Georgy Ivanov
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n emigration between the 1930s and 1950s.
As a banker's son, Ivanov spent his young manhood in the elite circle of Russian golden youth. He started writing pretentious verses, imitative of Baudelaire and the French Symbolists, at a precocious age. Although his technique of versification was impeccable, he had no life experience to draw upon. The favourite subjects of his early poetry were Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
mannerisms and gallant festivals. Unsurprisingly, he named two of his books "The Embarkment for Cythera", alluding to Watteau's great painting.
After dallying with a puerile variety of Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...
, as promoted by Igor Severyanin
Igor Severyanin
Igor Severyanin was a Russian poet who presided over the circle of the so-called Ego-Futurists.Igor was born in St. Petersburg in the family of an army engineer. Through his mother, he was remotely related to Nikolai Karamzin and Afanasy Fet. In 1904 he left for Manchuria with his father but later...
, Ivanov came to associate himself with the Acmeism movement. Although not considered a major talent, the 20-year-old was addressed or mentioned in the poems by Osip Mandelshtam and Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...
. Georgii Ivanov was also considered to be one of the best pupils of the informal Guild of Poets school organized by Nikolay Gumilyov
Nikolay Gumilyov
Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilev was an influential Russian poet who founded the acmeism movement.-Early life and poems:Nikolai was born in the town of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island, into the family of Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilev , a naval physician, and Anna Ivanovna L'vova . His childhood nickname was...
and Sergei Gorodetsky
Sergei Gorodetsky
Sergey Mitrofanovich Gorodetsky was a Russian poet, one of the founders of Guild of Poets .Gorodetsky entered the literary scene as a Symbolist, developing friendships with Blok, Ivanov, and Briusov...
.
Ivanov was the only prominent member of this circle who emigrated to the West. His natural arrogance and peremptory judgements easily won him respect and admiration from his younger contemporaries. He self-consciously promoted himself as the only remnant of the highly sophisticated milieu of the Russian Silver Age. To augment his standing, he issued a book of memoirs, entitled Petersburg Winters, which contained a fictionalized or widely exaggerated account of his experiences with the Acmeists. The book alienated Ivanov from his elder contemporaries but won instant acclaim from his disciples.
Together with the fellow critic Georgy Adamovich
Georgy Adamovich
Georgy Viktorovich Adamovich was a Russian poet of the acmeist school, a literary critic, translator and memoirist.- Biography :Georgy Adamovich was born in the family of senior military officer Viktor Adamovich, an ethnic Pole, who in the rank of major general served as a head of Moscow military...
and his own wife Irina Odoyevtseva
Irina Odoyevtseva
Irina Vladimirovna Odoyevtseva was a Russian poet, novelist and author of memoirs...
, Ivanov became the principal arbiter of taste of the emigrant society, forging or destroying literary reputations at will. However, their literary taste was somewhat deficient: they inadvertently dismissed Tsvetayeva's genuine lyrics (when anonymously submitted by her to a poetry contest) as a crude imitation of Tsvetayeva's manner. They enthusiastically feuded with Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
ese Russian litterateurs, with Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
becoming the favourite target of their attacks. Nabokov revenged himself by satirizing Ivanov in one of his best known short stories, Spring in Fialta
Spring in Fialta
Spring in Fialta is a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1936, originally as Весна в Фиальте in Russian, during his exile in Berlin. The English translation was performed by Nabokov and Peter Pertzov...
, and by subjecting them to a clever mystification, which resulted in Adamovich's immoderate praise of Nabokov's verses printed under an alias.
Afflicted with alcoholism and suffering from despondency, Ivanov sank ever lower. It was in conditions of abject penury and total despair that Ivanov's best poems were created. The more he let himself go down as a person, the more he rose as a poet. His art culminated in his last cycle of poems, written in the days preceding his death. In one of his last pieces, Ivanov prophetically promised "to return to Russia as poems". Actually, his wife returned to Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
during the Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
and died there in 1990.
Following Ivanov's death, his reputation has been steadily augmented. His "poetry of brilliant despair", as one critic put it, is taken by some to presage the tenets of French Existentialism.
Editions
- Georgy Ivanov, On the Border of Snow and Melt: Selected Poems. Translated and Annotated by Jerome Katsell and Stanislav Shvabrin. Introduction by Stanislav Shvabrin. Santa MonicaSanta MônicaSanta Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
: Perceval PressPerceval PressPerceval Press is actor/artist Viggo Mortensen's publishing company, established 2002 with partner Pilar Perez. Based in Santa Monica, California, the press specializes in books of art, critical writing, and poetry.-General information:...
, 2011 (bilingual Russian-English edition, 532 pages, ISBN 978-0-9774869-4-6).