, Ота Юльевіч Шміт, Ota Juljevič Šmit (born Otto Friedrich Julius Schmidt; – 7 September 1956), better known as Otto Schmidt, was a Soviet scientist, mathematician, astronomer, geophysicist, statesm ...

in drawing up the proposal for the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

. In 1924, shortly before his death, Bryusov posed for the young sculptor (1893–1990). Now the portrait is in the

Russian Museum The State Russian Museum (russian: Государственный Русский музей), formerly the Russian Museum of His Imperial Majesty Alexander III (russian: Русский Музей Императора Александра III), on ...

of St. Petersburg in a collection of the work of

Russian avant-garde The Russian avant-garde was a large, influential wave of avant-garde modern art that flourished in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, approximately from 1890 to 1930—although some have placed its beginning as early as 1850 and its e ...

artists.

Literature

Alongside Adelina Adalis (1900-1969) and Nikolay Gumilev (1886-1921), he was influenced by the Malaysian literature from the XIX and XX century.

Prose

Bryusov's most famous

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the fo ...

works are the historical novels ''The Altar of Victory'' (depicting life in Ancient Rome) and '' The Fiery Angel'' (depicting the psychological climate of 16th century Germany). The latter tells the story of a knight's attempts to win the love of a young woman whose spiritual integrity is seriously undermined by her participation in occult practices and her dealings with unclean forces. It served as the basis for

Sergei Prokofiev Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev; alternative transliterations of his name include ''Sergey'' or ''Serge'', and ''Prokofief'', ''Prokofieff'', or ''Prokofyev''., group=n (27 April .S. 15 April1891 – 5 March 1953) was a Russian composer, ...

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

'' The Fiery Angel''. Bryusov also wrote some

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

stories, under the influence of Poe, H.G. Wells and

Camille Flammarion Nicolas Camille Flammarion FRAS (; 26 February 1842 – 3 June 1925) was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science ficti ...

. Several of these, including the title story, were assembled in his collection ''The Republic of the Southern Cross''.

Translation

As a translator, Bryusov was the first to render the works of the Belgian poet

Emile Verhaeren Emil or Emile may refer to: Literature *'' Emile, or On Education'' (1762), a treatise on education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau * ''Émile'' (novel) (1827), an autobiographical novel based on Émile de Girardin's early life *'' Emil and the Detecti ...

and the lyrics of Armenian ashugh Sayat-Nova accessible to Russian readers. He was one of the major translators of

's poetry. His most famous translations are of Edgar Allan Poe,

Romain Rolland Romain Rolland (; 29 January 1866 – 30 December 1944) was a French dramatist, novelist, essayist, art historian and mystic who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production a ...

, Maurice Maeterlinck,

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

Jean Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditi ...

Ausonius Decimius Magnus Ausonius (; – c. 395) was a Roman poet and teacher of rhetoric from Burdigala in Aquitaine, modern Bordeaux, France. For a time he was tutor to the future emperor Gratian, who afterwards bestowed the consulship on him ...

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...

Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...

, and

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

. Bryusov also translated

Johann Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

's ''

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...

'' and

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: th ...

's ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of ...

''.

List of major works

* ''Juvenilia'', 1894 * ''Chefs d’oeuvre'', 1895 * ''Me eum esse'', 1897 * ''Tertia Vigilia'', 1900 * ''Urbi et Orbi'', 1903 * ''Stephanos'', 1905 * '' The Fiery Angel'', 1908 * ''All Melodies'', 1909 * ''The Altar of Victory'', 1913 * ''Rea Silvia'', 1916

Works in English translation

*''The Republic of the Southern Cross and Other Stories'', Constable, London, 1918
from Archive.org
Contains several science fiction stories. *''The Fiery Angel: A Sixteenth Century Romance'', Hyperion Press, 1978. *''Diary of Valery Bryusov'', University of California Press, 1980. *''The Fiery Angel: Dedalus European Classics'', Dedalus Limited, 2005.

Recognition in Armenia

For his Russian translation of the Armenian folk epic “

David of Sasun David of Sassoun ( hy, Սասունցի Դավիթ ''Sasuntsi Davit also spelled David of Sasun'') is the main hero of Armenia's national epic ''Daredevils of Sassoun'', who drove Arab invaders out of Armenia. Background The ''Daredevils of ...

,” Bryusov was designated People's Poet of Armenia in 1923. Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences, a public university in the capital of

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...

, has been named after Valery Bryusov since 1962.

References

External links

* * *
Collection of Poems by Valery Bryusov
(English Translations)

A 10 page selection of English translations by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1921

English translations of longer poem, "Danse Macabre" (scroll down)

"To a Woman" English translation
* Mark Willhardt, Alan Parker. "Briusov, Valerii Iakovlevich" in ''Who's Who in Twentieth Century World Poetry'', Routledge, 2000, , p. 47
"Brusov and The Poetry of Armenia"
on

Google Arts and Culture Google Arts & Culture (formerly Google Art Project) is an online platform of high-resolution images and videos of artworks and cultural artifacts from partner cultural organizations throughout the world. It utilizes high-resolution image technol ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bryusov, Valery 1873 births 1924 deaths Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery Russian male poets Russian male short story writers Russian historical novelists Russian science fiction writers Soviet poets Symbolist poets Russian male novelists Soviet literary historians Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian poets 20th-century Russian male writers 20th-century Russian short story writers Writers of Gothic fiction Imperial Moscow University alumni Translators of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Translators of Virgil