Ivan Konevskoi Wise Child of Russian Symbolism [Hardcover]

Ivan Konevskoi: Wise Child of Russian Symbolism is the first study in any language of Ivan Konevskoi  poet, thinker, mystic  for many decades the lost genius of Russian modernism. A fresh and compelling figure, Konevskoi plunged deeply into the currents of modern mystical thought and art in the 1890s. A passionate searcher for immortality, he developed his own version of pantheism meant to guard his unique persona from dissolution in the All-One. The poetry of Tiutchev, Vladimir Solovev Soloviev and Rossetti, William Jamess psychology, paintings of Pre-Raphaelites and Arnold Boecklin, Old Russian historical myth, the Finnish Kalevala: all engaged him during his brief life. His worldview grew more audacious, his confidence in the magical power of the word grew more assured. Drowning in 1901 at 23, Konevskoi left a legacy unfinished, rich, and intriguing.Joan Delaney Grossman (Ph.D. Harvard University) is Professor Emerita of Slavic Languages and Literatures at University of California at Berkeley. Her publications include Edgar Allan Poe in Russia, 1973; Valery Bryusov and the Riddle of Russian Decadence, 1984; co edited Creating Life, with Irina Paperno,1994 and William James in Russian Culture, with Ruth Rischin, 2003. Grossman (Slavic languages and literatures, U. of California at Berkeley) offers the first study of the life, ideas, and achievements of Russian modernist poet, thinker, and mystic Ivan Konevskoi (1877-1901). Focusing on his inner life (rather than all aspects of his biography), she examines its representation in his poetry, his exploration of pantheism, mystical encounters during his European travels, the influence of painter Arnold B?cklin, his affair with Anna Nikolaevna Gippius, his friend and posthumous publisher Valerii Briusov, his poetry collection Dreams and Meditations, his desire to abolish death through mysticism, the influence of Nietzsche, and his accidental drowning at the age of twenty-three. Selected poems are provided in Rl³M